Commentary

Twins win. No, really.

by Kevin Harter

Twins win! Twins win! Twins win!

Indeed. On a wet and windy October night, winter got a little shorter, we won the pennant, and that will help keep me warm through spring training.

And what happened in the week since doesn't change that. We were beaten by a bad call, bad base running and the best team money can currently buy. No matter. In the 163rd game, our boys proved once again that life here is sweet. It may be snowing here, but in Detroit, it's winter.

Sure, the other Central Division cities can mock us for not going to Rose Bowls, not winning Super Bowls or not having what you could call a professional basketball team, but the joke is now on them. We won the pennant.

Minnesotans are nice, and in life we finish first in most everything. We are the healthiest, wealthiest and wisest. We are honest and hardworking, we hold our elected officials to high standards, and, yes, we are -- proudly so -- among the coldest states in the union.

Sure, people tell jokes about us, but more often than not we are the butt of our own. The truth be told, we really aren't that funny, or at least not as funny as Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago or (yawn) Kansas City.

"You know, President Obama flew to Denmark, made his pitch. The international committee voted and Chicago finished dead last. Well, I guess the committee thought Chicago already had enough amateur athletes with the White Sox and Cubs," scoffed Jay Leno.

"President Obama just announced he's considering transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Michigan. The idea is to scare the prisoners into revealing information about terror plots by showing them a bus ticket to Detroit," joked Conan O'Brien.

An elementary school teacher asked her geography class, "Where is Kansas City?" A boy raised his hand. "Last place," he said.

And Cleveland? The river burned, the mayor's hair caught fire, and the city (named for a surveyor who actually spent little time there) has suffered from low self-esteem ever since the great Jim Brown retired.

I lived in Cleveland for 10 years, but I'm not a native, so I didn't take the jokes personally or the losses hard. I did not reel under the scolding delivered by a Cincinnati Bengals coach when Bengals fans misbehaved during a game with the Browns.

"You don't live in Cleveland," he said over the public address system. The shamed fans stopped.

We don't taunt or brag. Sure, we wave hankies in a giant overturned Bundt cake pan on indoor-outdoor carpeting, but we are winners. We act like we have been there before, because we have. And this year we won the pennant.

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Kevin Harter and his wife, Patti, live in the St. Croix Valley. A newspaper reporter and editor for 25 years, including at the Pioneer Press, he is now a university communications director.