A Minnesota Twins Survivor Series

Nov 24, 2022 - 1:00 PM

Today is Thanksgiving. You should be doing anything but reading a baseball blog article in the dead of the offseason. But if you need to sneak away from the fam or remain immobile while the tryptophan invades your bloodstream, let’s have a little fun.

As a child, I was an enormous fan of professional wrestling. We’re talking WWF bedspread, subscription to WWF magazine, Hulk Hogan wrestling buddy, every-weekend trips to the video rental store for the next VHS tape fandom. It helped that my childhood coincided with the late-80s/early-90s “golden era” of the wrestling business. The Hulkster—Andre the Giant—Macho Man Randy Savage—Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase—Jake The Snake Roberts—The Ultimate Warrior. A veritable who’s who of “faces” and “heels”.

On the WWF (you can’t make me call it WWE, Vince McMahon) pay-per-view calendar each year, the big event coinciding with the Thanksgiving holiday was Survivor Series. Instead of mano a mano confrontations, this extravaganza primarily featured tag teams.

To make up for the crushing childhood loss of never ordering a live Survivor Series PPV (on one occasion, I kid you not, because a touch-tone phone was required and we were still a rotary family), I instead present to you the top Minnesota Twins tag-teams of all-time...

The Contenders...

• Harmon Killebrew & Tony Oliva: The OG’s of Twins baseball in its infancy. Without Harmon putting together seasons like this and Tony-O entering the scene as a fully-formed rookie, who knows if Twins Territory takes hold the way it did.
• Kirby Puckett & Kent Hrbek: Hrbie & Kirby. Winning two titles together in the span of five years endeared them to the MN fanbase like perhaps no others.
• Doug Mientkiewicz, Cristian Guzman, Corey Koskie, Jacque Jones & Torii Hunter: More “mixed tag” than “dynamic duo”, these guys are why we constantly want to get the band back together. There is no Twinkie Town without their combined efforts to elevate Twins baseball from farce to force.

• Joe Mauer & Justin Morneau: The M&M Boys—Joe gets on and Justin drives him in. That formula was maybe as good as it ever got in the middle of a Twins lineup.

What say you on the matter (quick—before you starting drooling all over Grandma’s couch!):

By the way, I haven’t grown out of my professional wrestling fandom—though it is now more nostalgia-based than current events-focused. While following the Twins down to St. Pete this past April, my Mom and I visited Hulk Hogan’s Clearwater gift shop and got a burger at his new beach hangout. Let me tell you something, brother—it was fantastic!