There’s Always Next Year

To that end, the players should get together over the winter and light a few candles with the hope of finally getting a new owner. Nothing is sure under the current regime. Remember, owner [Carl] Pohlad tried to sell them down the river once already.

“After what happened last winter, we don’t count our chickens before they hatch,” Doug Mientkiewicz said. “But teammates like this don’t come around every day. We just kept turning heads all year.”

The bottom line is that, even though Twin fans are stunned that they won’t see their heroes again until 2003, they got a summer’s worth of great entertainment. The team was fun to watch. It played well. And it ignited baseball the fever in Minnesota that had been missing for a decade.

This fairy tale did not have that lump-in-the-throat, heavenly choir-singing happy ending. But it was an interesting story nevertheless. The beginning was horrible. The middle chapters were fabulous. Only at the end did things go wrong.

All in all, not bad. Wait till next year.