Go Twins!

When I left Tennessee for the Twin Cities, I pretty much carried all of my favorite sports teams with me. Well, at least those that I cared about, which boiled down to the Tennessee Titans for football and Detroit Red Wings for hockey. I could care less about pro basketball anymore, so that didn't really count.

The only gap to fill was baseball. When I was a kid growing up in Detroit, it was easy to be a Tigers fan. Even for a short period of time after moving to TN, I held on to the Tigers, until their management decided to liquidate the team and become a bottom feeder for a few years. This turned me off.

There was always the Braves, who were easy to keep up with because they were on the Super station WTBS all of the time, and they had the best commentators with Skip Caray, Don Sutton, Pete Van Wieren, and Joe Simpson. The Braves were also an easy choice because of their long term success, winning 13 straight division titles, and that pitching staff. But, they got old.

Had the Cardinals been more visible to me, I probably would have become a big fan, and still root for them at times. Albert Pujols is one of my favorite players in the league and may be its best player overall, but being in Minnesota, don't get to see enough of the Cards to be a die hard fan.

As result, my loyalty for baseball was pretty much up in the air upon my arrival in St. Paul. The tipping point came when Laura and I went to our first Twins game in the Metrodome back in May of 2006. Laura was 7 months pregnant with Sammy at the time and one the one thing that crossed my mind several times during the game was how my boy could grow up and be a Twins' Kid.

I remember how as a kid, it was so cool to have a home team to root for, even if they weren't any good. When we played ball in the back yard, I always wanted to be the Tigers and knew all of the players, good and bad. Even though it's not a necessity, having a home team to root for can help kids take interest in the game, and it is America's pass time.

What I've since learned in the 4 years of being here is that the Twins organization is one to be proud of as well. They are competitive every year (well nearly) with one of the lowest payrolls in the league. That means their organization knows how to develop players and it also means that the team does the little things that do not make the Sports Center highlights, like advancing runners, bunting, playing good defence, and running the bases correctly.

There's also the stability of the team. Since I can remember, they've had two coaches. Tom Kelly was the coach for several years when the Twins were winning World Series with the likes of Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbeck. When Tom retired, Ron Gardenhire took over and has been there ever since. Stability.

The Twins' farm system has developed a couple All Stars in the last few years that has made it easier to root for them as well. Justin Morneau has turned into a big time slugger, competing for the homer run and RBI title every year. He's also a very good glove at first base and won the MVP award a couple of years back. Not too bad for a Canuck!

But my favorite player is Joe Mauer. Joe's a local boy, born and raised in the St. Paul area and is the pride of the Twins. He is a very good catcher, but his swing is the real deal, maybe the purest I've ever seen. He's coming closer and closer to winning his third batting title this year, hovering around the 0.370 mark all year long. And this year may be a year of other firsts for Joe, like hitting 30 home runs and driving in 100 RBIs. Up until this year, he had not hit more than 13 homers and never reached the 90 RBI mark.

The team itself is once again making a late season push to win their division. They've won 11 out of their last 12 games and are only 2 games behind the Tigers for the division lead with a 4 game series in Detroit next week. Even though they have stayed pretty much within a few games above or below the 0.500 mark this year, they still have a chance to make the playoffs.

The Tigers are probably a "better" team than the Twins. Even if the Twins beat them for the division title, they're likely to get beat in the first round by the Yankees or the Angels in the playoffs. But the fact that they're there, again, is truly amazing to me.

This is a team I can support and I hope my boy grows up rooting for them as well, maybe even be part of the Twins Kids thing, whatever that is. Go Twins!