Still hanging around Target Field waiting for the post-game fireworks. The Twins pulled out a close victory, despite being out hit 14-5, on the heels of a beautiful sacrifice squeeze bunt from Drew Butera to score Danny Valencia.
But enough about the game… now for why I’m here at all.
Monday is my parents’ 30th wedding anniversary. In honor, my father bought four tickets to tonight’s game, one for each of my parents, one for my sister, and the final one, unbeknownst to my mother, for me. And so, I flew into Minneapolis this morning and wandered around Minnehaha Falls and the Mall of America (basically, wherever I could get on the light rail), waiting for my cousin to call me to hand off the ticket. Earlier in the week, she had gotten our garage door code from my sister and “broken in” to our house to take the fourth ticket while my parents were at the lake.
After a successful handoff, I headed over to the stadium (where I met my old friends from New York mentioned in the last post) and waited around for the rest of my family to show up. After about 45 minutes, I heard my mother’s voice calling my name in disbelief. Mission accomplished — she had no idea I was coming, despite the fact that pretty much everyone else did.
That would have been surprise enough, but in the 5th inning, the finishing touches of my dad’s plan came into place with a big screen announcement wishing her a happy 30th anniversary. Mission accomplished again — she wasn’t expecting that one either.

Check out the Twins-O-Gram in the lower right!
And for the cherry on the sundae, the Twins won to stay atop the AL Central.
(Unfortunately for my dad, my mom claims to have not gotten him anything yet. She has a lot to do to catch up with this one!)