The Minnesota Twins may not win the most ball games in the Grapefruit league this year.  And, if you take a quick and painful look at the stats you will see they do not indicate an outstanding upcoming season.  But, my friends, I’ll tell you where they leave every other team in the dirt: The pre-game music at Hammond Stadium is unparralled.

I’ve been to most of the Grapefruit stadiums.  The proud Boston Red Sox offer nauseating doses of  ‘new country’ hits that will be forgotten by the 8^th inning of tonight’s game.  They also have a live band playing the HITS, which constantly blend in a uniquely unappealing way with the house music. The Astros have some decent rap going on.  The Yankees offer their charming but possibly dentist-visit-anxiety-level-inducing traveling piano music, Musicale Mark- who obviously listens to Monk, so points there.

But the Twins are spot on. I suspect one person, a person they should never fire or let retire, chooses it all.  And this DJ was wise to choose one long era of music, 1962-1978- which, to be honest, was a tad bit new for many of the folks sitting in my row.

The on-base percentage of the selections was around 98%.   Booker T and the Mg’s, Stax hits, Muscle Shoals marvels, that Steve Miller song you had forgotten, Eddie Money,  the better disco songs, CCR, Louis Armstrong and beyond.  And what they LEAVE OUT is even more impressive:  Brown Eyed Girl, No Woman/No Cry, American Pie, New Country, Sweet Home Alabama, Midnight Hour and the rest of the overplayed chestnuts most of us have long since pushed the I-can’t-handle-it button on.

I do suspect this DJ went to my high school and spent most of his time out in the parking lot listening to this stuff on 8-track and possibly smoking things that would become legal in their lifetime, about 25 years after they quit smoking them.

It was the perfect soundtrack for a great, beautiful night of baseball.  So, DJ whom I will never know, thank you- and please offer your services as quickly as possible to your Beantown neighbors.