AL Central Champs!!

I think I can probably be officially taken off the “injury list” for flag football, as the finger’s back to 90 or 95% and I’m able to practice piano just fine without pain. At church yesterday Blair gave me sheet music for the six songs I’ll be playing with the worship band next Sunday, so I went to work right away yesterday evening and tonight. I’ve put in well over three hours so far, and I’d say they’re all starting to come along, which is an encouraging sign since I have less than a week to learn them. I’ll be playing at both the 9:00 and 10:30am services on Sunday morning, so if I screw up in the first service I’ll get another chance at redemption during the second one. 🙂 If it goes well I’ll volunteer my services at the keyboard a few Sundays here and there, both simply to serve and to utilize the talents God has given me.
After getting back from Damon’s yesterday, where I’d gone to watch the Vikings-Bills game with Shannon & Ken, I tuned in to the last couple innings of the Twins’ regular season finale against the White Sox, which the Twins won 5-1. The sellout crowd stuck around in the Metrodome after the game though, because the end of the Tigers-Royals game was being aired on the Jumbotron; the Twins radio broadcast stuck around and described the action on the screen and the reactions of the crowd to every pitch. It was pretty exciting, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mlb.com GameCast of it as well. Finally in the 12th inning the Royals pulled through and completed their comeback from a 6-0 deficit to win 10-8, enabling the Twins to win the AL Central division title, their fourth in the last five years!! It’s been a long road back, at one point being 12 1/2 games behind Detroit, but the Twins became the first team in major league history to take sole possession of a division or league lead for the very first time on the last day of the season. But hey, it’s where you’re at at the end that counts, and that’s why they play all the games. Frame had previously all but pledged to cheer for the Twins in the playoffs (unless they’re playing the Tigers of course), but he was still rather bitter today about his team choking and losing the division title, so we’ll see if he comes around tomorrow. 🙂
The first game of the playoffs is tomorrow at 1pm, and you can bet that Jacob & I will be taking a chunk of the afternoon off to head down to the Sports Cafe to watch Johan Santana take on Barry Zito. GO TWINS!! And then in the evening, you can bet I’ll be cheering for the Tigers against the hated Yankees. I loathe the Yankees more than any other sports team, no question. I’m just glad that we don’t have to face them in the first round, thank you Detroit!
An extra result of the Twins winning the Central and having dome-field advantage for the first round of the playoffs is that the Penn State-Minnesota football game will take place as originally scheduled this Saturday. If the Twins had won the Wild Card the game would’ve been moved all the way back to November 25th. It would’ve been nice to have an extra week to prepare for hated Michigan, but I think PSU will benefit more from playing Minnesota this week, to give Morelli and the other young guys a little more game experience before being thrown into the prime time, national TV meat grinder against the Stink Bears. Even though I don’t have a ticket (and won’t get one, they’re going for tons of money), I’m really looking forward to the Michigan weekend, it’s gonna be crazy here in Happy Valley!
There’s more that happened the last few days, but I’m feeling lazy. And tired. Once again:
GO TWINS!!!!!