I’m sorry I jinxed you, Twins

We all know that baseball players can be highly superstitious.

Well, so am I. I admittedly toss salt over my shoulder when I’m cooking if I spill even a grain. I don’t walk under ladders. I believe bad luck comes in threes. I knock on wood. I don’t like to lie about being sick to get out of something because then I’m pretty sure I’ll get sick. I freak out if someone opens an umbrella indoors. I get it, I’m a little weird.

Let me set the scene for why I’m starting to think that this dumpster fire of a season might actually be my fault:

In my egocentric, superstitious little brain, I have banned myself from going to any further Twins playoff games. Why? Because the first one I ever went to was game two of the 2002 ALCS. The Twins had won game one and I was super pumped when a co-worker ended up with an extra ticket for game two, and we left work early and went to the Metrodome, climbed up into the nosebleeds down the third base line, and watched our boys lose. Ok, no big deal. Losses happen. The sweep by the Angels after that game was not my fault - but I didn’t go to any playoff games in 2003 or 2004 because I wasn’t sure if maybe I did jinx them. (To refresh your memories, the Twins lost the ALDS to the Yankees 3 games to 1 both of those years.

Obviously not my fault, because superstitions are dumb. So, like how a mother forgets how awful childbirth is so they continue to have more kids, and since my attendance clearly didn’t cause the Twins to fall in 2003 or 2004, I figured it was safe to go to purchase strips of tickets to the 2006 post season (remember: you had to buy tickets to the entire series). So for two days in early October 2006, my husband (then boyfriend) and I both went into work at like 5 am to be able to leave at 2 and file into the Metrodome to watch the Twins take on the A’s in the ALDS. Obviously, it’d be different this time because the Twins weren’t playing the Yankees, right?

WRONG.

The Twins lost both of those games, and the following one in Oakland two days later to be swept out of the ALDS.

From then on, I had banished myself from attending a post season game ever again.

In 2019, my husband and I (again forgetting the pain) decided to get in on the post season action with a few other members of our season ticket group. Our first tickets were for game four of the ALDS, should it be needed. That year, I couldn’t jinx the Twins to be swept out of the playoffs because in order to get to my game, they’d have had to win one first, and it was the year of the Bomba Squad’s absolute dominance. The universe, however, laughed and laughed and gave me a big F YOU. It said “Oh, I see you bought tickets and spat in my face after all of these years. You think you’re even going to a game? That’s cute.” And the Twins fell in three games to the Yankees. Again.

Even if the pandemic had allowed us to get tickets for the 2020 Wild Card series, we’d have been high to think of getting them.

I’m beginning to think of myself as the Twins’ own Bambino. I have doomed them to an eternity of playoff failure.

Aside from the playoff failure, I have also gotten rid of various Twins clothing items that when worn, the Twins lost EVERY TIME I wore them to a game. There was a pair of Twins socks, a pair of Twins underwear, a Twins shirt, and a certain Twins hat. I legit threw them all away after wearing them to three losing games.

Which brings me to now.

I know it seems silly, I do. However the other day I noticed something, and I have to wonder if perhaps, once again, Marea and/or the Anderson family has unknowingly jinxed the Twins.

My husband was doing yard work a couple of weeks ago, right around the time the Twins were actually winning their games to start the season. And in that time, he put up one of our Twins garden flags to replace the Gophers one he had up during college basketball season, that replaced the Vikings one that we had up during football season.

Do you see where I’m going with this? If not, perhaps I should remind you that both the Gopher Men’s basketball team and the Vikings had very disappointing seasons in 2020/21.

And it hit me... WHAT IF OUR GARDEN FLAGS ARE A JINX?

I’m going to try something.

The Twins take the field in about a half hour against the Clevelandians. I just took down the flag. It might be too late for today’s game, as the flag’s juju might be in the universe and the clubhouse already, but if they win... well guess what’s getting burned in a fire pit this evening?

If, in fact, the flag was the cause of all of this? I apologize to you all, Twins Territory. If, however, they still keep losing, I should probably keep the flag down because they’re not bringing me any joy these days. Well.. Tortuga continues to entertain me, but that’s about it.

xoxo,

Marea