Tonight I traveled across the Bay to Oakland to see the Twins take on the Athletics. It was also the first weekend back for Twins broadcaster and new Hall of Famer, Bert Blyleven. Bert loves to talk about the large amount of foul territory in Oakland, and thus I made a sign… and as he is wont to do, Bert circled me! Check out the animated gif I made from screen grabs of my (very brief) moment of Twins fame.

Unfortunately, the guy in front of me chose my brief window of fame to get up and in doing so, partially blocked the sign. But it says “Circle me {Hall of Famer->} Bert… if you can find me past all this Foul Territory!”  My mother texted me to tell me she and her sisters (and my sister) had seen me.  After confirming that he was circled too, I think I made that kid in front of me’s night.

It wasn’t just the circling that made this game fun — the fact that the Twins beat up on the A’s 9-5 added to the enjoyment. The Twins struck first in the first on a two out double from Jason “Professional Hitter” Kubel that scored Trevor “I almost got his jersey” Plouffe and Joe “Milk Drinker” Mauer. The A’s answered quickly by tying it in the bottom of the inning on a two run Josh “Named like a Cricketer” Willingham homer. In the third inning, the Twins went ahead for the final time on a rather anemic display of offense — two errors leading to runners on first and third followed by a GIDP by Michael “I actually have his jersey” Cuddyer that incidentally scored Plouffe from third.

Just to prove that they had real offense left in them, the Twins scored again in the 5th on a Plouffe double, in the 6th off of successive singles from Delmon “Don’t make him run” Young and Matt “Morneau Lookalike” Tolbert followed by two walks to Drew “The Other Catcher” Butera and Ben “Damn, he’s fast” Revere. The Twins really put the nail in the coffin in the 8th with another Plouffe RBI double and a three run homerun by Cuddyer to go up 9-2. Hey, Onion, they figured out that two runs in one at bat thing.

The A’s finally scored again in the 9th on another Willingham homerun — this one a three run shot. This made the very nice Oakland fans next to me happy, so I was happy for them as long as Glen Perkins was in the bullpen to make sure it didn’t become a trend. Those same fans later gave me their extra turkey sandwich while we waited for the start of the postgame fireworks (inexplicably set to Broadway showtunes). Incidentally, this was the second time this season I went to see the Twins in Oakland and random strangers gave me free food. Seriously nice people in Oakland…