A fever to cure all ills ~ June 20, 1991

David Heiller

 It’s hard NOT to have baseball fever these days, the way the Twins are playing. The Twins have won 15 straight as I write this on Sunday evening.

Even fair-weather fans are paying attention, except for a few purists like Steve Popowitz. I saw him on Friday and told him I was going to stay home and work and listen to the Twins game on the radio that night.

Steve gave me a blank look, as if there might possibly be more exciting things to do on a Friday night. “How are they doing?” he still as­ked politely. Steve does not like baseball, but at least he has good manners. He knows I’m a fan.

“Great,” I answered. “They won their 12th straight last night!” I had been to that game, and was still a foot off the ground.

“Now, is that good?” Steve asked again, in complete sincerity. “Baseball teams don’t always win 12 straight?”

“The best they’ve ever done,” I answered with a smile. I remembered that Steve fell asleep in the seventh game of the 1987 World Series, and figured it was time to change the subject.

But the subject around our house these days is baseball. The game is always on the radio. George Will states in his excellent book, Men at Work, that baseball is one sport which is ar­guably better to listen to than see in person.

Noah's Kirby Puckett
baseball card.
Check out those biceps!

That’s partly because you can visualize the ac­tion so well. You can see Puckett fielding the hit on one hop, taking a step on the run and rifling the ball home IN THE AIR, see Brian Harper catch the ball as the runner barrels into him like a man diving head-first into a pile of scrap metal. You can see Harper hold up the ball with a big grin, and see the runner limp to the dugout as 30,000 fans come to their feet to cheer the most exciting play in baseball, throwing out a runner at home.

With the radio and a good imagination, you can see that while you are playing catch with your kids, or working in the garden, or changing the oil in your car, or whatever you like to do. I can work non-stop, no matter how tired I am, with a ball game on the radio.

It’s fun to TALK baseball too. At that game last Thursday, my brother Glenn and I talked about the Twins till the fourth inning. We hadn’t seen each other for three months, yet we just talked baseball. Not about our kids or our wives or gardens or work or politics. I feel a bit guilty when that happens, like I’m irresponsible or childish or drunk. Shouldn’t we discuss per­sonal things, or important topics? My wife laughs about it. “I love watching you talk baseball,” she’ll say with a gentle smile. Then I don’t feel guilty anymore.

She also knows that Glenn is a bigger baseball fan than I am, mainly because he’s had 10 more years to work at it. Heck, he can tell you the starting line-up of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, who he followed faithfully on the radio as a 14-year-old kid.

As we left the Dome after they won last Thursday, Glenn said, ^“Boy, the Twins are really a Juggernaut.” Anyone who can use the word “Juggernaut” in a sentence is a bigger baseball fan than me. Whenever Cindy gets fed up with me listening to a Twins game, I tell her, “It could be worse, I could be Glenn,” and she changes the subject.

(By the way, “Juggernaut” is defined by the Random House College Dictionary as “Any large, overpowering destructive force or object, as a giant battleship, a powerful football team, etc.” That fits the Twins, all right.)

The kids have a bit of baseball fever too. Mol­lie has learned the Twins theme song, just like Noah did when he was six. It must be part of cognitive development, learning your baseball team’s theme song. She still has a few glitches on it though:

“We’re going to win Twins, we’re going to score. We’re going to win Twins, knock that baseball sore. Let’s hear it now for the Twins that came to play. Cheer for the Minnesota Twins today.”

And Noah has Kirby Puckett’s biceps to pon­der. Eight-year-old boys love biceps. He’ll wake up in the morning and have me feel his biceps. “Nice little bicycle tire,” I’ll say. Then at noon he’ll have me feel them again, and tell me that they’ve gotten bigger during the day, to which I agree.

Mollie and I gave Noah a set of 1991 Twins baseball cards for his birthday last week. Noah looked through them, then stopped at Kirby Puckett’s. “Wow, look at those biceps!” Noah said with laughing wonder in his voice. Noah likes Kirby anyway. Who doesn’t? But to see those arms sealed Noah’s adoration.

I had to agree. His arms were the size of 20-pound hams. I guess that’s how he throws out those runners at home.

Harmon Killebrew at bat. 

Then I remembered thinking that same thing about Harmon Killebrew when I was eight, looking at those slabs of muscle. Back then, baseball players didn’t pose with their biceps bulging. It was not the era of showing flesh, like today. You could catch a peek of Killebrew’s biceps, but mostly you just knew they were there by that classic swing of his, as he followed through on one of his 573 homeruns, head down, wrists extended, arm and back muscles bulging like a bull. That was good enough for us.

Yup, baseball fever is here all right. Enjoy it while you have it. It’s the one sickness that’s good for you.