What a Game! AL Central Tiebreaker 10/6/09

There have been some big time collapses at the end of a baseball season. The New York Mets have become experts at blowing it the last weeks of the season, after leading their division by more then a comfortable amount of games. Tonight there was a new addition to the choke chapter of Major League Baseball. Not only did the Detroit Tigers blow the division lead they had with less then a month to go, they also blew the "extra" game that decided the division Tuesday night. On September 6th, the Tigers had a 7 game lead in the AL Central and looked as if they were cruising to the playoffs. As most Mets fans know, there is no such thing as cruising or as a "cushion" when it comes to winning a division. And as the Minnesota Twins began to heat up and win 17 of their last 21 games, including the division tiebreaker, the Tigers were going .500 and leaving the door open for the Metrodome Monsters to escape with an AL Central crown. Then, one of the best games in a long time played out and the "Twinkies" stole the final playoff spot. The 163rd game of the year for the Tigers and Twins went 12 innings. There were home runs, plays at the plate, pick offs, web gems, clutch pitching, bad base running and general mayhem in the twin cities. The game was a spectacular way to send off the Humphrey Metrodome to the demolition wrecking ball. In the end though, the Twins showed the resiliency they have shown season after season under Ron Gardenhire, they overcame injuries to their stars (Mourneau, Mauer) and gave 57,000 screaming fans a reason to believe that the Yankees might not sweep them in the first round of the 2009 MLB Playoffs. The Twins organization, their players and their coaches deserve a lot of credit. They kept playing past all of the obstacles and for that, the payoff was a historic game, a champagne bath in the locker room and a ticket to NYC to play at the house that Jorge Posada built, the new Yankee Stadium. Baseball has learned a valuable lesson these past seasons, don't ever write off the Minnesota Twins.