Select group of Twins get a White House tour

BALTIMORE – The Twins visited the White House on Tuesday. Well, some of them.

They would like someday to bring the whole squad back to celebrate a championship with the president, but for four players — Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe, Glen Perkins and Joe Mauer — their off-day visit was more than memorable.

"It was awesome," Dozier said of the two-hour visit on Tuesday, which Twins President Dave St. Peter arranged through an important acquaintance: White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, a Stillwater native and Twins fan who has been President Obama's top aide for three years. "We got the exclusive tour. [McDonough] gave us a lot of information and history in each room. He spent a lot more time with us than we deserved, actually."

Six other members of the traveling party were invited along: General Manager Terry Ryan, manager Paul Molitor, equipment manager Rod McCormick, communications director Dustin Morse, bullpen catcher Nate Dammann and director of team travel Mike Herman. At one point, when the president went down the hall for a meeting with his military leaders, the group was ushered into the Oval Office.

"There was something about being in that setting — pretty surreal," Dozier said. "[McDonough] told us about the [president's] Resolute desk, all different kinds of stuff. It was pretty cool."

They didn't get to meet Obama, though "he was in the next room a couple of times," Dozier said.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of the Twins, especially Ryan, who had never even been to Washington, D.C., before this weekend's games with the Nationals. Molitor, though, has been to the White House a handful of other times, once even serving as captain for a Miracle League baseball game (for developmentally disabled children) on the White House lawn.

The older Buxton is the real master at the craft, though, and he demonstrated with a couple of difficult chances in the opener why Molitor is willing to play him while he learns to hit major league pitching. Manny Machado led off Monday's game with a long fly ball over Buxton's head, a line drive that "kept rising while I chased it," he said. "I was like, 'Oh, man, you've got to go.' At the last second, I took a hop and caught it."

In the fifth inning, he saved a run or two when Pedro Alvarez hit a sinking two-out liner that was moving unpredictably. "It was a knuckleball," Buxton said. "It started knuckling down at the last minute. I got there and kind of scooped it up."

His first MLB Opening Day wasn't such a success at the plate, where he struck out three times. But Molitor sees progress there, too.

"The number of pitches he's seeing, extending at-bats with two strikes — we didn't see the chase of the ball bouncing nearly as much," Molitor said. "Strikeouts have been on strikes, for the most part."

Ervin Santana only threw 39 pitches Monday, thanks to the rain, and joked that "it was like a light bullpen." So light, in fact, that he can come back early.

"I can go again. It wasn't much work" on Monday, Santana said. "Maybe I'll go three innings this time. It's like getting stretched out in spring training all over."