25 Years Ago

Willie McGee hits a little bouncer down to Gaetti, there's the throw to Hrbek ... and the Twins are world champions! The Twins are world champions! - Herb Carneal, Minnesota Twins play-by-play man

Image: Minnesota Twins

I didn't hear that call. I was watching it on TV, and then I opened a Mickey's Big Mouth and lit a victory cigar in the Phi Delt lounge in Ripon, WI.

The day before we had been at Game 6, where the Twins evened up the series in dominating fashion and included the loudest sound I still may have experienced following Kent Hrbek's screaming shot grand slam to center field.

After the game, standing on the curb outside the stadium, the whole town was buzzing, and then we saw it, the sign that we had seen earlier in the post-season on TV, "Is this gread, or what?" Now the owner of the sign was hanging it out of a car that was circling the dome. Yes! That sign summed it all up.

It had been more than 30 years since the Twin Cities had had a professional sports title with the Lakers. The Twins had lost the World Series before I was born. I did remember the Vikings' 4 Super Bowl losses and a North Stars' Stanley Cup loss. Heck, the Kicks had even lost the NASL final. Throw in Humphrey's and Mondale's losses in the presidential elections, and you can see why people used to talk openly about the Twin Cities being a second place town. The only thing that might have gotten the metro area through the 70's was the hockey Gophers.

But not that night. The feeling I still remember: "Is this great, or what?"