FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Twins paired off Friday to play catch, as they do every day. But this time was different.
This time, they stood in the players' parking lot at Hammond Stadium, behind lines painted 10 feet apart. Coaches Hank Conger and Jayce Tingler wore striped referee jerseys and whistles. Onlookers gathered to watch as the players eyed their target, wound up, and threw …
Eggs.
"We want to have some fun. That's what it really came down to," said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, the mastermind behind the Twins' first-ever egg toss. "It's something that no matter how old you are, you're going to have a good time while you're doing it."
So it seemed. The competition was rowdy and raucous, with teammates gleefully cheering when someone dropped or broke an egg, thus eliminating their two-man team, often with an emphatic ejection by one of the referees. The survivors backed up 5 more feet with every round, and the eliminated players crowded closer and closer as the field narrowed.
Finally, only three pairs were left: Jhoan Duran and Jorge Alcala, Kyle Garlick and Dennis Santana, and Jorge Lopez and Jose De Leon.
That's when Garlick made the play of the game, stretching to catch Santana's toss just off the ground. When the eggs broke in Lopez's and Alcala's hands on their next toss, the reserve outfielder, who arrived in camp only that morning, and his reliever partner were the winners.
Garlick "dominated the egg-toss event. That was fun, to see him out there doing that," Baldelli said. "He was pulling off one-legged, one-handed catches. I don't know where that came from. But I like it."