However I would like to comment your opening paragraph, which brought back a memory of where I was during the last day of the 2006 season. I had been living in Japan for about 15 months and as fortune would have it, was working with one of my closest friends and fellow die-hard Twins fan Zach Kostka.

As the season started to wind down, our excitement was growing. Things were coming down to the wire in the pennant race, Justin Morneau was making the final strides toward his American League MVP, Johan Santana was finishing another Cy Young campaign, and Joe Mauer was about to secure the first batting title by a catcher in sixty plus years. It was simply a great time to be a Twins fan. Christ, even my Japanese co-workers were asking us for Twins scores!! How cool is that?

Anyway, during that summer I had subscribed to the MLB.com radio package to hear the home and away broadcasts of every MLB regular season game. The 14 hour time difference in Japan meant a 2 o’clock Monday morning start time. However, there was never any doubt that we would hear that game. We flipped back and forth between the Twins, Tigers and Yankee games (to follow Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano, who were in hot pursuit of Mauer in the batting title race) cheering, drinking, and laughing until day break. The high point of the night was getting yelled at by my neighbor to keep it down. It’s always fun to get yelled at when you have no idea what the other person is saying, which makes them even more pissed off.

Of course we all know how things turned out that day. Another great day in Twins history. Since then, with the departures of Santana, Torii Hunter and Terry Ryan, some have wondered if a bit of the shine has left our favorite ball club. Yesterday’s game brought all that back. What happens in the playoffs doesn’t really matter. Maybe it’s a small victory. However, at least for one day, our Twins were on top of the baseball world again and that’s a great feeling.