Column: A quickie on Slowey

I was on my couch suffering through a thumping by the loser Cubs over my beloved Cardinals Sunday when an alert popped onto my phone.

"Kevin Slowey has a no-no going after six."

"JINX!"

If there's one thing to be said about no-hitters it is don't say anything.

Talking about a no-hitter is the most common jinx in baseball.

I pondered this jinx and other baseball jinxes and needed a laugh at the Cubs after they exploded on former Twin and current Cardinal Kyle Lohse. Oh thank you, Steve Bartman. Even if the Cubs are winning, one thought to Steve Bartman and the goat and all is better in my world.

My game was over early. I needed something else to watch. Enter Kevin Slowey.

I switched channels, there's Bert Blyleven and what is he talking about?

Jinx, Jinx Jinx! No, not the jinx. He's babbling incessantly about the no-hitter in progress. Slowey was doomed.

So I texted my newspaper pal Paul to make sure he knew what was going on. He's a far bigger Twins fan than I am. I'll spare you the whole designated hitter and American League rhetoric I'm fond of lambasting Minnesota baseball fans with when the subject comes up.

Meanwhile, Paul is sitting, with beer in hand, at Target Field, watching this all unfold in person.

Back on the couch, Bert tells the viewing audience rumor has it Ron Gardenhire is going to pull Slowey from the game.

It's the seventh inning stretch and things are about to get unruly at Target Field.

As the commercial break ends, I hear the sound of children butchering Take Me Out to the Ballgame. I inform Paul of this via text message and the brew-laden work contemporary calls me with, "There is nothing more irritating to me than the sound of children singing."

I laughed. Sure, it isn't funny to everyone but we're bachelors. It's dude humor.

Then, Paul and the rest of the capacity crowd at Target Field also stopped laughing.

Gardenhire gave Slowey the yank and in came Jon Rauch, who promptly gave up a double and deflated the history wanting home crowd.

Now, there's no clubhouse bickering and Gardenhire came out saying he'd boo himself for the same decision and all is well in Twinkieland. Slowey is cool with the decision as well.

Not me and I barely care.

Even before Rauch's entry, Paul and I discussed how we would have left Slowey in, but it's easy to be a couch manager or even easier to be a beer toting manager in the stands.

Slowey's pitch count was over 100 and he had missed his last start but it's Sunday and I'm dead sober on the couch. I want to see some drama before I watch the end of the PGA Championship.

Paul wanted to flip out and enjoy that last seventh-inning beer in the throes of a riled up crowd waiting to see if one of baseball's rarities would actually occur. Baseball fans all over the state and country sat in the same boat, beers in hand or not.

Maybe, just maybe, Slowey could have gotten the Athletics to go down in order the final two innings. You never know unless you try.

But I understand Gardy's dilemma and as a Twins fan on the side, it really wasn't that big of a deal. I just felt bad for the Twins fanatics, like Paul, who were in the stadium, on barstools or even lying on couches that day.

Leave him in!

"I agree with you, man," texted Paul.