Twins Turn Up Volume, Shout Down Tigers

MINNEAPOLIS —  ‘Neath an October Teflon sky, floating like butterflies over their polyester prairie of test-tube grass, the Minnesota Twins drove the Tigers back to Detroit Thursday night.

The Twins, in winning, 6-3, to take a 2-0 series lead, were almost as impressive as their fans.

The 55,245 polka-party animals in the Hubert Horatio Humphrey Metrodome cranked up their Homer Hankies and intimidated the Tigers. Even though the Tigers won’t admit it.

“That crowd has not affected us,” Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson said.

Sparky did allow, however: “If we stayed here another day, we’d be oh-and-three. I’m just happy to get out of here.”

And flee back to that island of comparative sanity, Dee -troit.

What the Tigers are fleeing is the hardest-working crowd in the baseball business, 55,245 Scandinavian James Browns.

They fill the HHH House of Horrors to where the rafters would be if there were rafters. Some fans sit so far from the action and so high up that they have to have their refreshments brought in by St. Bernard. They ring the huge dome with banners.

They’ve got a stadium DJ who keeps ‘em rocking with everything from “Hello, Dolly” to “Rescue Me” to “The Curley Shuffle” to “Ain’t That Tuff Enuf?”

They wave their Homer Hankies until their arms ache. I’d love to be the Twin Cities’ rotator cuff surgeon. They haughtily throw enemy home run balls back onto the field as if they were undersized pike.

They transform the silly, plastic stadium into a living, pulsating organism, like something out of a Spielberg movie.

If the opposing team can shut out the crowd, the music and the hyped-up public-address announcer, ignore the real and imagined wind currents rumored to be blowing and sucking from enormous, grated air-conditioning vents, locate fly balls in the fluffy, Teflon clouds, forget about the rumors of a secret center-field camera that allegedly tips off Twin batters, and learn how to play the fat-man’s-stomach of a right-field wall, then all the visitors have left to deal with is a gang of adrenaline-crazed, pinstriped kids who have delusions of destiny.

Forget Disneyland, this is the Magic Kingdom.

Given a full season to acclimate themselves to this place, the Irvine Little League team could crush Taiwan in the HHH Fundome.

Does all this nutty stadium stuff and all this Midwest hysteria affect the home team players?

Does a mechanical rabbit affect a greyhound?

When was the last time you saw a starting pitcher get knocked out of the box, as Twin starter Bert Blyleven was Thursday night, and give the crowd a “Let’s rally!” wave as he ducks into the dugout?

When was the last time you saw a .191 hitter double home two big runs, as catcher Tim Laudner did? Or a plodder like Randy Bush steal second and third for the first time in his life?

Inspired? You might say that.

The Homer Hankies bring out the Hankie Aaron in the Twins. Thursday night, it was Kent Hrbek’s turn to homer, to do his part for the Twins’ so-called Mt. Crushmore quartet of Hrbek, Kirby Puckett, Gary Gaetti and Tom Brunansky.

In the field, first baseman Hrbek went face-down in the dirt to snag a wide throw and save a run in the eighth.

And when have you seen a guy as fired up as Twin reliever Juan Berenguer, who retired the last five Tigers, four of them on strikeouts?

Berenguer was so charged up when he relieved Blyleven that he did everything but plant a flag in the dirt and claim the mound for his native Panama. This, folks, is a man who can strut the hill, make himself at home on the old rubber. I don’t know if he overpowered the Tiger batters or frightened them into submission.

Sparky didn’t enjoy Berenguer’s theatrics.

“Whatever it is (Berenguer is doing), don’t do it,” Sparky said. “If you’ve got a dog down, let him sleep.”

Wednesday and Thursday, you could almost hear the Tigerdogs snoring above the roar of the crowd.

Did Berenguer wake ‘em up? Will they snap out of their deep sleep in the outdoor oxygen chamber known as Tiger Stadium? Or were two games in the Coma-dome a fatal dose?

Is it true that you can’t take it with you, or will the mere memory of the fans back home inspire the Twins to give the Tigers another hanky-spanky?

Tune in Saturday.