Super Fan

This past summer the boys in our family drove down to Minneapolis for a weekend trip to see the Minnesota Twins play at Target Field. They met my parents who are big baseball friends, and my brother’s family, and the whole troop attended two different baseball games. You can only imagine how highly anticipated this trip was by my favorite little baseball player.

And let me tell you, he relished every single second of the experience. (Dr. Peds and The Devious Snail had a good time too. The Devious Snail especially enjoyed consuming a two foot long hot dog. No joke.) Mr. Trouble on Feet arrived back home a true Minnesota Twins Superfan. His book from the baseball game listing all the players and their statistics is worn and wrinkled and thumbed through daily. He suddenly realized that he could ask Alexa about the scores of Twins’ games. Alexa would also tell him exactly when the Twins were playing.

We don’t have a TV, but it turns out that Alexa would update him about the latest Twins game scores as the game was progressing. Pretty soon Mr. TOF was standing next to Alexa asking her the score of the baseball game every five minutes. We were all starting to go a little crazy.

Dr. Peds decided it was time to get a radio so that Mr. TOF could listen to the Twins baseball station, which apparently is not available over internet radio. He ordered a cute little portable and rechargeable radio, and when it came Mr. TOF sat down and listened to entire games at a time. He refused to go anywhere during a Twins game for fear of missing something important until Dr. Peds showed him that he could take the radio WITH him. This little radio and my baseball loving boy are pretty much inseparable.

It turns out that the Twins play often. We get nothing done while they are playing.

If Mr. TOF has to complete a chore of some sort while the Twins are playing, he puts the radio in a tote bag and carries it around with him. If we need to drive somewhere, he brings the radio and a pair of headphones.

When the Twins are doing something well, he rejoices. When things are not going well, he’s a grumpy little individual who scowls about.

He knows all the players. He knows who is injured. He knows who breaks which record or who is about to break a different record. He plays outside while the Twins are playing with the radio blaring, tossing his baseball up in the air and pretending he’s batting or pitching for the Twins. He makes list upon list on pieces of paper: batting lists, pitching lists, charts about which major league baseball time is loosing or winning.

On game days he dresses in as many Twins Logo articles of clothing he can wear at one time: layers of T-shirts, jerseys, sweatshirts and hats that all have some sort of Twins logo on them.