In my mind, the most wonderful time of the year starts when the pitching staff gets sent down to Fort Myers. I look forward to opening day from the end of the World Series to the next season’s first pitch. I’ve had several opportunities to attend the big game, and I’ve passed on every one. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I breached the twenty-five year tradition of gathering for the Twins’ opener in Ronnie Lee’s garage.
By the time I’d realized that Ronnie wasn’t my grandfather, I was old enough to know I didn’t care. My dad has never had much of a relationship with his own, and Ronnie became a sort of surrogate during the dog days of summer that Dad spent watching Herbie and Kirby with his son, John. The three of them first gathered in the garage on the opening day of the ‘87 season. The garage was credited for the first Commissioner's trophy brought back to Minnesota, and through 26 years of evidence to the contrary it has held a mystical quality. You can feel it as soon as you step through the battered screen door and clack your heels against the concrete; eroded under heavily-used work boots worn by several decades worth of filthy, thirsty, blue-collar Twins fans.
From behind a high granite island, the wire-rimmed spectacles of a slight, grizzled Irishman glow with excitement. He stands in paint-splattered jeans and a faded Hrbek jersey that bears the stains of every game since the iconic first baseman's rookie year, with a sweating bottle of Budweiser in his hand and an unfiltered Lucky Strike hanging out the corner of his mouth.  He is the nucleus of a hundred fans, friends, neighbors, and curious onlookers. But when Ronnie shouts your name, you know without a doubt that you’re the guest of honor.
The crowd parts like the Red Sea for him to amble up and slap your back with a hand that could smooth out sandpaper. The rest of the mob follows suit, and you have to fight through the welcoming to find any breathing room. A select few hold seats behind the bar with our venerated host, facing eighty-four magnificent inches of a high definition ballpark. The most regular guests have invested heavily in the garage to keep it outfitted with cutting-edge equipment, from the TV to the sound system to the heating to the refreshments.
A convenience-store cooler takes up the back wall, fully stocked (for the first few innings) with every domestic beer currently brewed, and enough imports to placate the more worldly guests. Ballpark Franks simmer in a rotisserie flanked by a popcorn maker and nacho-cheese dispensary. On the opposite wall are quarter candy machines, modified so that the crank can be turned without currency. A heavily-used deep-fryer, faithfully manned by longtime garage-goer Dan, snaps and sizzles as it churns out onion rings and jalapeno poppers. Cheese curds, affectionately nicknamed “rally nuggets” for their pivotal role in the 2009 AL Central tiebreaker game comeback, are saved for dire straits. The health-conscious may seek sustenance elsewhere; diets have no place in the garage.
The walls are lined with memorabilia accrued during decades of religious devotion to the team. Baseballs adorned with illegible signatures are accompanied by matching rookie cards. Every heavy hitter, ace starter, hometown hero or golden glove is honored with a jersey in the garage; Puckett, Hrbek, Killebrew, Carew, Morris, Blyleven, Oliva, Radke and Nathan and Smalley, Hunter and Aguilera and Viola. Mauer is the only active player to be pinned up, though that’s subject to change. His may be the first jersey taken down since Knoblauch’s, but let’s not talk about that.
The remaining wall space is covered by hundreds of photographs. We’ve followed our team to every MLB stadium in the U.S. and Canada, and somehow end up meeting players at every stop. Each picture captures such an encounter. The Gang sits at bars with David Ortiz in Boston, Torii Hunter in Los Angeles, Johan Santana in Toronto, Jim Thome in Chicago, and many other past and present players in as many other cities. A personal favorite shows several adoring fans posing with Doug Mientkiewicz and my dad, whom Mientkiewicz had convinced the crowd was former designated hitter Matthew LeCroy.
Every picture tells a story, and we fondly reminisce between innings. There’s something so comforting about the familiar faces telling familiar stories and the smell of the triple bypass surgery one-two punch that is boiling grease and a haze of cigarette smoke. And above all, the ambient noise of change-ups thudding into leather as Dick Bremer calls out the pitch count. If there’s one thing I know I’m good at, its worrying. But I leave all of my cares outside of that banged-up little door, and I couldn’t help it if I tried. I’ve never seen a single expression of concern, fear, or woe in Ronnie’s garage. At times the atmosphere feels like magic, but he’d tell you that it just feels like baseball.