Elsewhere in the baseball world, the Minnesota Twins continue to have a puzzling season, putting on an impressive spurt when they erupted in a mess of home runs and got good pitching as well for an entertaining late-summer display. But then collapsing with neither hitting nor pitching and losing three out of four to the Chicago White Sox -- the team they were most comfortable beating until this past weekend’s series at Target Field. Now they get to go on the road to Detroit and Cleveland, which are not good cities to get things back together.

Meanwhile, the Duluth Huskies ended their season by losing twice to the Madison Mallards in the Northwoods League playoff championship series. The Huskies had surged to win their final seven games to reach the playoffs, then eliminated South Division champion Waterloo in two straight, to extend the winning streak to nine, and they had to be brimming with confidence when they faced Madison, the South playoff champ.

But the first game got away from the Huskies. After making a habit of big rallies and startling comebacks during their finishing rush, the Huskies blew a 4-1 lead and lost 10-7 at Madison. Still, they could come home for games two and three.

But it seemed the magic bubble burst when Madison came up with a 6-run fifth inning, and the Mallards rode that momentum to Duluth and made sure it would only be a two-game series, hammering the Huskies. The Northwoods League has matured into an outstanding summer collegiate league, and the stirring play of the Huskies is a great basis for looking ahead to next season.

FOOTBALL FORCES IN

Football is making its presence felt, with colleges starting practice, high schools too, and the NFL teams wading through the odd charade that exhibition games have become. The Vikings looked bleak in their first exhibition, as Adrian Peterson and Jeb Allen didn’t play, and Christian Ponder threw only two passes. He played more in game two, at Buffalo, but he looked very shaky -- as though he needed more snaps in game one -- and again Peterson didn’t play.

This week, the Vikings play San Francisco, and the 49ers are the team that whipped Green Bay in last year’s conference final to reach the Super Bowl, and they did it with the “Pistol” offense which is one of the trendy new systems that turn the quarterback loose for rapid-fire read and run play-calling. The Vikings, whose quarterback, Ponder, might seem, well...ponderous by comparison. And no matter how many snaps he gets this weekend, it will be the Vikings defense being tested.