I don’t have a lot to put into this because my son is wandering around somewhere tonight I don’t know where and it’s going down to 22 degrees tonight. Somewhere in the back of his thinking he knows that if he comes here or just lets me know where he is that I will help him. But I know that he will not. It may turn out that the 2019 Twins turn out to be for me the team and year that mean the most to me, whether they do well or not, because that will be the year that I need it the most.
For now that team and year is the 1991 Twins. 1991 was a hard year for me. One night in August I got into my old beater to drive home from my second job. The Twins game was in the 7th inning. The Twins were behind. Bases loaded. Hrbek was hitting against a rookie reliever. Rookie couldn’t command his breaking stuff and the count went to 3-1. You knew that rookie was gonna have to come in with a fastball. I thought Herbie gonna go yard. Herbie went yard. I drove home and got up early the next morning to go to the first job.
Your turn.
Fan Interference 
1992 Jays without a doubt.
I had been stationed in Germany for 4 years at that point and was missing baseball immensely. Three years earlier my squadron had headed back to Canada in mid-October for a week-long fighter jet exercise and I was looking forward to catching as much of the World Series as possible. We were all gathered in the NCO’s club, beer in hand, waiting for the start of game 3, then the Loma Prieta earthquake hit Oakland and SF, and you all know the rest. By the time the series resumed, we were back in Deutschland, missing baseball again.
Then 1992 happened and the Jays made it to the World Series for the first time. I seriously considered taking a couple of weeks leave and flying home to watch the series, but then a friend discovered that Sky Sports was going to air the entire World Series… live… meaning games were starting at about midnight Germany time. I didn’t have a TV at the time but he did, and as luck would have it, I was working evenings during the whole series.
So for the entire 1992 World Series, my routine was to work until 11:00 pm, then head for my friend’s apartment to watch the game. He and his wife didn’t want to watch so I would quietly (sometimes damn near impossible) watch the game, let myself out at 3 or 4 in the morning without waking them, head home for a few hours sleep and be at work by 3:00 pm. Needless to say I wasn’t very quiet at the conclusion of Game 6.
By the time the 1993 season started, I was stationed back in Canada and got to watch the Jays’ season from start to finish… John Olerud’s chase for .400, Olerud/Molitor/Alomar going 1-2-3 in batting average, that crazy 15-14 WS game in Philly and finally the Joe Carter home run.
But it didn’t top the previous year, when I broke a 4 year baseball drought by watching my team win their first title.
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Yeah. And I remember there was at least one Minnesota boy that had something to do with that, cousin.
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There were Minnesota boys who figured prominently in both Series, Happy!!
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Before last year it was the 1986 Astros. Not a lot of hit, super defense and speed, spectacular pitching (Mike Scott, Nolan Ryan, Jim Deshaies, Danny Darwin). I was there on September 25th when Mike Scott pitched a no-hitter against SF to wrap up the NL West.
They finished 96-66 and lost the epic six game series to that notorious drug cartel that called itself the 1986 New York Mets.
Not that I carry a grudge.
And I know the phrase has been much cheapened lately, Happy, but I will give some thoughts and prayers to you and your son.
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That was a truly great series (NLCS). And I only saw part of it on department store TVs.
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Great topic Happy and I ache for your situation.
I’m guessing everyone will pick a year their team won it all. 1968 was a historic year for the Tigers coming back from 3 -1 down to win, but I wasn’t quite old enough to appreciate it. Most Tiger fans my age would pick the 1984 Tigers with the historic 35 – 5 start then winning the Series, highlighted by Gibson’s HR off Gossage. But my favorite is the 2006 Tigers because they came out of nowhere to win the AL after being absolute trash for a long time. The key thing for me was my son was just old enough to start playing and enjoying baseball.
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The 1968 Tigers were my runner up.
Denny McClain for president!
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And Mickey Lolich for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness
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How about Denny for the President’s Council on teamwork and fair play?
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I don’t think I have a team that means the most to me, but Castellanos being named Tiger of the Year certainly caps off one that’s if not my least favored, pretty damn close.
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If they had DKB on the team I’m sure it would be your least favored by a country mile.
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Awww, I just ate. 🤢
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2003 Feesh. To say it’s been all downhill after that….
I’m in Nyorc through Sunday morning. Violated my culinary protocols yesterday for lunch at Ben’s Lon Gisland deli with a slice of stuffed derma sopped with brown gravy and a hot pastrami and chopped liver with cole slaw and thousand island on rye – without dripping one single drop on my shirt. I must be getting old.
Meanwhile, I can feel that unnatural meteorological malaise called weenter slowly closings its jaws on Feesh-shaped Paumanok. The hair on the local elephants is getting longer and longer. I’m gonna get my business done and head back to my palm trees and swimming pool with utter dispatch.
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It was an amazing series and an amazing year. Sadly we got trounced by the Royals in the next round, but it was really great to have a good team worth rooting for, for the first time in a very long time. Sadly it’s going to be a longer time before we get to see this again. But we will always have Detroit 2014.
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The only team to beat a Beautiful Brad managed club in the playoffs.
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I just hate to conform to someone’s prediction, but I guess it would indeed be the year the Angels won their only title: 2002. As a lifelong Angels fan I had drifted slowly away from them (having left SoCal geographically as well), and had become a general fan who tended to root for whichever upstart underdog team each year. (Which I still do.) But in ’02, I was situated such that I had access to Angels broadcasts and found myself tuning in occasionally late in games during mid-season. I soon realized that they were very often coming back and winning late—very late. They had “oots,” chemistry, the it factor: the thing no team ever carries over into the next year. David Eckstein hit grand slams in consecutive games. And that train couldn’t be stopped, not even by Big Head Barry and company. To top it off, game six hero Scott Spiezio was the son of my second-favorite player as a kid, Ed Spiezio. It just all came together that year.
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Don’t forget your 2002 World Series MVP…
https://goo.gl/images/6eGHAQ
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Of course! Silly me, I was expecting to see a pic of Troy Glaus. Actually without K-Rod they wouldn’t have won either. Again, it just all came together.
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