A Patriots fan famously pranked us a few years ago, when an online search for the owner of the Jets yielded a picture of Tom Brady.
Perhaps a similar search for Minnesota Twins ownership would produce a Yankees logo.
It would be easy to dismiss the Twins as a low-budget team from a low-key tundra in the upper midwest, sans the cash to compete with the big boys of baseball. Except they are darn good, clubbed 307 homers this year and are hardly strangers to October's stage. And they compete quite heartily against just about everyone … except the Damn Yankees.
So naturally, the Yanks and Twins are facing each other Friday night in Game 1 of their AL Division Series, at Yankee Stadium, which has doubled as a mausoleum for Minnesota so many times this century. While the old stadium housed all the ghosts, the new one has been equally horrific for the team from the Twin Cities.
Since 2003, the Twins are an astounding 37-94 against the Yankees, by far their worst record against any team (with at least 50 games played). The Twins have won between 40% and 55% of the time against other AL clubs, but win just 28.2% of their games against the Bronx Bombers. (Naturally, the Twins were 2-4 against the Yankees this season.)
Minnesota also has lost 13 straight playoff games, 16 of 18 overall, and hasn't won a playoff series since 2002. The Twins have qualified for the postseason six times since then, and have been bounced by the Yanks from five of them. Their postseason plunges include series losses to the Yankees in 2003, '04, '09 and '10 and the 2017 wild-card game. For good measure, the Yankees also won the last MLB game played in the Metrodome, in '09.
Speaking of 2009, that was the last year the Yankees won a World Series. So they need to win it this year to keep the 1980s as the only calendar decade in which they haven't won a Fall Classic since they bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox in 1919. This is a problem the Twins would love to have, since they have two World Series wins since 1901, when they were spawned as the Washington Senators. The Yankees, of course, are pining for their 28th world title.
These Yanks aren't so celebrated for their front-running, ogre-style stomp through the sport. They aren't swathed in household names nor the single-digit jerseys that lather their personal museum, Monument Park. Instead of Ruth or DiMaggio or Mantle or Rivera, these Yanks are more blue-collar grit than black-tie aristocracy.
We didn't enter the season drooling over the prospects of Mike Ford or Mike Tauchman or Cameron Maybin or Gio Urshela, yet the club's conveyer belt of sterling subs kept them a country mile ahead of the AL East. Indeed, Giancarlo Stanton is the only player who hints at their Evil Empire days. Yet the former NL MVP is almost an afterthought entering these playoffs, playing only 18 games this season while swatting just three of the club's 306 home runs.
These Bombers are as close to a feel-good story as we've had from this baseball behemoth since the 1996 squad ended its longest title drought with a storybook comeback against the favored Atlanta Braves. Rather than pummel you with legendary names, stats and bats, they hound and pound you in waves, with 14 players who hit at least 10 homers, the most in MLB history.
These Yanks are the emblem of the emblem. The Yankees never needed names stitched on the back of their jerseys because the front said it all. These Yanks don't need names on the backs of their jerseys because they play for each other, not themselves. These Yanks come as close to anonymity as you can get for a team so renowned for money and mythology, that calls its home park the cathedral of baseball.
No matter how they got here, there's no denying that there's a certain symmetry to seeing them here. The Yankees are as much of our pastime as hot dogs, Cracker Jacks and subway cars. And as if to set the mood, the baseball lords even changed the thermostat on us. In literally one night, New York City went from sweltering summer weather to a dank day fit for long sleeves and brown leaves.
And unlike 2017 and 2018, when they were just happy to be in the playoffs, the 2019 Yankees are here to win the whole thing. If they are to reach their ancestral perch atop the sport, it feels familiar, if not fitting, that the Twins are the first rung on that ladder.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel.
