AL Central Champs

Here is an article from Reusse that tells it all about Sunday at the Dome. Get your Homer Hankies ready.

The Twins and their fans achieve bedlam
A Joe Mauer batting title was fine, but the crowd wanted more ... and got it.
Patrick Reusse, Star Tribune

The Tigers and the Kansas City Royals already had been playing for an hour in Detroit when the Twins' Carlos Silva threw the first pitch in the Metrodome on Sunday afternoon.
Detroit was holding a 6-0 lead, and it was the third inning. A Tigers victory would guarantee them the tiebreaker at the top of the AL Central and give the Twins a playoff date with the Yankees on Tuesday night in the Bronx.

The lead and stout Jeremy Bonderman on the mound made for strong evidence that only one bit of drama would play out in the Dome on this final day of the regular season.

That would be whether Joe Mauer could become the first American League catcher to win a batting title.

Seeing the local hero capture this Silver Bat would have been a fine consolation prize for the announced crowd of 45,182, but the fans wanted more. They wanted an AL Central championship and first-round date with Oakland, rather than with the $200 million Yankees.

Nearly four hours later, the wishes had been fulfilled and the Dome had turned to the pandemonium of Octobers past. This exuberance was difficult to forecast when Silva started by giving up a first-inning run, and the Twins then resumed the offensive dearth they had been featuring in this final series with the White Sox, the dethroned champions.

The crowd did not get a chance to demonstrate any giddiness until Mauer slapped a double near the left field line leading off the fourth. That started a rally that gave the Twins a 3-1 lead.

And then the scoreboards in the left field and right field corners started to indicate Kansas City was undertaking another comeback against the Tigers. This was a Royals team that had arrived in Detroit on Friday with 100 losses and a 1-15 record against the Tigers.

And now these Dome dreamers of the impossible were becoming curious whether K.C. could barbecue Jim Leyland's crew again.

The Royals had been down 5-0 on Friday and came back to win, but the Twins could not take advantage. The Royals had scored seven runs in the first on Saturday and held on to win, and the Twins could not take advantage.

The Twins entered Sunday rooting hard for Mauer to win this batting title, and that first hit seemed to relieve much tension with the entire lineup. The three runs were followed by another in the fifth. Included was a second Mauer hit, guaranteeing he would be a batting champion at the tender age of 23½ years.

The large crowd enjoyed Mauer's successful opposite-field slaps, and soon the scoreboards revealed Kansas City actually was closing in on Detroit. A chant of "Let's go Royals" rose from down the left field line.

The Royals went ahead, Detroit tied it 8-8 on a Matt Stairs' home run and then the crowd was more focused on what was happening there than with the Twins.

Jason Bartlett, the late-arriving shortstop who rates very high on the Twins' MVP list, threw out Ryan Sweeney to end a 5-1 victory that enabled his club to finish 30 games over .500 (96-66). It was 4:07 p.m., and a roar accompanied the players as they congregated near second base.

Once this ritual was concluded, the big screens went to the telecast from Detroit. And that's when a scene for the ages played out.

There was still a mob -- call it 35,000 -- in the Dome, and these now-rabid folks wouldn't go home until they found out whether these Royals could offer a final gift to the Twins.

The indoor zanies agonized with every pitch as Kansas City's Joe Nelson and Jimmy Gobble worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out situation with the score still 8-8 in the bottom of the 11th.

Bert Blyleven, the Twins' television analyst, was standing in the back row of the press box, transfixed by a crowd going crazy over something that was happening two Great Lakes away.

"This is unbelievable," Blyleven said. "This reminds me of '87, when 50,000 fans were here to welcome us back from Detroit."

Blyleven was the co-ace of the '87 pitching staff with Frank Viola. The Twins were returning after wiping out the favored Tigers 4-1 in the ALCS. "Seems like strange things take place when it's us and Detroit," Blyleven said.

The strangeness became otherworldly a few minutes later, when Kansas City scored twice in the top of 12th. The 35,000 cheered for every called ball, every baserunner and both of those runs.

By then, Torii Hunter, Luis Rodriguez and other Twins were in front of the dugout, acting goofy and signaling for the crowd to get louder.

And it did. Bedlam, '87-style.

Gobble got three more outs in the bottom of the 12th -- the last on a Sean Casey groundout. It was 4:44 p.m. Officially, the fans had stayed for 37 minutes for the chance to share this moment with their heroes.

And here the Twins came, racing from the dugout and staging a wilder tangle behind the pitcher's mound than was the case six nights earlier when a wild-card berth was guaranteed. Now, they were champions of the Central.

"How crazy has this whole thing been?" Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "Our last game had been done for a half-hour before we got into first place by ourselves for the first time all year."

The Twins chased the Tigers in reverse for more than two months, then surged and still trailed Detroit by 12 games on the first night after the All-Star break.

So, it wasn't avoiding the Yankees that caused this madness from the Twins' players. Oakland has better pitching than the Yankees and will be an armful in this division series.

The madness came from being rewarded for a relentless pursuit -- for winning 71 of 104 since June 8, for playing .683 baseball for 16 weeks, for doing it ultimately without Liriano, without Stewart, with Radke gritting his teeth on every pitch, with Bartlett and Punto and Tyner and Reyes and Neshek going from afterthoughts to vital parts.

On the last day, the Twins and their newly raucous fans had a first-place finish to celebrate -- and a chance to start baseball's grand second season under their Teflon sky.

"Now they can come into here ..." said Gardenhire, shouting through a hand-held microphone to the fans still not wanting to leave, "and play baseball in our house."