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After 12 heart attack-inducing innings in game 163, the AL Central FINALLY has a champion. The Minnesota Twins, who were seven games back in early September, battled until the very end to take down the Detroit Tigers in a tie-breaker game. Leading up to this game, the Detroit Tigers had one of the most epic collapses in the history of the game, while the Twins had gone 16-4 in their last 20 games. This is the second year in a row that the Twins have had to force the tiebreaker game 163 to decide the division (they played the Chicago White Sox and lost 1-0 in 2008), and they weren’t going down without a fight this time.

Down 3-0 early on in the game, the Twins clawed their way back in it, in their typical piranha style. The game raged on, back and forth, until finally in the 12th, Casilla got a base hit that allowed Carlos Go-Go-Gomez to slide across home with the game winning run. Poor Jim Leyland, they don’t allow smoking at the Dome, so he was probably REALLY pissed that he had no way to calm down between innings.

This ensures that the Metrodome will still be hosting baseball past the ‘Final Game’ that was to have happened two days ago. Apparently, this horrible building refuses to die. So, we’ll have at least one more game of garbage bags for an outfield, lost balls in the ceiling, and deafening noise. The (exhausted) Twins will be meeting with the Yankees tomorrow afternoon to face CC Sabathia.

Also, in typical BLB fashion, we have to bring up our favorite Twin, Man Muscles himself, the probable MVP for the season, the baby Jesus incarnate, Joe Mauer. There was still talk (mostly by ignorant people who only follow the Yankees) that Derek Jeter still deserved to be MVP. Well, unless he had gone 0-17 tonight to change things, he is now a 3-time batting champ, is first in on base percentage, slugging, and bad-assery. Congratulations, Joey! And congratulations to the rest of the team on beating the odds and becoming the AL Central Champions!

Sooze is a SJ Contributing Author. Read more of her works at Babes Love Baseball.