Twins’ elimination in playoffs resembles harsh breakup

Heather Mangan

Heather Mangan

For the second time in 2006, my heart is broken.

But instead of one man shattering my heart, it was 40.

Last Friday, I watched in sheer torture as the Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-3, and all hopes of a Twins appearance in the World Series vanished.

After only three games of the division series against the A’s, the Twins were knocked out of the running and their stunning season was brutally ended. Twins fans around the country sobbed with heartache because a week earlier it all looked so promising.

The Twins had a rough start the first two months of the season, with a record below .500. But something sparked inside them and they pulled through to become this season’s underdog team. A rally at the end helped them inch past the Detroit Tigers to become the American League Central Champions.

As the summer months dragged on, the Twins went through a roller coaster of ups and downs, but it was truly a great season to be a Twins fan, which isn’t always easy. The Twins have a reputation of being an on-again, off-again team, but this year they were on. They gave their fans one of the best seasons to watch in all of the Major League, and you couldn’t help but fall in love with them.

So that is why the season’s tragic ending was so hard. It was heart wrenching to see such a good and deserving team lose it in the end. The world title could have been theirs, and for a while it seemed like it would be. But the errors and weak bats during the division series added up, and the A’s were the team on top.

My dad called me Friday night to check up on me. I told him my heart was broken, and he told me the same thing that he said after my boyfriend of a year broke my heart earlier: It was a good run, and sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.

Now that I have had a few days to mourn, it’s time to pick my head up and to remember, like men, there is always another season.

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