The semi-fictional holiday of “Festivus” was conceived by the father of a boy who later became a writer for “Seinfeld,” the megahit TV show that brought it into the mainstream.
In a 1997 episode — the late 1900s, as some now refer to the rapidly receding past century — George Costanza celebrates a non-secular, non-commercial alternative to winter holidays on Dec. 23.
Some of the hallmarks of Festivus in the episode, as summarized by Wikipedia, are these: an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, practices such as the “airing of grievances” and “feats of strength”, and the labeling of easily explainable events as “Festivus miracles”.
Let us declare this, then, Festivus in May for your Minnesota Twins.
They might have a better chance at scoring runs with a Festivus pole instead of their current bats. Their games have featured plenty of feats of strength (sadly, for their opponents). It seems like simply winning a game, after being outscored 45-12 during their current seven-game losing streak, would be a Festivus miracle.
And they are most definitely airing their grievances, as I talked about on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
After giving up a walk-off home run on a curveball Sunday, Twins closer Jhoan Duran questioned whether the directive from pitching coach Pete Maki and catcher Christian Vazquez to throw that pitch was the right one but suggested he didn’t have much say in the process.
“It’s not my decision,” Duran said Sunday. “I thought that he wasn’t good with fastballs. I’m an employee here, so whatever I need to throw, I need to throw it.”
