It's a sound I've rarely heard in more than sixty years attending sporting events.
Did you hear it, too?
The sound I'm referring to came in the closing stages of the 2023 AL Wild Card Series opener between the Toronto Blue Jays from the powerful American League East against those pesky Minnesota Twins, champions of the weak AL Central and the team that never wins in October
Here it is, a short and sweet audio-only soundbite, surrounded by ad content (and please, patronize our sponsors):
With two outs, a runner on, tying run at the plate, and everyone at Target Field on their feet, there's a noticeable hush an instant before the pop of George Springer's potent bat getting a piece of Jhoan Duran's crackling 101-mile per hour four-seam fast ball.
The crowd gets loud when Donavan Solano makes a diving stop.
That's me with the audible "oh!"... it was that good of a snag.
Then a collective gasp before that rare sound I was fortunate enough to hear from my spot in the Herb Carneal press box.
Did you hear it?
Twins fans always let out a cheer when their favorite team wins.
This collective shout was not just celebration... it was a deep-throated explosion of relief.
I'd go back and listen again if I were you.
"I can say the majority of us have not been part of that unfortunate streak, but I know our fans have," said winning pitcher Pablo Lopez, whose postseason performance made people (somewhat) forget about trading Luis Arraez. "Our fans, the community, the state of Minnesota have been part of that."
It was relief that released the anguish of disappointment that mounted game after game in the baseball playoffs for the Twins.
"Ohhhhhh, yes, very glad (it's over)" said Dale Teal, exhausted but managing to mill around the club level to milk all the joy he could from the win. "Incredible. Highly time. It was awesome to see it."
Ted Skillings does remember winning in the playoffs before, when he was a little kid.
"I've been waiting for this for a long time," he said. "I'm 30 years old, it's good to see them get a win again. The atmosphere was great, we were supporting our players from the first pitch up until the last."
And in between, Twins fans didn't have to endure those mind-boggling moments that defined that dark streak.
This time, Phil Cuzzi wasn't going to call Joe Mauer's line-drive foul.
Juan Rincon wasn't going give up a homer to Ruben Sierra.
Torii Hunter wasn't going to come up empty diving for a sinking liner.
Instead, Carlos Correa made plays for us instead of against us (the 4th-inning barehanded pickup and throw that nails Bo Bicchette at the plate... does that happen for the Twins in the playoffs?).
The lead held up.
And nevermore will you hear "The Twins are awful and will never win because they have longest postseason losing streak in North American Sports History," as if the current team's fate was somehow predestined because the Twins stranded five runners in the last three innings of a 6-4 loss in New York in 2010.
"A lot of people don't believe it, that we can win another game in the playoffs," said baseball Hall of Famer Tony Oliva, who was on teams that six straight postseason games over three different seasons. "But we have a nice group of people."
That nice group also won the next day, polishing off the Blue Jays to advance in the post-season since the 2002 team squeaked past the Moneyball Oakland Athletics and then won the opener of the ALCS over the soon-to-be world champion Anaheim Angels.
The Twins and their fans gave the impression that they weren't satisfied, and looked the part with a split of games one and two in the ALCS in Houston.
Home field advantage in hand, fans were dreaming of watching two more wins, or even seeing a split with Lopez going in the series-deciding game five against an Astros team that just wasn't comfortable in front of their fans (we found that out later in the playoffs).
The disappointment this time wasn't as consuming as in the past.
And it all pivoted in that split-second of released exasperation, which many wiped away that gloom of the late summer and early fall, when postseason baseball and the Twins are in the same sentence.
WCCO's Al Schoch has been attending sporting events since his parents dragged him and his sister to high school football games in the 1950's. He began covering the Twins after the baseball strike of 1994-95 ended.