CHICAGO -- To be frank (ba dum tss), it boggles the mind that this is a story that needs to be (well) done, but ... here we are.
Baseball players can be superstitious to an extreme, and never has that become more apparent than when a summer sausage started getting the credit for the Twins’ recent turnaround -- and it seems that, despite a somewhat concerning appearance and a lack of refrigeration, it’s going to stick around until Minnesota’s fortunes take a downturn.
Here is everything you need to know about the Twins’ rally sausage -- a real sentence that you are really reading right now -- because evidently, this is going to continue to be a thing, and there are clearly going to be many, many questions along the way.
What is the, uh, make and model of the sausage?
It’s a Cloverdale Tangy Summer Sausage, in its original wrapping.
(It’s not tough to imagine future involvement of some sort from Sheboygan Sausage, the “official retail bratwurst and sausage of the Minnesota Twins.”)
Who is responsible for this?
As is typical, these hijinks involve Kyle Farmer. He’d received the sausage in the mail, it was in his locker and he didn’t really want to eat it, so he set it on the table in the clubhouse. Hitting coach David Popkins saw it and brought it into the dugout, where it resides on the bat rack.
When did this start?
It made its dugout debut during the series finale against the White Sox on Thursday. As Ryan Jeffers remembers, the sausage appeared just before he and Edouard Julien hit back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning to finally tag Chicago starter Michael Soroka.
What do they do with it?
They certainly don’t eat it.
It’s most visible when Jeffers tosses it to a teammate following a home run, but Twins players are said to touch it for good luck before an at-bat, too.
“It’s very weird, very gross, but at the same time, it’s working," Carlos Correa said. "So we’ll stick with it."
Is this Rocco Baldelli-sanctioned?
There’s a great quote from the skipper that has been floating around, and a video, courtesy of the folks at Bally Sports North. Here is the quote, in all its glory:
“I'm slightly concerned as -- I'm not even an adult -- but slightly concerned as more of an adult than maybe some of the people in the other room that the package is going to open up and the thing hasn't been refrigerated in many days, and there's no doubt that when that thing opens up, whoever's touching it is in deep trouble. That thing is -- there's no doubt in my mind that we are carrying around something that is very, very unhealthy to the human body.”
Is the packaging still intact?
Good question. As far as we know, yes.
“It's not wet on the outside yet,” Jeffers said.
Surely, this is some sort of biohazard, no?
Assuming the packaging is actually still intact ... probably not, actually? The point of summer sausage is to be shelf-stable without refrigeration, but it actually depends on the exact type of sausage the Twins have, which has yet to become clear.
According to Cloverdale’s official website, “Tangy, Garlic Tangy and cracker-sized Summer Sausage are shelf stable and do not need to be refrigerated before opening.” On the other hand, “Beef Tangy, Sliced Tangy and Grandeli are not shelf-stable and should be kept refrigerated.”
So, they’ll be keeping a close eye on it.
"It's going to have mold all over it," Farmer said. "It's going to, like, grow hair."
Jeffers added: "We don't want the Minnesota Twins' sausage to start another worldwide crisis."
Who is responsible for its transportation?
On the way to Anaheim ahead of the Twins’ last series, Popkins is said to have put it in Jeffers’ bag. Jeffers said he triple-wrapped it in plastic bags and put it inside a shoe.
Will this sausage be replaced?
Yes, absolutely.
“Eventually, we'll have to switch the sausage out in order to avoid the health department knocking our door down,” Jeffers said.
Will switching to a new sausage affect the magic that it has bestowed upon them, though?
Apparently not, he claims.
“It's the idea of the sausage,” Jeffers said. “It's the meaning behind the sausage. We're going to learn more about the sausage as the days go by.”