Two openers, two very different results—2001 & 2011
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Coming into the 2001 season, the Minnesota Twins were largely the laughingstock of Major League Baseball. Eight consecutive 4th-or-worse finishes in the AL Central—and struggling to seat a million fans per season—will do that to a franchise. This was the time period from which our digital domain derives its spongy food-cake moniker.
By ‘01, though, the Twins had acquired and developed a solid amount of raw, young talent thanks to the shrewd wheeling-and-dealing of GM Terry Ryan and the on-field generalship of Tom Kelly. Of course, there was much to be proven after such a prolonged fallow period. That redemption began at Comerica Park—its concrete still setting after a 2000 christening—in front of 40,000 Tigers faithful.