Saturday morning at Target Field

OK, you're probably sick of me gushing about Target Field, but I got here at 8 a.m. today for the Twins-Royals noon tilt, and it's amazing how many peopel are working in a ballpark - from the PR people to the grounds crew to the TV and radio support staff to ushers and those who clean the stands - four and five hours before a game starts.

I went and sat in the rightfield seats that hang over the field, and those might be my favorites in the entire park. They've even planted flowers in the narrow box in front of the first row of seats.

Conversely, the bleacher seats to the left (as you face the field) might be the worst seats in the park. If you're in one of the back rows, you can't see much of center or right field.

I walked back to the Royals' team hotel with the Royals' broadcasters late last night, and downtown was hopping. I think Roy Smalley made a wise move, joining in with the group that bought the old Champps and turned it into Smalley's '87 Club. Kieran's, O'Donovans, The Loon, the new Hubert's all look like they're cleaning up right now.

It will be interesting to see if business picks up around Block E next winter, or whether the traffic will be limited to Twins game days.

The Twins' PR people already opened the windows in the press box, and it's a perfect day.

I'll be tag-teaming the rest of the homestand with Patrick, and then I'm covering the NFL draft next week.

I'm writing Twins the next two days. Sunday Sports Talk on ESPN1500 starts at 10 a.m.., preceded at 9:30 by the Ron Gardenhire Show. I'll have appearances on the station Monday at 2:35 and 6:20.

My Twitter name is Souhanstrib.

-It rarely works, looking ahead at a baseball schedule and presuming that the better team will automatically win, but the Twins are 8-3, and their next five games are against Kansas City and Cleveland at home.

I talked last week with Jason Kubel and Denard Span about the newly-expressed confidence surrounding this team, and they both said they'd like to see the Twins pull away from the pack for once, instead of waiting for a late-season comeback.

This could be the year that happens. I'm not impressed with Chicago, Kansas City is awful, Cleveland, with its pitching problems, might be worse than kansas City, and I'm not sure what to think of Detroit. The Tigers have a lot of talent, I think Miguel Cabrera and Magglio Ordonez will have big years, I thought the Johnny Damon signing was shrewd,and they have Justin Verlander.

Well, they had Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye and Carlos Beltran at one point, but they still didn't win.

The Royals are what the Twins might have been, if Twins ownership had fired Terry Ryan in the late '90s (and it would have been hard to argue with that move, given Terry's first few years on the job), or if the young players who comprised the 2001 team hadn't given the best years of their baseball careers to the Twins. (The exceptions from that group or Torii Hunter and David Ortiz.)