Minnesota Twins

If I thought that making the transition to baseball from hockey would be easy, I'd be lying to myself. Though the process of obtaining an autograph doesn't change, the two sports are worlds apart.

The biggest hurdle, I realized, was not following my own advice. If I'd had the time to do more homework, as in doing a better job of memorizing faces, I'd probably have had better luck. I failed to do that for my one trip for the Twins. It was a lesson learned.

Transportation choices are different, too. Very few hockey players take a hotel courtesy van or a cab to the rink. Some walk, depending upon the hotel's location, but most take a team bus. Any way, though, the access to hockey players is pretty easy.

All of the Twins, or at least the ones I saw, took the hotel van. I did get close enough to Torii Hunter to ask for an autograph, and he looked like he was willing to sign, but the "friendly" van driver closed the door. Requests to Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer went unacknowledged.

Timing is another issue. Where hockey teams need to arrive two hours before game time, baseball players apparently arrive four hours before the first pitch. Though my work schedule helped out with trying to hound the Twins' players, it kept me from getting Twins broadcasters Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris. Apparently, the media types follow the two-hour rule.

Bottom line, hounding the Twins was nothing but a learning experience. And, in all honestly, there's nothing wrong with that.