Not going away quietly

By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist, 10/1/2003

NEW YORK -- Less than two years ago, Bud Selig wanted to trapdoor them out of existence, and their own octogenarian billionaire owner was a very willing coconspirator.

When you win a playoff game in Yankee Stadium, that stuff all seems to have happened in some other lifetime.

Still, you wonder what guys were thinking when Carl Pohlad, the 87-year-old Minnesota Twins owner, came shuffling into the locker room behind his walker yesterday after watching his team knock off the Yankees by a 3-1 score. Mr. P doesn't show himself in front of his players very often. For some, it may have been the first time they've seen him.

Manager Ron Gardenhire paid his appropriate respects, but he clearly kept the chit-chat to a minimum.

"So long, thanks for coming," he said to his owner before heading into his office.

Sure, thanks for what? For wanting to dump the team, take the dispersal money and run? For being stopped only because the lawyers swung into action? From Day 1, the idea of contracting the Minnesota Twins was an outrage. Now it's something more: a joke. Contract a team that could possibly win it all?

Well, why not? Do you see any 1939 Yankees or 1976 Reds in this tournament? And has anybody been playing better baseball than the Twins? They do have the best record in baseball since the All-Star break.

"We've been playing baseball pretty good," confirmed Gardenhire, who strikes me as the kind of guy who knows he really should be using the word "well" instead of "good" in that circumstance, but who also prizes baseball custom ahead of technically correct grammar.

I'd also say he prizes technically correct relief pitching even more today than he would have acknowledged 24 hours ago after seeing starting pitcher Johan Santana, who was breezing through the Yankee lineup, have to leave the game prior to the fifth inning with a cramp in the back of his right leg.

"I'm looking at my pitching staff, my bullpen, to figure out how we were going to piece it together," he said. "It's all I could do."

He, and they, did fine. Rick Reed got him two outs in the fifth before giving up a double to Alfonso Soriano. Lefthander J.C. Romero threw a good 1 1/3 innings. LaTroy Hawkins submitted a dominant two innings (one catchable hit, four strikeouts). Everyday Eddie Guardado wrapped it up with an adventurous ninth (greatly aided by a great Shannon Stewart catch in left). Just another day in the life of the Upper Midwest's team, or so we're being told.

"That's us," said first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. "It wouldn't be us if we didn't make it exciting."

They're exciting, all right. They've got guys who can run. They've got guys who can handle the bat. And they definitely can catch the ball.

Exhibit A came with Bernie Williams on base (single) and no one out in the ninth. Hideki Matsui, an excellent opposite-field hitter, sent one out to left. "I thought it was a two-run homer," said Gardenhire, who couldn't even bring himself to leave his seat in the third base dugout for a better look.

Stewart didn't know what it was, but he sure wasn't going to give up on it. He had three problems, although he only knew about two. The first was the brutal afternoon sun. This is, after all, the very left field of which Yogi Berra long ago declared, "It gets late early out there." The second problem was the looming fence. The third was the fact that a lunkhead fan, armed with a glove, was competing with Stewart for the baseball. "I was afraid he was going to get poked in the eye," said Mientkiewicz.

But Stewart hung in there and made a great catch. The ball probably would have gone off the wall, not over it, but even a double would have been very damaging, as subsequent events would prove. For yesterday was not exactly Everyday Eddie's best day. Williams had hit the ball hard, and Aaron Boone would follow with a solid double down the left-field line. Give the Yankees that Matsui double, and who knows?

But that's part of who the Twins are. "We've got three center fielders in the outfield," said Mientkiewicz.

The Twins don't come at you with gaudy batting stats. Center fielder Torii Hunter drove in 102 runs but no one else even has 80. They can manufacture runs, however, and that's precisely what they did in the third, when shortstop Cristian Guzman reached on an infield hit, daringly went to third on a ball hit to Matsui in left, and scored on a Luis Rivas sacrifice fly to shallow center. First Guzman challenged Matsui's arm and then he challenged Williams's. If you're planning on watching the Twins play any more baseball this year, get used to it. They don't stand around and wait for three-run homers.

"That's the only way we can play," said Gardenhire. "We win baseball games by running around the bases hard, taking extra bases, and trying to do those things. It was a great play [going from first to third on a single to medium-deep left] by Guzman. We expect that. We expect to take those chances."

They wouldn't be taking any chances if their owner had been granted his wish prior to the 2002 season. Pohlad wanted to rid himself of the franchise. But he couldn't, and his team won its division and advanced all the way to the American League Championship Series last year. Now they're back, legitimately competing for the championship again.

"We don't talk about it much," said catcher A.J. Pierzynski. "Contraction seems so far gone. Everyone brings it up to us, and we make fun of it. Plus, it got me on the cover of ESPN the Magazine. Right now, our only contraction is to try to contract the number of games we need to win this series to one. Just like we were trying to contract the magic number to zero."

"We still hear about it every once in a while," said Gardenhire. "We're not out of the woods yet. We still don't have a stadium. We're just trying to enjoy ourselves. This has been a much harder year than last year. We had a lot of guys with contract issues, and it was new for them."

They'll be heading to Minneapolis and the din of a sold-out Metrodome Saturday no worse than 1-1 with the mighty Yankees. I'm not trying to cause trouble, but shouldn't there be a sign or two urging Mr. Pohlad to stay home and not insult anyone by pretending he, like, cares? Everybody in town knows better.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.