Twins 5, White Sox 8: I have no talent, and I must baseball

Hey the Twins lost again, and I have zero desire to recap it! Here’s some weird fan-fic story thing I wrote for some inexplicable reason instead.

Enjoy?! I’m Sorry?!

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It was supposed to be a good year, but instead it was a plummet into the abyss. It was a bottomless pit of misery so eternal and so complete that one couldn’t help but laugh as the suffocated on the all-permeating stench of failure and defeat.

It was supposed to be a good year. Instead it was the end of it all.

“Hot dog is a weird term to call a thing that you eat.” Nelson Cruz blurted out, breaking the eerie silence that filled the humid Minnesota air. He turned his freezer-burned Dome Dog over the make-shift fire upon what was once a pitcher’s mound as his two companions let his words bounce around in their skulls for a beat.

After a moment or two, Josh Donaldson looked up at Nelson, back to the ground, and then again at Nelson.

“What?”

“I wouldn’t cook a dog.” Cruz replied flatly, fixing his gaze upon his eventual meal. I wouldn’t describe a dog as “hot,” and I certainly wouldn’t skewer a dog with a splinter of a bat and cook it over an open fire.”

Donaldson opened his mouth to reply, but instead shook his head and let the ruins of Target Field return to silence.

They used to own this place. They used to be surrounded by thousands of screaming fans who lived to see them do their thing. Perhaps they stuck around to cling to a past that once looked so promising. Perhaps they simply hung around because of the dwindling store of stadium food that they consumed as they waited for a winter that would never come.

“I miss Byron.” Jose Berrios mumbled out after a few minutes of silence. “He made the best dogs.”

“He’s lucky.” Donaldson barked. “He got out.”

“We can’t give up hope -” Berrios tried to say, but Donaldson shrugged him off and growled a half-reply.

“We’re stuck here now.” he said before glaring towards an empty dugout. “He won’t let us leave.”

‘I...” Berrios stammered, his voice oddly apologetic.

“Meat Logs!” Cruz exclaimed, causing his companions to stop and stare at him.

“What?” Donaldson again asked with a scowl plastered upon his face. Cruz just motioned his head towards the dome dog.

“Shoulda named them Meat Logs.”

“Maybe there is way out we haven’t thought of yet.” Berrios stated with a slight quiver in his voice, as if he himself didn’t believe his words. “Ask to go the bathroom before the next game and -”

“That’s how Max got out.” Donaldson said, shaking his head. “He’ll have that exit blocked now.”

As if on cue, a haunting figure made its way from the tunnels under the stadium to the top step of the dugout.

Shivers went down the spines of the three ballplayers, as they turned to look at their jailor.

“Sox are here.” Rocco Baldelli called out. “Next game is starting soon!”

All three of them wished to protest. They wished to fight, or run, or hide. But they were broken. They knew they would never argue again. They would simply play and lose game after game, night after night, never being allowed to wither away or die.

They all nodded meekly, gaze held firmly upon the ground. Rocco stared expressionlessly out at them for a moment before grumbling, turning around, and heading back into the tunnel. He stopped at the precipice, shook his head, and muttered weakly under his breath.

“I have no talented players, and I must manage baseball games.”

Baldelli vanished back into the depths of Target Field, and the hearts of the players slowly returned to a normal beat. They settled back into a dreary quiet, simply staring at the flickering fires and waiting for the next heartbreaking defeat.

Suddenly Cruz giggled to himself, turned and knowingly pointed at Donaldson.

“Hot Dongs.”

ROBOTIC ROLL CALL!