The WGOM

It took me 5 months and 25 days to give myself completely to the Minnesota Twins this year. In August, during a game log I wrote

How do you describe this season to someone who is not a Twins fan? Before this season started the pundits decreed "A rebuilding year for the Twins!" and I think it fair to say that we were all resigned to that fate—well, at least I was. We traded Johan, Bartlett, and Garza. Torii and Silva left with massive free agent deals to take up residency on the West Coast. Sure, we had a couple of young kids in Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez coming back in return, but with them both in their age 22 season we weren't expecting the world. All we knew about Gomez was that the kid was fast, and the only things we knew about Delmon were that he was the number 1 pick in the 2003 draft and that he was once suspended 50 games for chucking a baseball bat at an umpire. At best, we were cautiously optimistic about the upcoming season.

The season started off well enough, Gomez went 2-3 with 2 stolen bases and a double, Delmon Young went 2-4 with a stolen base, too. Hell, even Mike Lamb and Livan Hernandez had good games. ESPN went as far as to compare Hernandez to Johan, and Mike Lamb was intentionally walked! As if to wrap the whole thing up in a big red bow, the game ended with Nathan striking out Hunter. The new acquisitions were all playing well and I think that we all silently thought to ourselves, "Hey, maybe this team isn't so bad after all! If we keep this up, who knows, maybe we can claw our way through the season and be respectable? Maybe even finish .500?” Naturally, the Angles went on to win the next three games and Gomez and Young went a combined 50 for 200 over the next month. Granted, batting average isn't the best tool to measure success but if I listed their OBP's it would have been even more dreadful. Okay, their OBP was .276. After the first month our record was 13-14. That seemed about right, we were a .500 team. Fair enough, I can take that in a season after losing "FOTF" and Johan.

May came and went leaving us with a record of 28-27. Another month gone by and we were still hovering around a .500 record. It exceeded the expatiations of many but truth be told, it got some of us believing. Some of us had even started thinking, "You know, the Tigers aren't playing so well right now. As a matter of fact, neither are the Indians. Who knows, maybe with a couple of breaks this year we might even finish in second? That will show the Steve Phillips' of the world to doubt us." Even Gomez was starting to step it up a little bit. After a sweep of the Royals, his OPS was at its highest point in a month and a half. Hell, he had even hit for the cycle on May 7th, maybe the kid was starting to figure it out. Even Livan was contributing with a 6-2 record. Sure, xFIP far exceed his ERA and he was bound for a come down to earth, but who cared? We were 28-27 and the end of May. Put that in your pipe and smoke it baseballprognosticators!

June started slowly enough, after a sweep from the White Sox where our hometown nine were outscored 30-15, many Twins fans began to write the season off. You could practically hear the talk at the bars on First Avenue, “It was nice while it lasted." "Who knows, the kids looked alright this year, maybe next year we will close out the Metrodome with a playoff run!" "Hey, at least this way we will be able to trade Hernandez to a contender and maybe get something!”

Then inter-league baseball happened.

The Twins went 14-4 to end the month and suddenly they had a record of 45-38. I remember talking to my girlfriend around this time and telling her how it was starting to happen. She didn't understand what I was talking about at first. I told her that this Twins team was really starting to make me care. She laughed it off and called me a weirdo; I told her that I didn't think she got it.

At that time the Twins were a half a game ahead of the White Sox for the division lead. Over the next month and a half the Sox and Twins exchanged the lead a handful of times leading up to the series last week, where the Twins were 2.5 games back with three games upcoming in the Metrodome. As you may or may not know the Twins rolled off three consecutive victories, highlighted by a 7-6 extra innings come back win to sweep the White Sox.

I was hooked. This was a team that I was in love with.

You see, baseball is a completely unique in the fact that a season lasts 162 games. Over that time you can really fall in love with a team. It is not like football where you can forget something like when Derick Holmes lead the Bills in rushing one season. It isn't like hockey where the day in and day out success of your team depends on your goalie. It isn't like basketball where one player can carry a team for the season. When you watch a team day in and day out for 6 months you know everything about a team. You know the favorite band of your third basemen. You know that your center fielder will swing at any off speed pitch down and away. You know that your coach will time and time again choose the wrong reliever to go to before he even does it.

Baseball is a commitment like no other sport. The average adult baseball fan spends more time watching their favorite team than with their family during a season. I couldn't tell you if my mother was using a new brand of toothpaste but you had better bet your ass I would know if Joe Mauer was. It is just the nature of the beast. 162 games is a long time.

That is why this hurts so much. For 158 games I was guarded about this team. I knew that they were over preforming, no matter what their Pythagorean record said. I knew that this team could not sustain their batting average with runners in scoring position. But after last Thursday night none of that mattered to me. This 2008 Minnesota Twins were family to me. My girlfriend would come over and watch the games with me. She knew Morneau, Nathan, Blackburn, and Mauer. This past week she realized that this team mattered to me more than work, more than friends, hell, more than the Buffalo Bills. It was a pennant race goddammit. She dutifully gave me space and would call me each night to ask me how the Twins were doing.

I think that was the hardest part about tonight. When I called her and she answered. She heard the tone of my voice and immediately said that she was sorry.

Baseball isn't like football. When your baseball team loses its chance to go to the playoffs in a play in game against your most hated team it is almost like a friend dying. No more game logs on the WGOM. No more reading 10 different Twins sites daily to soak up every single last bit of information about your favorite team. No more nights of sitting by myself watching mlb tv, chain smoking cigarettes with a beer in hand and screaming at my computer while cursing Nick Punto for his inability to properly bunt.

I will miss it. I will miss it more than I can even admit. Baseball can be the greatest thing in the world, when your team is winning. But let me tell you, nothing, absolutely nothing, hurts more than watching your favorite team lose a one game playoff to your most hated team.

Thank you for indulging me and reading this. I know that this is a little all over the place but I had to get it out somewhere. A friend came over for the game tonight and I sat here silently for 10 minutes after the game ended. He gets it, he is a Pirates fan. Sometimes I envy Yankees and Red Sox fans. They get to feel good almost every year. I will tell you this though, when it happens for the Twins, oh boy, I will feel all 26 Yankees World Series Championships rolled into one. I will not take it for granted. I will enjoy every second of it.

I am encouraged for next season, there is no question about it, but I will tell you what, this stings. This stings bad.