Yankees Beat Twins, Advance to ALCS

MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 11 -- On Sunday night, after the Twins lost for the final time in a baseball stadium never quite designed to be a baseball stadium, the Metrodome didn't go cold right away. Even after the Twins fell to the Yankees, 4-1, sending New York to the American League Championship Series and 54,735 Minnesotans into the 37-degree outdoors, the Metrodome still had the fever of its last memories, of its final innings.

Even after the place emptied, nothing but a few scattered hankies left in the aisles, the Metrodome still had the shape of a quasi-ballyard, not yet reconverted for Brett Favre or monster trucks. The mound still had its bump, and the infield still had its pawprint of dirt, and a baggy outfield wall still curled like a soft L, tall and billowing in right, more inviting in center and left, and you could still see where everything happened.

You could see the abyss of right field blue where Alex Rodriguez launched his tying opposite-field home run, and you could see the exact seat, first row of left-center, where Jorge Posada silenced everybody with his go-ahead solo shot five pitches later. You could see the third base bag where Minnesota's Nick Punto committed a base-running error he'll regret all winter. You could see the rubber from which Mariano Rivera recorded the final out, and on which his teammates celebrated their sweep of the first-round series. You could see the purple rows where, for five minutes after the game, fans stood in mournful observation, snapping photos and watching a video montage of stadium highlights.

That's how the quirky era of indoor baseball and 69-degree temperatures came to an end.

Next season, the Twins will relocate to Target Field, where the allure ("Countdown to Starry Nights," reads one Twins billboard) will be as obvious as the drawbacks (You'll need a North Face catalog for opening day). The new home won't be as loud as the Metrodome, and it will need years -- maybe eons -- to gather similar eccentricities.

It was fitting, perhaps, that the biggest Twins mistake on Sunday resulted in part because of the Metrodome's inimitable crowd noise. When Punto led off the bottom of the eighth with a double, Minnesota, trailing 2-1, had the tying run in scoring position. Only an inning-and-a-half earlier, Rodriguez and Posada had ripped those game-altering homers -- "The nail in the coffin," pitcher Carl Pavano called the go-ahead shot -- but this was Minnesota's chance to answer, turning a crisp game into a classic one.

Something else happened entirely.

Denard Span chopped a single up the middle. Punto heard the roar, rounded third and never looked back.

Shortstop Derek Jeter, running up the middle, snatched the infield single and saw Punto turning for home. Punto slipped. Jeter threw to Posada. Punto scrambled back toward third. Posada threw to third. Punto was called out.

The Metrodome deflated.

"It's one of those things where I'm kicking myself. I had my head down. Terrible play," said Punto, who pilloried himself for several minutes along those lines. "That's a big play in that game. It's hard to swallow."

What happened?