And after his two run shot to take the lead in the 7th, one could have doubtlessly heard the crowd’s eruption after Kirby Puckett’s Game 6 homerun.

And as Alexi Casilla came to the plate in the bottom of the 12th, the phantom of Gene Larkin revisited the hallowed ground, as the ball reached the outfield and the winning runner sunk into a sea of white pinstripes.

The ghosts of Metrodome past came out for one last night. One spectacular night. And strutted their stuff one final time.

The biggest night of baseball this year was a heavyweight fight. With critical moment after critical moment, match-point after match-point, and epic out after epic out; this game was everything everyone wanted out of a game 163. But where to begin? Simply a 20-year old rookie pitcher’s gutsy start, lasting well into the 6th inning, giving up a mere one ER, should suffice as a quality storyline. And if that’s not enough, maybe we can throw in a tiebreaking late inning homerun by a player acquired at the trade dealine, who simply wanted to get be a part of a winning team? And if that doesn’t quite do it, lets set a stage with runners on the corners, no outs, top of the ninth, and strike out a guy who K’s once every four games a second time in the evening – and then double up a guy who’s hit over .500 in his last 12 games on a line out.

And that’s the ballgame. Right? Is that not enough?

Is having a guy who has had 17 career hits and a lifetime .217 average step to the plate in extra innings and deliver a huge 10th inning hit for a team seeing their title hopes slip away believable? Is then following that up with having a guy, just as unlikely as the last, step up in the bottom of that same inning to send in the tying run on a single hit through a hole you couldn’t throw a ball through realistic?

That should do. Wait, it’s only 8:30 central time – we’re not ready to turn our television sets off yet.  Let’s keep this game going.

Lets have a relief pitcher who’s ERA approached 6.00…in the minor leagues…take the mound, with bases-loaded, full count, and strike out a guy who swung on a pitch that fell out of the zone. And then lets have an outfielder, exiled from his leadoff role and starting position at the same time last season, get on base with a leadoff single into left field. If that’s not enough, finally, we’ll close this game out with a promising guy who has had a terrible year by every barometer, who’s been destined to the bench indefinitely, who’s been up and down the farm system all year, come in and deliver a game winning single into right field, erupting a record crowd into euphoria.

That’s it.

You can shut your televisions off now. But I won’t blame you if you keep watching post-game in shock.

But it was much more than the game deciding plays. It was a storyline from the start. It was a patented ‘never-say-die” Twins team on a tear after losing their 2006 AL MVP, their starting third basemen, and their top pitcher during the season to injury: not to mention a complete collapse of their opening day starting rotation. It was a Tigers team, trying to rally a city attempting to recover from a collapse of their own, hoping desperately that they could avoid an epic fall from the top of the standings after holding onto it for the past five full months.

It was the small battles within the war that set the stage. It was Cuddyer’s triple that setup the bottom of the 10th due in great part to the failed effort of an outfielder trying to make a play on the ball. It was Nick Punto fouling off his 4th straight foul-ball en-route to a walk before Cabrera’s two run homerun. It Justin Morneau tirelessly cheering from the bench as he’s done all month and it was Orlando Cabrera showing us the reason he came to Minnesota was to win. It was Ron Gardenhire revealing his rare in-game emotion, it was Jesse Crain finding his stuff at the perfect time, and it was a record crowd erupting – refusing to let their temple of baseball go quietly into the night.

Many will say this was the best baseball game played this season, perhaps one of the best baseball games played ever. The test of time will tell as rarely do games even of this magnitude hold memory if a championship does not ensue, however, the comparisons are irrelevant. What the Twins and their fans did was something special, something that takes more than money, but character. Perhaps it will be a moment that may be forgotten in time by the public, but will be remembered in the hearts of the fans of Minnesota for ages. It was a great moment, a spectacular moment, and that as fans is all we can hope for.

C – Joe Mauer – $10.5MM

1B – Justin Morneau – $10.6MM

2B – Alexi Casilla – $450K

3B – Brendan Harris/Brian Buscher – $450K

SS – Nick Punto – 4.25M

LF – Delmon Young – $700K

CF – Denard Span – $400K

RF – Michael Cuddyer – $6.75MM

DH – Jason Kubel – $1.3MM+

SP – Scott Baker – $423K

SP – Francisco Liriano – $400K

SP – Kevin Slowey – $400K

SP – Nick Blackburn – $400K

SP – Glen Perkins – $400K

RP – Joe Nathan – $11.25MM

RP – Jesse Crain – $1.7MM

RP – Matt Guerrier – $950K+

RP – Pat Neshek – $435K

RP – Boof Bonser – $433K

RP – Craig Breslow – $400K

RP – Jose Mijares – $400K

Bench – C – Mike Redmond – 950K

Bench – 3B – Brendan Harris/Brian Buscher – $450K

Bench – IF – Matt Tolbert – $400K

Bench – OF – Carlos Gomez – $400K

Others on Payroll: Mike Lamb – $3MM

That’s a full 25 man roster tallying to a cool $58.2 million dollars.

In 2007 before we let go of Hunter, Santana and Silva’s contracts, our team salary was at $71.4 million dollars, quite a bit higher than the 58.2 million we stand at now. It would appear as if we should have room to spend and that our team payroll could be anywhere from $70–80 million if management decided to spend at previous years’ numbers plus increase, leaving $12-22 million dollars of unspent payroll.

So what would our options be?

1. Trade for Adrian Beltre at 3B – Should be at a price $12 million next year and players (possibly a mix of Cuddyer/Perkins/Prospect)? Beltre added the Twins to his no-trade clause list most likely by recommendation of his agent Scott Boras in order to have bargaining chips down the road (i.e. compensation for waiving his no trade clause).

2. Sign Ty Wigginton at 3B – Expect $6-8 million/yr and 3 years plus based on Ty wanting a bigger contract than Casey Blake’s 3 year $17.5 million dollar deal to the Dodgers. Talks seem to have come to a halt in December and the Indians have shown interest.

3. Sign Joe Crede at 3B – Could go anywhere from $2-6 million based on his health and where the market for him is at in a month. The Giants seem to think he’s healthy enough to start pursuing. Should only be a one year deal.

4. Trade for Garrett Atkins at 3B – Salary in the $5 million dollar per year range. Rockies are asking quite a bit for him though (Slowey + Prospects).

So it looks like after the Blake and DeRosa talks fell through we’ve run a little thin on options. Unless we take a good stab at Ty Wigginton and give him a 3^rd year, I believe we’ll be looking at another year of the Harris/Buscher platoon. Joe Crede’s another option that I think is viable, we just haven’t heard much about it from the Twins camp and depending on his health he probably wouldn’t be much of an impact. The Garrett Atkins deal just asks way too much from the Twins (no way the Twins give up Slowey for just about anyone at this point).

The Adrian Beltre option, if it went down as described, is preferred but would be a one year rental (plus this means having Scott Boras around which is certainly not something the Twins want to have on their plate). Grabbing Adrian Beltre though, even in a rental situation, makes this team incredibly dangerous and may be this team’s hope for a World Series run. Unfortunately, Seattle probably wants more than described above and are rumored to be unreasonable in the negotiations around a Beltre deal.

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Guys I would be looking to deal:

Cuddyer – Big contract and we’re overstocked in the outfield.

Punto – Poor production and unfortunately a new big contract.

Perkins – The weakest of our young starting pitching staff. We have a lot of talent in the minors.

Kubel – If the price was right.

Harris/Buscher – If anybody wanted them in a package and we got a 3B in return.

Guys I would NOT be looking to deal:

Liriano/Slowey/Baker/Blackburn – All young cheap studs. Very underrated pitching staff. Many would argue Blackburn is in the “deal” mix if the price was right, but his performance in the play-in game was stellar. When October rolls around this guy will come to play.

Gomez/Young/Span – This is the future of our outfield. Young and loaded with talent.

Mauer/Morneau – For obvious reasons.

Casilla – Young, talented, fast, and versatile with a decent bat. Can’t look for much more out of a guy playing 2^nd base these days.

Speaking of Nick Punto’s new contract: Since when have the Twins overspent on somebody this much? A guy that hit .284 with 2 dingers last year (not to mention a .210 batting average the year before with nearly 500 AB’s!) can not be worth over 4 million a year. Now that the Cubs have signed a similar player in Aaron Miles to a deal half that of Punto’s (Miles has slightly more attractive stats including a .317 average last season) some Twins fans, including myself, have found themselves a little perplexed. Why would we give Punto such a big contract? Maybe he’s just that much of a “gamer” and has too much defensive ability to deny. Maybe he’s just simply that integral to our team chemistry. Maybe it’s just that inspiring to the clubhouse that when he actually hits a home run, it rallies our team for months. Maybe the Twins just have that much of an infatuation with him, knowing that we should trade him away, we signed him to a big contract in hopes some other team takes it on after we deal him away (for say J.J. Hardy, fair?) giving Nick some extra cash. Whatever the case, the contract was too big for a guy who it can be debated whether or not should have a starting job in the major leagues. I love the guy as a competitor, but his numbers are killing us. Fun fact: Nick Punto will be making roughly twice that of our entire starting rotation next year.

Another guy that we should hold onto and that’s been in dozens of rumors is Delmon Young. Ron Gardenhire was quoted in December as saying our starting lineup next year would consist of Span, Gomez, and Cuddyer obviously leaving out the former 1^st overall pick Delmon Young. This seemingly opened the door for Young to be dealt and the rumors flew in.

Wait a minute…

Yes he only hit 10 homers and yes he only hit .290 last year. But, the guy did that as a 22 year old in the majors. At 22! It seems like sometimes we drool over prospects that do that in the minors at the same age. I would hope we give him plenty time to develop being that there aren’t many guys in the game with as high of a ceiling as Delmon. He’s the definition of a low risk, high potential type of player that I would think the Twins would love to have. Worst case scenario, he doesn’t pan out and we pull one of our talented guys playing well in the minors up to fill in, but I really think this guy could do us wonders in a few years as long as his attitude problems are kept in check.

I’m certainly hoping that the Gardenhire quote was a ploy to increase Cuddyer’s trade value.

In other AL Central news today:

Former White Sox Outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. could be heading back to the Mariners.

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