Ron Gardenhire"It was one of those `take that' kinds of things," manager Ron Gardenhire told the AP's Dave Campbell. "Take that, baseball."

Gardenhire was speaking of the 2002 Twins, his first team, and the larger defiance they embodied. Back then, the Twins, along with the Montreal Expos, were targeted for contraction by Major League Baseball. The Twins responded by notching 94 wins, claiming their first division title since 1991 and making it as far as the ALCS. As you may have noticed, the Twins were never contracted.

Sure, contraction was at best a semi-serious threat. The idea was never likely to gain traction with the powerful MLBPA, and it was mostly a negotiating ploy to get taxpayers in Minnesota and Quebec to pay for new ballparks. Eventually, it worked in Minnesota.

Still, 10 years ago the Twins seemed imperiled, and fans were forced to ponder the possibility that the franchise that had won the World Series in 1987 and 1991 would cease to exist. Even if you weren't a Twins fan, it was strange and discouraging to contemplate.

As we know, however, baseball in Minnesota survived (maybe because, unlike Montreal, Jeffrey Loria wasn't around to kill it off), and although the Twins backslid quite a bit last season, they've emerged as the standard-bearers for the notion that it's possible to succeed on a budget. The team that perhaps best advanced that idea was the 2002 team -- the "contraction" team.

It's fitting, then, that the 2002 team will be honored prior to the Twins' home opener against the Angels on Monday. (Coincidentally, it was the Angels that felled the '02 Twins in the ALCS.)

Core members Doug Mienkiewicz, Brad Radke, Eddie Guardado, Denny Hocking, Jacque Jones, and Corey Koskie will take part in a pre-game parade, toss out the ceremonial first pitches and then -- in barbershop-sextet fashion -- lead the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch. Given the state of 2012 Twins, this might wind up being one of the highlights of the season.

Regardless of current straits, however, Twins fans can be proud of the way the 2002 model went about its business and the success it enjoyed. "We had an attitude," said Mientkiewicz, who's now a hitting coach in the Dodger system. "We finally got good, and we knew what we were walking into. We were like, `You can't take that away from us now.'"


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