It was one of those rare nights at the Dome when people were on such seat’s edge, for the most part, that every single attempt at starting the wave failed. Score one for the fans. And there wasn’t a beach ball to be seen. Instead, the 30,000 in the house, a number certainly diminished by the frustration of the just-ended road trip, were in tune with the action on the field from start to finish.

You should have heard the roar when Adam (Crusher) Everett smacked his home run off Ol’ Pontoon.

What you don’t know, until now, is what happened before the game that led up to the excitement.

Adam Everett had something to say late Monday afternoon, and that worried some of his teammates.

They’d heard him take all the blame for Sunday’s loss when he told the reporters who’d watched four-plus hours of mushy baseball in Kansas City and seen his horrific throwing error that let the Royals tie the score: “It cost us the game You can slice it and dice it any way you want it, it cost us the game. … I’ll take that one for the team, for sure.”

Adam cleared his throat; Nick Punto tried to cut him off.

“C’mon Crusher,” Punto said. “You weren’t the only one who messed up Sunday. Look at Kubel and Gomez and Delmon. They went 0-for-11….”

Kubel shot Punto a look. “…and I didn’t do so good myself,” Punto finished softly.

Gardy walked by and looked a bit nervous too, wondering what more Everett might have to say. He wondered if he should be putting in a call to the team therapists, Dr. Gladden and Dr. Morris, for a little group session before sending the guys out to play the Yankees.

But Adam Everett put one finger to his lips, signaling for them to shush, and held two more to an ear, signaling for them to listen.

“Fellas,” Adam Everett said before going out to play the Yankees, “you guys should jump on my back tonight. I’m going to carry us.”

A roar went up in the clubhouse. Boof Bonser and Brian Bass looked up from their fantasy football draft preparation and slapped fives high and low, missing high. Dennys Reyes put down the Team USA Olympics swimsuit catalog he was preparing to order from. Joe Mauer thought back to his childhood and tried to remember where he’d heard those words.

Meanwhile, Adam Everett snt a txt 2 54729 (KIRBY) and nervously tapped: “did it. hope it workz.”

And then the boys took the field. Glen (New Pappy) Perkins made them skittish by giving up two singles in the first and then putting Yankees on first and third with none out in the second. But he escaped both times.

In the bottom of the second, with Crusher’s pre-game words buzzing in his head, Brian Buscher worked a two-out walk.

And then Adam Everett strode to the plate.

There were balls and strikes until the count went full and then, with a mighty whack, the Crusher struck. His fly ball sent the Yankees’ left fielder back to the wall. Not knowing of Everett’s proclamation, Justin Christian was playing Everett like he would a light-hitting shortstop.

Christian kept going back, the ball kept going. Christian reached the wall and reached up, the ball reached the first row of seats.

Twins 2, Yankees 0. There would be no givebacks on this night. Only ground balls, whiffs and the occasional fly ball to Gomez or Span. Perkins went eight scoreless. It would end Twins 4, Yankees 0. Joe Nathan, whom Everett helped to deprive of a save chance on Sunday, finished off the Yankees in the ninth by striking out Abreu, A-Rod and A New Guy Named NagyNady. The Twins would again end the night in first place.

The Crusher who channeled a legend bumped fists and did all the victory rituals that he couldn’t do during his lost months on the disabled list.

If you listened closely, you could hear the late Jack Buck talking to the people who had left 16,000 or so Metrodome seats empty:

“And we’ll see you tomorrow night.”

other people are here too

Didn’t drive off the road while listening to Sunday’s game on the way home from Kansas City. Got the first seven innings with the Royals crew, who are carried in Des Moines by a Christian station that broke up the game with bits of Bible wisdom, and then the final five with Gordo’n'Jack. The Royals announcers have a group man crush on the Twins based on what I heard … and then the Twins managed to live up to none of their hype.

Balls got thrown all over the place and the bases were left loaded twice, an extension of the untimely hitting that contributed to the unexpected outcomes in Seattle and a 3-3 road trip that should have been a 6-0 run. Sunday’s loss was a total team effort.

What many people will remember most vividly, though, is how Nick Punto capped off a stunningly bad two games by striking out four times Sunday and making two key misplays in the field. It was painful to listen to Jack Morris wail, “Oh, Nick” when he dropped a throw from the outfield on Mark Teahen’s double that opened the game-winning 12th — a base-running move that sounded destined to get Teahen thrown out at second if the play had been handled cleanly.

On Saturday, Punto’s night went downhill after he killed a first-inning Twins rally (first and third, none out) by stopping on the way to second base on a steal attempt because he thought the pitch to Joe Mauer was ball four (when it was really ball three). After that, he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts (including a sad flick-swing fly out to shallow center with the bases loaded and one out). On Sunday, the low-key Royals announcers called him out a bit for his complaining after his first two strikeouts.

Here’s where you can practice discipline. Remain calm when the temptation is to do otherwise,

Baseball is a game based on failure. You know the drill: Fail 70 percent of the time and you get lauded for hitting .300. I suspect that if Punto could better deal with failure, we wouldn’t see the wild swings between success and failure that are his career pattern — a pattern that, by the nature of the game and some of the things he does when things go wrong, brings his failures more to the fore.

Punto gives the appearance of being wound too tightly for his own good, and the team’s good. Get called out on strikes? Go back to the dugout, cuss yourself out quietly, get over it and play the field. A close play at first base? Do NOT dive head first! Defense? Know the right thing and execute. It would be great if the natural ability that shows itself in Punto being one of baseball’s most “web gemmed” players carried over into the situations that go beyond simply reacting.

Here’s the deal: Nick Punto has value to the Twins. But it’s neither as an everyday player nor the No. 2 batter in the order. That hardly qualifies as great or original thought.

For now, however, Punto is the only healthy second base option, if you believe that Brendan Harris’ trouble turning the double play disqualify him from playing that position regularly. The No. 2 slot in the batting order thing is more puzzling, but there isn’t a clear-cut answer. I could make a case for Buscher against right-handers, but you could counter that having lefties batting 1-through-5 in the order can make for scary late-game situations, especially if Brendan Harris is also in the lineup. Harris’ .322 OBP doesn’t exactly make him a great choice for the No. 2 spot when he plays and his stats skew worse against lefties this season. Delmon is the only other option (and not a good one) unless you want to have the whole “Mauer should bat second” discussion again (yawn), which would lead to deficiencies elsewhere in the order.

Someone needs to get into Punto’s head and somehow prove to him the virtue of an even keel. (Someone should do that for a lot of us bloggers too, although we might not be as much fun that way!) In the meantime, you can model good behavior by remaining calm as you discuss him. Deep breaths, everyone.

Another thing that would help: Hurry back, Alexi Casilla!

other people are here too

A fine night for baseball with the Twins winning and taking over first place again in the AL Central. Delmon goes deep and then doesn’t take any garbage when Zack Greinke hit him during the five-run sixth. Greinke has a suspension pending for his role in last weekend’s White Sox dust-up and I’m willing to believe that he was just stupid enough to be throwing at Delmon in that situation. Delmon did a good job of riling things up and then the Twins did a nice job of keeping things from getting ugly — and making their ultimate answer with a bunch of runs that broke open the game.

But back to baseball in Kansas City.

*First off, they are very tolerant of beach balls here. They were floating all over the park Friday and Saturday night and the blind eye that gets turned was confirmed when a beachball came to rest in the lower-level walkway — and a “Fan Assist” employee lazily kicked it into the back of a fan’s wheelchair. Nobody ever got hurt by a beachball that I know of, and I find them rather low on the list of ballpark distractions.

*People don’t get all hyper about bobbleheads here, either. It was Larry Gura Bobblehead Night and the ’70s and ’80s era Royals pitcher was on hand to autograph the 20,000 that were being given away. From what we could tell, there were enough for everyone who wanted one and you didn’t have to sleep outside the gates to get one. Not hardly. I think people here, while they have a crummy baseball team to follow, have a healthy perspective on the ceramic doohickeys. We may leave our Guraheads along I-35 during the drive home. So if you want one, check a rest area or a drive-thru.

*The funniest thing the Royals do is show recap highlights late in the game that, if you used ‘em to figure out what was happening, the Royals would be undefeated at Kauffman Stadium. You could watch Greinke strike out and Olivo hit a home run, and a myriad of other small accomplishments by the home team. But the game recap offered nothing about anything that went against the Royals. Kind of like Chinese television, in a much more harmless way.

The day threatened rain but the night was a beautiful one and there were many more Twins fans on hand Saturday than Friday. It wasn’t like being in the Dome, but you didn’t have to look far to find your allies. There’s a lot of “Go Twins” stuff in the hotel lobby as I’m writing this.

One final baseball word. I know there’s a lot of Adam Everett skepticism out there, but seeing him in person gives you a sense of the range he has, even though it’s obvious that his arm still isn’t 100 percent. He made a diving stop with two outs in the eighth and almost turned a spectacular force play at second, and then made a very good rangy play to get the final out with a quick and off-balance flip to third.

Everett also smacked a nice hit-and-run single in the second and drew a walk from Greinke that was key to the five-run sixth. I don’t know what his status will be when/if Casilla returns, but I think he’s going to get nothing but better with more work in the field and more at-bats. I can see what the Twins were thinking when they signed him.

And finally: Nice to see the bullpen throw 3 1/3 shutout innings without having to use Nathan, Crain or Guerrier. Booooooooooooooooof!

You know that you’re playing a struggling team when four guys come to the game with “COME” painted on their chests…

…and “BACK” painted on their backs.

In Kansas City, that’s apparently a surefire way to get on the ginormous scoreboard in center field. (I’m making a leap of faith here than the foursome didn’t visit the body art stand after the Twins took the early lead.)

This one should have been easier than it was. There should have been no need for the bases-loaded, two-out drama in the bottom of the ninth before David DeJesus grounded out for close the 4-1 victory.

As has been recent habit, the Twins didn’t come through in too many key situations. Carlos Gomez’s week proved to have little in common with Raul Ibanez’s week when Gomez struck out with the bases loaded and two outs in the second inning and again with the bases loaded and two outs in the third.

The encore whiff came after the Twins had taken a 3-0 lead, largely because the Royals starter couldn’t throw strikes and their shortstop launched a double-play relay closer to the first-base dugout than to the first baseman.

The Twins batted around but only scored 3 in the third. With the bases loaded and one out, Adam Everett did his best to break the game open but his line drive was caught with a dive by Esteban German, the Royals’ second baseman. 

Then, the Twins veered between going out meekly and wasting more chances. Nick Punto grounded out to the pitcher with runners at second and third in the sixth and, after Justin Morneau got an intentional walk in the ninth, Jason Kubel grounded into a double play that killed off a chance for the Twins to score a bunch of runs and maybe rest Joe Nathan for the night.

The final tally was 11 men left on base, seven of ‘em in scoring position.

Other than the needless drama, it was a fine night to be a Twins fan in Kansas City’s sweet ballpark, which is in the midst of an extensive makeover. Lots of Twins jerseys in the house — including Doug and Cristian and Bradke and Killebrew and even a Tony Fiore, as well as the current guys. Given last weekend’s punchout between the Royals and White Sox, it looked like nobody was silly enough to wear an AJ jersey. (Note to people with Santana jerseys: Keep ‘em in the closet, especially on the road.)

The Royals stayed close enough that their fans were loud, and the Twins presence wasn’t as overwhelming as it usually seems on TV when the y play here. But there was a fair amount of horn-honking in the parking lot afterward and the general consensus seems to be that reinforcements will be in town tomorrow.

You ought to make this trip sometime.

Hello from Kansas City, where the weather is warm and the barbecue tour has begun with lunch at Gates. Tomorrow, it’ll be Arthur Bryant’s (the original, of course) for late lunch after a visit to the Negro Baseball Museum. Next order of business is sitting by the pool and finishing Joe Posnanski’s wonderful “The Soul of Baseball” — his book about roadtripping with the legendary Buck O’Neil.

Haven’t seen outdoor major league baseball since a Safeco trip in 2005 and we’ve already spotted some Twins caps  and jerseys. We expect to find a lot more of them in and around the Sheraton that’s diagonal from the ballpark. Talked to some Red Sox fans this morning who were leaving town after watching their team. They love the park, and had a great time detailing their trips to Fenway with its $40 parking (higher for the Yankees) and uncomfortable and expensive seats. It almost sounded cheaper to come here. They had great accents.

Ms. Baseball has her Radke jersey. I’m incognito right now in a Cade McNown jersey and Sprewell Racing cap.

I’m leaving the baseball talk to LaVelle and Joe for now. I can’t top his encouraging note about Alexi Casilla’s thumb. It would be great to have him back, although I suspect there will be serious caution taken.

I can tell you that we are totally psyched to be here.  More later this weekend.