There’s a piranha in all of us

So last year, when his White Sox where amidst a floor-busting free-fall of a slump, Ozzie Guillen decided it was appropriate to call the Twins’ infield “little piranhas.”

The record stands as Guillen using the scaly (do they have scales?) term because he thought the Twinkies players had a never-say-die attitude; I guess it was supposed to be a compliment.

What I don’t see is how a piranha refuses to die?

That’s why I think the more common interpretation on Ozzie’s piranha simile would be something like this: in frustration because his own underachieving squad couldn’t put a decent run of ball games together, and the Twins, with a decidedly less-talented infield (and much shorter in height) continued to win, he compared them to a school of pesky piranhas, barraging you once you fall into their river basin and shredding your hopes of making the playoffs again, even though you know they’re just pests, and no matter how many times they make it to the playoffs, they’re not going any further than the ALDS.

Well, the Twins’ front office took it to heart, from the Daily Herald:

The Twins this week released a television advertisement they’re calling — not surprisingly — “Little Piranhas” in which shortstop Jason Bartlett and third baseman Nick Punto star as the piranhas.

The video clip, which can be viewed at www.twins.mlb.com, begins with a father and daughter walking through an aquarium checking out different species of sea life. At each stop, she asks, “What’s that?”

When they get to Punto and Bartlett swimming near some coral in their baseball uniforms, she asks, “What are those?”

Her dad replies simply, “Those are piranhas.”

“Cool,” she says.

The spot ends with buckets of baseballs being dumped into the tank at feeding time, followed by the slogan “This is piranha territory.”

I wonder what happens when you dump a piranha in salt water?