5 p.m. Wednesday: Our favorite Minnesota sports seasons
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Welcome to our Star Tribune sports Virtual Happy Hour. We're going to be drafting our favorite Minnesota sports teams -- any level pro, college or high school -- and tell you why we like them. The first pick will be right around 5 p.m. -- and you can join us by sending your choices to us in the comments.
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Today's draft order:
1. Jeff Day, copy editor2. Michael Rand, basketball editor and senior digital writer3. Pete Steinert, Sunday editor4. Howard Sinker, digital sports editor5. Ken Chia, copy editor6. Randy Johnson, Puck Drop editor7. Casey Common, web editor8. Jerry Zgoda, soccer and golf writer9. Andrew Krammer, Vikings writer -
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The 2009 Twins are my favorite local team of all-time.This season featured Joe Mauer winning the MVP while hitting a ludicrous .365 with 28 home runs and 30 doubles from the catcher position. Justin Morneau was phenomenal (after finishing second in AL MVP voting in 2008) hitting .274 with 30 homers and 100 RBI, but a late season injury kept him out of the postseason.Still, the Twins went 16-4 over their final 20 games to force a game 163 against the Detroit Tigers at the Metrodome for the American League Central crown.I was working at the old Star Tribune building when the game time was announced on Sunday night. I raced out the side door down 6th St. towards the Metrodome box office. I sat two rows over the blue tarp in right field and watched the greatest live sporting event of my life, a 6-5 Twins win in 12 innings.I was also at the Metrodome a week later for Game 3 of the ALDS against the New York Yankees. I was in the upper deck, on the third base line, a perfect view to watch Nick Punto round third, get caught in a rundown and end the Twins season.The Metrodome was detonated soon after. I still miss it.
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How can a team that only won 45 games and didn't even win a playoff series get my vote with the No. 2 overall pick?Such is the power of belief.As such, my pick is the 1997-98 Timberwolves. It was my first senior year of college. My roommate and I had partial season tickets (nosebleeds), and we knew as soon as the Wolves routed the Warriors on opening night (Halloween) this could be a special season.They beat the Michael Jordan Bulls for the first time that season. And they should've -- not could've, should've -- upset the mighty Sonics in the playoffs.Most of all, though, that was the height of the KG/Marbury power. I truly think if they would have stayed together, they would have won a championship. At least they gave us one incredibly fun season after so many bad ones.
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I found myself leaning toward teams from 1996 and beyond -- that's how long I have lived here. So with that ...I am choosing the 2012-13 Gophers women's hockey team. They won their second straight national title, this one at Ridder Arena. And, oh yeah, they went 41-0. That pushed their winning streak to 49 games and it would grow to 62 the next season. In the two games leading up the Frozen Four final, the Gophers defeated North Dakota in three overtimes and Boston College in one overtime. They beat Boston U. 6-3 in the final (yawn). Amanda Kessel had 46 goals and 55 assists that season, and Noora Raty was 38-0 with 17 shutouts and a .956 save percentage.
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Pete makes the first pick of a team that actually won a championship -- and dominated the season from start to finish. That era isn't likely to be repeated, if only because there are more teams, and more good teams, playing women's hockey.I'm up now, and I'll be followed by Ken Chia and Randy Johnson.
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Nice list of greatest winning streaks in college sports history...Gophers on there, of course.
14 of the greatest winning streaks in NCAA history
A look back at 14 notable winning streaks in NCAA history. -
The 2017 Lynx get my vote. We were season-ticket holders but I didn’t get to go to Game 5 because I was sitting in the basement because of a foot injury. (I couldn’t go to work and, with our seats near the court, it would have been totally uncool to go to Williams Arena, right?) So my wife and mother-in-law went while I watched with a bunch of friends in the basement. It was a great game, the Lynx won to close out a great series and Julie and Sue ended up being interviewed for the lead story on the Ch. 9 news. It’s still on our DVR player. The interview, that is.
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I admit I didn't think I had a chance to pick the 1991 Twins at No. 5 because I figured they would be gone by then. But they are available, and I really can't see taking any one else ahead of this team, which began June with a sub-.500 record and ended it 14 games above .500 a 15-game winning streak that could have been 20-gamer if only Rick Aguilera could have figured out a way to retire Randy Milligan.
The 1987 Twins were obviously a consideration, but if I'm asked to compare the two Twins championship teams I have to go just say that the 1991 Twins were better. They won 10 more games (95-67) and were not abysmal on the road the way the 1987 team was. Plus they had a better rotation, one which had three different pitchers honored as AL pitcher of the month. They didn't hit for power the way the 1987 team did, but they arguably had a better lineup overall, I think. But then the kicker is that this team won one of the greatest World Series ever played -- games decided in the eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th innings, five one-run games and back-to-back walkoffs at a delirious Metrodome. If I had the No. 1 overall pick the 1991 Twins would be my pick. That they're still there at No. 5? Well, that's a no-brainer.
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There's one major personal factor for 1991 vs. 1987 for me as well: In August 1987 I moved back to Minnesota after two years living in England. I knew the Twins were good but it was from following them via day-old USA Today boxscores. (I didn't even know they had changed uniforms, LOL.)
By 1991, Midwest Sports Channel had arrived, and we could watch the Twins 100-plus times a season. Followed that team from beginning to end. -
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I have at least five or six candidates for my favorite season, and I’m going with the one that doesn’t exist, at least in the eyes of the NCAA. I’m talking about the 1996-97 Gophers men’s basketball season, which resulted in a trip to the Final Four.Of course, the NCAA vacated that Final Four trip because of an academic fraud scandal under coach Clem Haskins, but it couldn’t vacate the memories of that glorious season and how that team captured the attention of the Twin Cities. A 31-4 record. A ranking as high as No. 2 in the national polls. An amazing OT win at Indiana. The double-overtime thriller over Clemson in the NCAA Round of 16. And the triumph over UCLA for the Final Four berth. It was a fun time to be a Gophers follower that winter as players like Bobby Jackson, Eric Harris, Sam Jacobson and John Thomas grew before our eyes.The NCAA brass brought the hammer down on the Gophers for the academic fraud, but it’s interesting how college hoops blue blood North Carolina was let off scot-free for its academic misdeeds last decade. It’s well past time for the Gophers’ Final Four banner to return to the Williams Arena rafters.
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Randy sparks the first note on controversy in the draft with his return-the-banner plea on what was likely the last Gophers men's basketball team that captured Minnesota to such an extent.
Anyone want to debate the banner?
You can while Casey Common in on the clock. -
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The 1991 Twins may have been the better team, Ken, but these are our favorite teams, and my heart is with the 1987 Twins. There's not much to say that hasn't already been said, we know them all so well, that group that largely came up together through the minors: Frankie "Sweet Music" Viola, Bert, Kirby, Hrbek, Gaetti, Bruno. This team was 5 games out on Memorial Day, but they charged into first with a June winning streak and never looked back. All that summer, every day they were still in first I wanted to pinch myself.For me personally, it was all the more surreal as a lifetime Twins fan because 1987 was the year I graduated from high school and left Minnesota for college. I saw the Twins win Game 7 of the World Series in the TV lounge of my freshman dorm, with a couple of Cardinals fans and several disinterested Chicagoans. I didn't jump up and down and yell. I just watched, wide-eyed, wanting to take it all in and not miss a thing. Unforgettable.
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This late in the first round, I show my age and take...the 1965 Twins. I was only 4 years old but I still remember so much about that season. I hope some of it correctly, like the All-Star Game played at Met Stadium that summer and the Twins going 102-60 on their way to their first pennant in Minnesota, before Harmon, Kitty and my all-time favorite Bernie Allen went to the World Series before losing to the great L.A. Dodgers and Sandy Koufax. I still remember watching from our living room in Richfield -- my parents, the jerks went to the game while I was stuck with a babysitter -- when Bob Allison made a sliding catch down the left-field line early in the series. I still believe those Twins of 1964 and 1965 were why I became a sports writer. Our backyard butted up to a little two-lane road called Cedar Avenue and I could hear the PA announcer from it. I'd play games out there by myself with a whiffle bat and ball that couldn't start until my mom came out to sing the National Anthem. It was being able to hear the games, including on my dad's radio, and not see them that fired my imagination and sent me on this road I've been on ever since then.
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And both Twins' World Series teams are off the board. Nice not to have competiton from the Vikings ... or the Wild ... or the North Stars ... or the Wolves when it comes to winning the big hardware in men's sports.
Jerry Zgoda is up and then we'll have two picks from Andrew Krammer to end the first round and start the second. -
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