A for effort

Here's to small-market baseball ... and those Twins

The ball hung high above home plate like a blip in one of those prehistoric Pong video games, and had it been a normal pop-up on a regular afternoon, half the stadium probably wouldn't have bothered to watch. But this was playoff baseball, when every pitch is taut and even the most mundane of plays can be fraught with adventure. So it was Tuesday afternoon at the Oakland Coliseum that with two outs in the bottom of the second inning, four Minnesota Twins surrounded Scott Hatteberg's routine pop fly and forged a forgettable postseason memory.

"I got it!" a voice behind me screamed, and an instant later the quartet of transfixed Twins -- first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, third baseman Corey Koskie, catcher A.J. Pierzynski and pitcher Brad Radke -- watched passively as the ball dropped between them. The two-foot RBI single scored Ray Durham from second base and gave the Oakland A's a 4-1 lead in the first game of their American League Divisional Series matchup with Minnesota, transforming the home fans into dancing fools.

"You did that," my buddy Dan Asimow exclaimed, slapping me on the back. We were four rows behind the A's dugout, soaking up sunshine and what we hoped would be a sweet victory for our hometown team, him playing hooky from his job as a big-time lawyer, me tending to my strenuous duties as an Internet content provider. Far be it from me to deflect credit, but I had to fess up: I hadn't yelled a thing, if only because I was having a tough enough time catching my breath.

Playoff baseball is draining, a succession of skipped heartbeats and constricted stomach muscles that makes the lazy days of summer seem bygone. Regular-season baseball often affects me like Valium, but this is like a totally different sport. All of a sudden peanut vendors are a view-blocking nuisance, and you decide you can wait on that beer another half-inning or six. Stats become less relevant; handling pressure becomes paramount.

Watching the A's and Twins go at it is an utter joy, if only because both teams' presence in the playoffs spits in the eye of a certain commissioner's woe-is-me whining about competitive imbalance. It's a pity, actually, that the Twins, who would have ceased to exist before this season if the powers that be had their way, and the A's, whose best player, Jason Giambi, jumped to the Yankees for more scratch and then dissed Oakland on Letterman, can't both advance to the final four.

Call this the Low Revenue World Series, then, and appreciate it as both an aberration (most of baseball's best teams are the bigger spenders) and a testament to heart, resourcefulness and guile. And though I'm clearly rooting for the A's to continue what has been a magical season, I have no problem expressing my admiration for the scrappy AL Central champs from the Land of Ventura.

Cue up the beer-commercial ditty: I love Bud Selig eating dirt ... and Prince's sequined shirts ... Scandanavian blondes who flirt ... and the Twins ... I love a traffic cop on a Lexus hood ... Randy Moss misunderstood... Red McCombs sayin' "It's all good" ... Don't forget those Twins ...

I give the Twinkies a ton of credit for what they accomplished Tuesday. Lacking postseason polish, they came out tentative and choppy, making three early errors (along with the pop-up disaster) and falling behind 5-1. Not since Jose and Ozzie Canseco had twins behaved so awkwardly at this stadium, and the relatively small but vocal crowd -- hey, it was Tuesday afternoon, and people have jobs in this town -- was all over the visitors. Later in the bottom of the second inning, when Jermaine Dye hit a high pop-up nearly identical to Hatteberg's and the same four Minnesota players converged, 34,853 fans screamed "I got it" before Mientkiewicz made the catch.

But the Twins hung in and got to A's stud Tim Hudson, wrecked ill-advised bullpen choice Ted Lilly and held off the home team for a 7-5 victory.

The game had so many thrilling moments, from Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez's deft running catch of a foul pop-up to end the Minnesota third to the A's Randy Velarde, summoned to pinch-hit with a 3-2 count after Olmedo Saenz tore his Achilles tendon while running out a foul nubber, smacking a single up the middle with two outs in the eighth.

Before the bottom of the ninth the stadium's video screen played the classic, John Belushi "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" scene from Animal House, and anything seemed possible. With two outs and no one on, David Justice came to the plate and quickly fell behind 0-2. All appeared lost, but as Dan and I had concluded after Justice's first-inning RBI on a dead fish of a single, the guy is one charmed dude. Married Halle Berry, appeared in more postseason games than anyone in history ... any further questions, your honor?

Sure enough, Justice came through with a knock up the middle, rookie Mark Ellis walked after falling behind 1-2 and pinch-hitter Adam Piatt worked Twins closer Eddie Guardado to a 3-1 count. We were all standing, going nuts, living and dying with every pitch, until Piatt finally flied to left, and we headed out to the parking lot.

"I've got tickets for tomorrow's game if you want to go," Dan said. It turned out we both had to work, which was probably just as well.

"I'm tired," I said.

"Yeah," Dan agreed. "That was a lot of work."

Hey, it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Silver sounds off each Wednesday on CNNSI.com.

 

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