Edward Thoma
From the perspective of a Twins fans (most of us), the biggest drawback to Tuesday’s Game 163 was that there was little time to savor the game.
And it was a marvelous game, riddled with turning points, mistakes, breaks, rallies and Houdini pitching escapes.
You know it’s a great game when even players on the losing side call it one of the best they’ve ever been in.
So three days later the Twins lost Game 2 of the division series to the Yankees, and — viewed objectively — there were a lot of parallels between that and Game 163.
Not as many lead changes, but a dramatic ninth-inning comeback. A bases-loaded, nobody-out escape — aided, as in Game 163, by an umpire’s error. Two glaring baserunning blunders, one by each team, one of which cut short a rally, the other costing a run.
It was a truly outstanding game, probably a cut below Tuesday’s on the basis of one less inning and fewer lead changes.
But it’s not one Twins fans are going to recall fondly — no more than Braves fans view either Game 6 or game 7 of 1991, or than Detroit followers will Tuesday’s.
So ranking these gems are all a matter of where one sits.
Still, the question arises: Was Tuesday’s game the greatest game at the Metrodome?
As you may have heard, this was the last season for the Twins in the mutant mushroom.
The Twins spent the season counting down the 100 greatest “moments” in the Dome. No. 1 on the Twins’ list: Game Six of the 1991 World Series. The Puckett Game. No. 2 was the welcome home for the 1987 team after they won the LCS in Detroit; No. 3 was Game 7 of the ’91 Series — The Morris Game.
The Star Tribune also had a list, this of the Top 10. The top three there were the same, but with the Morris Game No. 2 and the welcome home third. The Puckett Game topped their list.
I happened to be at all three contests — lucky me. Which is my choice?
Time dulls some of the memories. What I remember of Game 6 is slightly more than the oft-replayed highlights (Puckett’s catch off Ron Gant; Puckett’s home run off Charlie Liebrandt). I also remember Puckett’s first-inning triple and his stolen base. And I remember being utterly convinced that Scott Erickson had nothing and could not possibly survive as long as he did (six innings, three runs allowed.)
The Twins never trailed in that game, and won it 4-3 in 11 innings.
Not really a seesaw affair. The Braves never got a man into scoring position after tying the game in the seventh inning.
The game gets points for being a showcase for Puckett’s greatness — indeed, it’s possible that, considering the shortness of Kirby’s career, that this game is the difference to the Hall of Fame electorate between Puckett and Tony Oliva.
And, of course, it was a World Series elimination game.
So was Game 7, the famous 1-0 10-inning complete game.
It was, as colleague Brian Ojanpa said last week in a newsroom discussion of the matter, the baseball equivalent of a horror movie that consists of two hours of walking down a dark staircase waiting for the knife to flash.
But unlike Game 6, there were late rallies. Both the Twins and Braves escaped bases-loaded, one-out situations.
The Morris Game is legendary in part because nobody these days even dreams of pitching 10 innings, much less 10 shutout innings in a World Series Game 7.
But I’m fairly certain that I thought more often Tuesday that the game was going to end, one way or the other, than I did during Games 6 and 7 combined.
Best game ever at the Metrodome? I’ll take Tuesday’s tilt.
And I probably wouldn’t with a different outcome.
Edward Thoma is a Free Press staff writer. He is at 344-6377 or at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. He also has a baseball blog at www.mankatofreepress.com/ethomabaseball
