The late A. Bartlett Giamatti once wrote of baseball: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."
Those chill rains came too early this year for Twins fans, and while last year's loss to the Yankees hurt, this one will fester. New York was ripe for the picking, but bad pitch selection, sloppy baserunning and defensive breakdowns left Minnesota fans wondering what might have been.
You don't throw sliders to an aging Ruben Sierra. You don't throw sliders to Miguel Cairo, walking him in front of Derek Jeter. You don't try to stretch doubles into triples when you're down by four runs. You don't throw to the cutoff man when the winning run is scoring from third on a sac fly. You don't keep a .300 hitter on the bench in favor of a guy who, six weeks ago, was playing double-A ball.
But, then again, if you're a White Sox fan, you don't have a reason to watch the playoffs.
It was a great ride while it lasted, Twins.
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Eric Atherton
eatherton@postbulletin.com
