The most improbable of Twins seasons saw it's official reward Monday night with the Twins clinching a playoff berth with their win over Kansas City.It marks the Twins fourth trip to the playoffs in the last five years, and their sixth in my lifetime.
I was 7 in 1987, 11 in 1991, and while I remember both of those seasons much more clearly than you might think, 2002 still stands out as my favorite Twins season ever.
It had been so long. So long since the Twins had been winners. So long since the Metrodome was full for a baseball game, so long since people were actually talking about the team, wearing jerseys of their favorite players.
I remember being at Game 3 of the ALDS against Oakland, part of a record crowd of over 64,000 fans, and almost being brought to tears by what I was experiencing.
Between 1992 and 2002 there had been talk of contraction, a move to North Carolina and eight losing seasons. That day in the Dome, with 64,000 fans about to watch a playoff game, was a day I had been reasonably sure I would never experience. Two days later I sat in a jam-packed sports bar in Burnsville and watched AJ Pierzynski wallop a game-winning homer off of A's closer and ass-clown Billy Koch. He flipped his bat in defiance and the Twins eliminated the A's in Oakland - and that flip of AJ's bat remains one of the single greatest all time sports moments of my life. I still remember my cousin Spence, drunk out of his head, standing on top of our table shouting to no one in particular - "Twins win! Twins win! Twins win!" over and over.
In that respect, 2002 will probably always be the Twins team I treasure most, even if they win several more World Series during my lifetime.
But 2006 will likely be pretty high on the list as well.
Part of me keeps thinking about Francisco Liriano, Brad Radke, and even Shannon Stewart, wondering if they can win without them.
For the record, if all three of those guys were healthy I believe the Twins would be overwhelming favorites to win the World Series.
But you know what? It's clear by now that you can throw logic out the window with this team.
Nick Punto and Jason Tyner should not be major contributors to a playoff team, but they are.
Dennys Reyes shouldn't be the best lefty specialist on the planet, but he is.
Boof Bonser shouldn't be a solid No. 2 starter as a rookie, but he is.
Matt Garza shouldn't even be here at all (he began the year in A-ball and was getting doused with champagne in a Major League clubhouse Monday), but he is.
Rondell White wasn't good enough to play for the Sioux Falls Canaries in the first half, and here he is batting .320 since the All-Star break.
We've written them off so many times.
Even when they started turning things around, most of us just said, 'Hey things are looking pretty good, we should be able to contend next year.'
The Tigers and White Sox were so far ahead they were merely a blip on the radar, but we were reminded, once again, what a long season it is, and how the deficit really doesn't matter in May, June or even July or August.
We were reminded that things like speed, defense and fundamentals (Tyner, Punto, Castillo, Bartlett) are still important, and that power (Thome, Dye, Konerko) is still overrated.
We learned that Brad Radke is perhaps the gutsiest player the Twins have ever had, and that Torii Hunter, for all his double-plays and ugly swings, is still one hell of a baseball player.
Way, way back in March, Kirby Puckett passed away. One of my first thoughts when he died was to wonder what effect it would have on this year's team.
Could the ghost of Kirby Puckett guide them to a title? I certainly hoped so. And yeah, I have a corny tendency to believe in those kinds of things.
It almost seems like the only explanation. With all the team has endured, all the setbacks, all the injuries, some sort of cosmic intervention seems like the only thing that could possibly have allowed a team that was once 25-33 and in a distant fourth place to surge to a playoff spot and the brink of 100 wins even with two of the top three pitchers sitting out.
With three games remaining against KC and three against a White Sox team that now has nothing to play for, the Twins still have a chance to catch Detroit, who they trail by one game.
Surely the Twins will enter the playoffs as underdogs no matter who they face, but they obviously have paid no attention to any of that kind of crap, so neither should we.
It's been a crazy, weird, inspirational, magical, amazing year.
Hopefully Monday's celebration wasn't the last one of the fall.
2 comments:
Not only do they have the division to play for, but as of tonight, they are only one game back for the best record in the AL. I like the idea of the Twins having home field all throughout the ALCS. And that would hopefully even give you another game or two to cover. FUCK EVERYBODY ELSE! GO TWINS!!
Rusty
It's almost as if something special is happening this year. Everything you said was spot on, Matt. There's a lot of players who just shouldn't be contributing they way they are, but they are. I haven't seen one player with an awestruck look on their face as if they don't really know what's going on. They have a confidence that seems out of place on such young kids. I have noticed, also, that Torii's defense has taken an upturn in recent weeks. I think the injury was nagging him more than anyone could possibly know.
On a sidenote, with 5 more RBIs, Hunter will join the 100 club.
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