So Long Spidey

On the eve of one of America's treasured days I learned that Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins has signed with the Angels for 5 years and $90M. With a bit of perspective on the world around us (you know, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse galloping around the globe) this event is about as important as which shoes I am going to wear today. With Death, Pestilence and the gang aside and memories of Brunansky, Gladden, Hrbek, Kirby (f'ing Kirby in Game 6!), Viola, Gaetti, Reardon and the only team that has brought my generation any sort of national sports title, I am totally pissed.

I was always a believer in the Twins. My heart had been broken by the Vikings but the Twins never really betrayed me. '87 and '91 are parts of my teenage identity; they are seminal parts of all my friends teenage years; they are the memories shared with strangers in bars in Chicago or New York or LA who also happen to have been in downtown Minneapolis in '91 running through the streets celebrating local-boy-made-hero Jack Morris . The Twins had always come through. I loved them. Even as the team struggled throughout the 1990's, the Twins got a free pass. Yeah, I bitched that we won 53 games in 1994 but Tom Kelly had started to reach Bud Grant territory in Minnesotan sports mythology with those two rings. Even during the off season following 2001 when the Twins were offered up for contraction by owner Carl Pohlad (insert "Scrooge McDuck" joke here) I was dismayed and my friends were all concerned but I knew it would all work out, it had to. On cue it did work out and the Twins went on to the ALCS that year winning 94 games (the most since '91; yes it felt like magic.) They quickly healed the hearts of millions gashed by Pohlad's breach of the public trust. Now there was a nucleus of talent that had gone from 63 wins in 1999, to 69 wins in 2000, to 85 wins in 2001 and it was goooooood.

Even though the Twins became the proverbial bridesmaid over the next 5 years only receiving the 'Participation Ribbon' of 3 AL Central titles, they did have a ridiculous run to 96 wins in 2006 and captured the triple crown of having the MVP, Batting Champ, and Cy Young on the same team at the same time. All the while during this Twins Renaissance, one of the few mainstays with superstar talent and a connection with every fan was Torii Hunter. Starting in 1999 Torii was the constant presence in center field. As Twins fans we didn't get the second coming of Kirby Puckett, we got an original model in Torii. And we loved him as much as we loved Kirby. He made the Twins legit. He was a highlight reel that exemplified Twins small-ball ways. He was a community guy and a locker room guy. He was hilarious. He was Spiderman.

With Torii leading the way it felt like the Twins had arrived again. Like they had a sustained run in them. To make it all even rosier was the fact that they were getting a new stadium. While they had somehow always excelled at jettisoning talent because of salary issues (Knoblauch, breaking up "The Soul Patrol", AJ ) they didn't need to do that anymore, "new stadium" and "spend money on talent" were being used in the same sentence. It couldn't have come at a better time too with contracts of our stars coming up; time to put the Pohlad money where the Pohlad mouth was. Every Twins fan with a sense of what this team really means to Minnesota thought Torii should be/would be rewarded after his best season in a Twins uniform. It was the right thing to do to make him the starting center field in 2010 when an entire generation will watch their first outdoor professional baseball game in Minnesota. But that's not going to happen now. And, by the looks of it, the Twins are probably going to lose Johan Santana too. In the past the Twins made things like this work out but it feels different this time, more sour, like darker days are ahead if this is how an adopted son from Arkansas is going to be treated. No wonder Terry Ryan stepped aside awkwardly at the end of 2006; I wouldn't have wanted to be the one to sit across the table from Torii and tell him it was 'time to move on' either.