Twins Deserve to Party, Miguel Cabrera Does Not

MINNEAPOLIS -- You don't have to be from Minnesota to adore the Twins. So much in baseball is loathable in the 21st century, but on a glorious Tuesday night in a diabolical dome, they showed why they're lovable and worthy of America's collective October heart. Prince? Brett Favre? Garrison Keillor? The Pillsbury Doughboy? As local icons, they're mere sideshows to the astonishing comeback of a ballclub that has one player known to the masses -- the great Joe Mauer -- and a whole lot of crunchers, muckers, grinders, survivors and who-the-heck-are-theys.

"Let me say something," said one of the better muckers, slugger Michael Cuddyer, climbing onto a podium to address his teammates in a rocking, champagne-stained clubhouse. "The game ball today goes to everyone, every single one of you. This was a total team championship, and you all deserve it."

Perfect.

The Twins don't throw megamillions at free agents like the Yankees. They don't feed off a fabled ballpark like the Red Sox. They don't amass a wealth of talent like the Phillies and Angels and they don't flaunt a regal tradition like the Cardinals and Dodgers. All they do, almost every season, is maximize what they do have, accept what they no longer can afford in a smaller market (Johan Santana, Torii Hunter) and follow the shrewd, inspirational, fundamentally solid guidance of manager Ron Gardenhire to another date with autumn.

Only this triumph was their most amazing yet. On Sept. 6, the Twins were seven games behind the first place Detroit Tigers. As recently as last Thursday morning, they were three games behind the Tigers with only four to play. "Every day was Game 7 for us: one loss and we're done," Mauer said. And every day since, they managed to survive the gauntlet, pressuring a Tigers team torn by turmoil and distraction and forcing a division-title tiebreaker in a 163rd game that became a 164th game. On and on they played, in what could have been the final baseball event in the maddeningly quirky Metrodome, but as the teams spilled into a 12th inning and a fifth hour, you sensed there was no way the Twins could lose now after winning 16 of their previous 20 without slugger Justin Morneau, the former American League MVP.

Sure enough, they completed their thrilling mission with a typical ending: Alexi Casilla, hitting .202 and fighting all season to stick in the major leagues, using his monstrous 5-foot-9, 174-pound frame to single in the winning run in a 6-5 victory that kept the Dome open for baseball for at least one more game. In winning their fifth AL Central title in eight years under Gardenhire, the Twins drew a first-round postseason series with the Yankees, who spent $423.5 million on three free agents last winter and finally look capable of their first World Series title since 2000. This would seem to be a classic slaughter waiting for the brooms: The Twins were 0-7 against the Yankees this season, hitting .232 and averaging 3.6 runs a game while the opponents were pummeling them for 5.9 runs a game and a .300 batting average. During Gardenhire's reign, the Twins have lost 23 of 26 regular-season games in the Bronx and are 14-41 overall against the Yankees. I'd compare it to King Kong sweeping Mary Tyler Moore off the Nicollet Mall and squeezing her in his palm.

But isn't that what is so endearing about the Twins? And why we'll watch and root for them to somehow beat the behemoths? "We're not afraid, I can guarantee that," Gardenhire said. They didn't have long to party because Game 1 of the Yankees series was about 20 hours away in a destination that required a three-hour flight. Consider it another screw-up by Major League Baseball, which should have let the Red Sox and Angels start Wednesday instead of Thursday and given the Yankees and Twins the Thursday start.

"We'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow," right fielder Jason Kubel said. "We'll live for this moment right here. This is awesome. We've always been like that -- never quit -- and the way we won was a perfect example. We fell behind a couple of times, but kept coming back. We could have rolled over, but we don't have it in us."

"This is the most unbelievable game I've ever seen or ever played in," said shortstop Orlando Cabrera, whose two-run homer in the seventh gave the Twins a 4-3 lead. "These guys are unbelievable. Not once did I think we were going to lose that game. Not once."

Given the magnitude and the stakes, the game can be considered an all-time classic, quick as we sometimes are to throw such bouquets at chilling sports drama. When it appeared 20-year-old Rick Porcello might pitch the Tigers out of Chokeville, he gave up a run on his throwing error and allowed a solo homer to Kubel in the sixth. Then came Cabrera's shot, which shook the sellout crowd from its nervous slumber and got the famed Homer Hankies going in a swirling whiteout. Magglio Ordonez tied the game for the Tigers at 4-4 with a solo home in the eighth, and in the 10th, the teams traded runs again. They also traded bang-bang plays at home plate, with Casilla thrown out by Detroit left fielder Ryan Raburn to end the 10th -- um, why did the third-base coach send him? -- and Twins second baseman Nick Punto nailing a runner at home in the 12th. In the same inning, the Tigers appeared to take a lead when a pitch grazed Brandon Inge's uniform, as a TV replay showed. But plate umpire Randy Marsh ruled otherwise.

It set up the finish for Casilla, who drove in Carlos Gomez with the winning run. Raucous as the Dome was for Favre's rousing performance the night before in a Vikings victory over rival Green Bay, the din may have been five times louder as the Twins piled atop each other. "The season's not over yet. The Metrodome is still open for business," said catcher Mike Redmond, noting that the big bubble will gave way to Target Field, a much-needed outdoor ballpark opening next April about 12 blocks away. "We did it for these fans. We fed off them."

"I am just amazed at the way this team plays the game," said pitcher Carl Pavano, who was injured and useless in four Yankees season but has revived his lagging career in Minnesota. "It's so intense, the way we live and die through these games. But here we are, and it has been so much fun. We need to soak this up because we worked so hard to get this far. We use everyone on this team. We need everyone."

We can declare now, definitively, that the Tigers did choke. When you become the first team in major league history to blow a three-game lead with four games left, you belong in the Hall of Shame. "No matter what we did, it seems like it wasn't meant to be. This is the best game, by far, that I've ever played in no matter the outcome," Inge said. To a man, the Twins agreed about it being the best game. But they can say that and feel proud. The Tigers will be miserable for months. You feel for most of them, including manager Jim Leyland, but not all of them.

Miguel Cabrera didn't deserve to drink bubbly Tuesday night. He had way too much to drink in the wee hours of last Saturday, when he got home just before dawn with a blood-alcohol content of 0.26, more than three times above the legal driving limit in Michigan. If the quantity of his liquor consumption wasn't staggering enough, Cabrera picked the worst imaginable time as a so-called professional in the second year of an eight-year, $152.3 million contract. On a weekend when the Tigers needed him desperately to clinch a division title, Cabrera got plastered knowing he had a ballgame the next evening. If he wasn't still drunk Saturday night, when he went 0-for-4 and stranded six runners in a 5-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox, then he certainly was very hungover. Who wouldn't be?

Why Leyland played him in the game is beyond me. Perhaps it was to embarrass him, though that wasn't the right time or place. The case only grew uglier over the last three days, when it was revealed by police in the posh Detroit suburb of Birmingham that Cabrera and his wife were involved in an altercation -- with their 4-year-old daughter awake in the house -- that left both with facial scratches. Seems Roseangel Cabrera was upset that he had been out all night, part of the time with White Sox friends at the team's hotel bar in Birmingham. She called 911 at 6:05 AM, and Cabrera was picked up by officers and taken to the police station, where he was very lucky that Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski was allowed to take him home. Cabrera easily could have been asked to sleep off his bender in the drunk tank. Maybe for all parties involved, including the Tigers and their disgusted fans, the cops should have let Cabrera rot there until Sunday.

We can declare now, definitively, that the Tigers did choke. When you become the first team in major league history to blow a three-game lead with four games left, you belong in the Hall of Shame."He was out late, came home and his spouse didn't appreciate that, I guess, and it got into an argument," Birmingham police chief Richard Patterson said. "We are not going to let you drive if a [breathalyzer] determines you're intoxicated. We gave him a ride to the police station and he was picked up by [Dombrowski at 7:30 AM] With a blood-alcohol level like that, he wouldn't be able to drive a car until 2 PM -- and he agreed. We aren't going to turn a guy loose so he can get in the car and hurt somebody."

Before the game Tuesday, Cabrera addressed the situation by his locker. When asked if he was drunk Saturday, he balked. "No, no, no. I was good," he said. "I was focused."

How could that be possible? "I want to focus on the game right now," said Cabrera, who apologized to his teammates for being a distraction. "This is a big game. Hopefully, we play good."

Leyland chided the media for "going for the gossip," not that blowing a 0.26 is gossip as much as pathetic reality. "If you want to talk about today's game, we'll talk about today's game," he said. "If you're talking about anything else, I'm walking right through that door and I'm leaving." So much for an explanation on why he would play Cabrera if there was any chance of his being drunk. And how about the report that Cabrera, at the same Birmingham hotel, recently taunted a 15-year-old boy for being overweight. Um, hasn't Cabrera had weight problems himself? And is it true a witness said Cabrera challenged the teen's friends to a fight at their table and suggested he was carrying a gun?

As Twins fans chanted "al-co-hol-ic!" before his at-bats, Cabrera came out smoking. He doubled to deep center in his first trip, then ripped a two-run homer off Scott Baker in the third to boost Porcello to a 3-0 lead. But as the game went on, it was clear the other Cabrera would have more impact. Not only did Orlando Cabrera hit the two-run homer, he started a sensational double play that ended a late Tigers threat and sprinted off the field like a crazed chicken.

The Good Cabrera is hitting over .400 with 21 runs and 16 RBI since Morneau was injured. The Good Cabrera, though he led all major league shortstops this season in errors, was a sweet July acquisition for the Twins, who gave up a prospect and cash considerations. The Good Cabrera is October gold, having helped the Red Sox to a World Series title in 2004. The best thing that happened to him was getting out of Chicago, where he feuded with White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and once called the press box in an attempt to have errors overturned in his favor. He signed a one-year, $4 million deal with Oakland, then was traded to paradise.

"This is the most fun I've ever had," he said. "I want to be here forever. I want this moment to never end."

Chances are, it will in a few days. Until then, we'll all be drinking the Minnesota bubbly, admiring the Twins Way. This while The Bad Cabrera hopefully looks in the mirror, realizes he let down a devastated city that needs a sports championship more than most -- and maybe gets some help for his problems before it's too late. He celebrated a little too soon, a risk seized by a smarter, worthier and more sober group of champs.