He's been up for about an hour, but shortstop Steven Tolleson is already killing time.

It's 10:30 a.m., and Tolleson has just returned from the local hospital -- where, through his minor league team, he lifts weights four times a week in keeping with the routine developed while at South Carolina.

The 2002 Dorman graduate sits in the upstairs den with his laptop, surfing the Web while his host family packs boxes for its upcoming move down the road.

Tolleson doesn't need to show up at the ballpark for another four hours, so the former business school student is doing his daily check of his Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch accounts.

"The market's up four points," Tolleson said. "My fund's up four cents.

"Normally if they're up, I think it will be a good day."

Twin bill

Recently, a good day in the life of any Elizabethton Twins member has ranked as merely a rain-free one.

Like most of the other cities with Appalachian League rookie squad franchises, Elizabethton (pronunciation emphasis on "beth") is a Boiling Springs-sized community plopped in the middle of the mountains just east of Johnson City.

As a geographical consequence, the city had gotten rain for 13 straight days -- a double-edged sword for general manager Mike Mains, a 1985 Chesnee graduate and a third baseman on two of the Eagles' state title teams.

The E-Twins had to put the tarp on the field for 19 consecutive days, yet when Mains helped pull it up Wednesday morning, the grass nonetheless was showing dehydrated signs from the heat.

Tuesday night's game was postponed, subsequently snuffing Mains' promotion, a clown act tabbed as "The Greatest Show on Dirt."

So the E-Twins' contest Wednesday against the Bristol White Sox has evolved into a 6 p.m. doubleheader.

Mains, who doubles as the city's parks and recreation director, has been sick all day and subsequently is scrambling upon arriving around 5 p.m.

He delivers new baseballs to the umpires, distributes a statistics package to both teams and makes sure the person selling tickets at the entrance knows all the pertinent info.

Fifteen minutes before first pitch, he grabs a scratch sheet of paper by the locker rooms and makes an impromptu lineup for the night's promotions.

In the corridor to the locker room, Mains passes a shelf audio system with a compact disc sitting on top.

It's obviously his -- the cover pictures two Clemson football players celebrating.

"I haven't played it for Steven yet," said Mains, who was coached by Tolleson's uncle, Mike, in legion ball.

America's pastime

"When I first started out," Jim Tolleson said, grabbing the minivan's steering wheel with his right hand in order to raise the left, "mitts didn't have the groove in them. You can still tell my hand's all puffed up."

Jim, Steven's grandfather, spent 8-9 years as a minor league catcher.

He and his wife, Sarah (Spartanburg residents), have been the E-Twins' tour groupies since Sunday's road game in Greeneville.

Shortly before noon, Steven meets them at their hotel room at the modest Traveler's Lodge, located up the hill from the stadium parking lot.

Throughout lunch at the Sand Trap Family Steakhouse -- a Sugar 'n' Spice clone, and one of two local restaurants where E-Twins players eat for half-price -- Steven and Jim share comparisons between their various baseball experiences.

Former teammates Landon Powell and Kevin Melillo had warned Tolleson of the minor leagues' loner existence and fend-for-yourself mentality, yet he has found that the Twins' organization goes out of its way to promote team chemistry.

The most difficult transitory aspect, Steven said, has been communicating with his Dominican and Venezuelan teammates.

The E-Twins have nine foreign-born players on their 33-player roster, a relatively small ratio compared to the rest of this developmental league.

"I took Spanish for three years in college," Tolleson said, "and I can't understand a word they're saying."

After heading back to his grandparents' hotel, Tolleson decides at 1:40 p.m. that he might as well proceed to the stadium.

Even though Tolleson's only been here three weeks -- and maybe not many more -- he's already changed the license plate on his silver Toyota 4-Runner.

"The first thing I noticed was the DMV is located right there," Tolleson said, pointing to a building by the ballpark. "So I took care of that quickly."

Over the hills

Mike's dad, Harold Mains leads a visitor into the pitch-black skybox located along the third-base line.

The E-Twins' president is by far the sharpest dressed man in the stadium by virtue of his sport coat.

"I had my other duties today," Harold said.

Mains, who spent 10 years as Cooley Springs Baptist Church's pastor, has a congregation here, too.

As Mains flicks the light switch, framed photos of touted Twins catcher Joe Mauer's tenure come into view along the wood-paneled back wall.

The open-air skybox, a fancy term for an elongated, sheltered room, offers an aesthetic panoramic view of what the E-Twins mean to the community during their annual 10-week show.

With a full moon outlining the surrounding mountains, a buzzing crowd of 1,025 has shown up out of a city with a population of 13,372.

"If you want anything to eat other than fast food, you have to go to Johnson City," Mains said.

"This is the show. There's us and Wal-Mart."

Sitting in the front row of the box seating are Tom and Karen McNeil, Tolleson's host parents.

The McNeils, who exude the archetype of a quaint, Christian country family, have hosted six minor leaguers in five years because they enjoy getting to know the team's players.

Tolleson pays a standard $100 for the lodging arrangement instead of splitting apartment costs with a teammate.

After home games, the McNeils will stop by Blockbuster so their two daughters, ages 14 and 11, can rent a movie that Tolleson will watch with them to unwind.

"I love being a host family because we eat better," Tom joked to Karen.

Mike Mains is spotted walking behind the stands with a cardboard cutout of a cow.

An inning later, the public address announcer introduces the State Farm Run for the Bushes, and cows of various colors can be seen racing above the left field wall.

The front-running blue cow suddenly disappears, allowing the red one to prevail.

The announcer, who has provided play-by play coverage, then changes his tune and tells the crowd the blue cow actually triumphed, eliciting a smattering of boos from the section that would have collected the corresponding prize.

"Blue was supposed to win, but he fell right before he got there," Mike Mains admitted with a laugh. "There's always controversy."

Striking out

Tolleson arrives at Joe O'Brien Field 45 minutes before practice, the only player out of the five milling around who wasn't scheduled to show up early for weekly individual instruction.

After everyone spills out of the locker room awaiting manager Ray Smith's cattle call, Tolleson stretches with his closest friends on the team: second baseman Toby Gardenhire, son of Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire, and catcher Caleb Moore, an East Tennessee State teammate of ex-Dorman pitcher Steven Calicutt.

The team works out in 90-degree heat for more than two hours -- doing everything from batting practice to baserunning drills -- before funneling back in the locker room 45 minutes before game time to change clothes.

"He knows how to separate parts of his game and he plays like a pro, that's what impresses me," said Smith, a Minnesota catcher from 1981-83.

"He's mature, comes out here early and wants to learn. He asks questions that he tries to apply. He knows he doesn't have the world by the tail and there are things to learn even though he played in a quality program and learned from his dad (former major league infielder Wayne Tolleson)."

From his usual lead-off spot in the order, Tolleson goes 0-for-4 in the opener against Bristol, then sits out the second game as the E-Twins notched their 14th straight win to improve to an impressive 26-4.

With a mildly dejected look, Tolleson totes two wooden bats to his locker.

Either before or after tonight's featured movie presentation, he will have to make the dreaded phone calls to his girlfriend and parents detailing his offensive struggles.

"I can't really find the holes right now, but I'm not worried about it," Tolleson said. "It's a long season."

Seeing his shadow

The next night, Tolleson went 2-for-4 with his first home run and three RBIs, but the E-Twins' win streak was snapped with a 10-8 road loss to the Princeton Devil Rays.

Tolleson, a fifth-round pick in the June draft, is splitting playing time with 19-year-old Juan Portes, a 15th-round pick last year whose dynamic bat has been offset by inconsistent defense.

In 12 games, Tolleson is hitting .237 but has led the E-Twins in on-base percentage (.431).

When and if he's promoted to Single-A, he'll be bound for Beloit, Wis., a city with nearly three times Elizabethton's population.

His professional career, though, will always be rooted here, where big league dreams unite with small-town culture to produce the kinds of tales Jim gleamed about during lunch.

The experience will be defined by the personalities and cultures met along the way.

Tolleson visited cancer patients Monday, then spoke at a Kiwanis luncheon Tuesday as part of the E-Twins' emphasis on community involvement.

His job as a baseball player included more down time than he'd imagined.

The hard part has been filling it.

"It's kind of like the movie 'Groundhog Day,'" Tolleson said. "You do basically the same thing every day. It's a fun lifestyle when you first get into it, but you have to find different things to keep you occupied so baseball doesn't get old.

"But I've been blessed to have been put here, and I couldn't ask for more."