A rarity on April Fool’s Day — Northwoods played Cherry in a high school baseball game, even if they had to bus to Wade Stadium to find a suitable field. Photo credit: John Gilbert

A mild winter and an early spring have brought out the buds of optimism among Minnesota sports fans. Heck, we’re even getting high school baseball games in the Duluth area in the first week of April. Unheard of!

It’s possible though, that a lot of sports fans have not been swept along on UMD’s fantastic hockey ride to the NCAA tournament, and have been left watching and hoping that the Minnesota Wild have gotten it back together in time for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Otherwise, there is only bleakness from the Timberwolves giving us hope and then snatching it away when it comes time to making the NBA playoffs, while the Vikings face the uncertainty of missing Adrian Peterson for good, and heading into draft time needing a wide receiver or two, a kick returner, and even a punter.

That leaves us the Twins, and all fingers pointed to a shockingly dismal season. There’s always optimism at spring training, when everybody is undefeated, but the new Twins management has provided us a team bereft of a solid starting pitching cast, shaky when it comes to relief pitching, with question marks all up and down the lineup.

Ah, but the gloriousness of this particular springtime gave us the season opener at home in Target Field, which was on Monday. The headlines told us that the Twins bombed Kansas City 7-1, and that manager Paul Molitor came up with a weird lineup but all his moves worked out as everybody came through.

We need to break down that 7-1 victory on April 3, however. The Twins ripped the Royals on the strength of Ervin Santana’s brilliant 2-hitter, and a 6-run rally in the seventh inning to shatter a 1-1 tie.

But the rally, coming in support of Miguel Sano’s big home run to forge the 1-1 tie, came in silly fashion. Jorge Polanco, who we hope can play shortstop, singled. Max Kepler, who we’re pretty sure can do the job in right field, bunted for a hit. Eddie Rosario sacrificed the runners up a base, so Kansas City walked Brian Dozier intentionally to load the bases.

KC relief pitcher Peter Moylan walked Robbie Grossman unintentionally, breaking the 1-1 tie with a forced-in run. Byron Buxton, brilliant with a couple of diving catches in center field, struck out for the third time in an 0-for-5 day, but Travis Wood came in to pitch and walked Joe Mauer, forcing in another run for a 3-1 Twins lead. Sano then walked also, for the third walked-in run in a row, and a 4-1 cushion. Catcher Jason Castro singled home two more runs, an d Polanco also singled, scoring another, and it was 7-1.

Let’s not exaggerate the tactical wizardry of coaxing your players to take off-the-plate pitches and walk in runs, but when Tuesday came and brought with it a day off, all of us in Minnesota could only look with pride and optimism that the Twins — our Twins — were 1-0 and still had a shot at going 162-0.

Or was it a late April Fool’s illusion?

BASKETBALL FLOP

I don’t know if I’ve ever been more interested in watching the NCAA basketball tournament reach its conclusion, which was immediately followed by such a letdown!

I was pulling for Oregon, just because I liked the idea of the Ducks returning to the Final Four after only being there in 1939, when they won the first-ever Final Four as the Oregon Webfoots. But when Oregon played North Carolina in last Saturday’s semifinals, it was one of the ugliest games I’ve ever watched.

Oregon couldn’t make a shot, but kept throwing up badly conceived shots and turning the ball over with regularity. North Carolina couldn’t make a shot. It seemed that the game should end up about 20-18, pick-em.

At the end, North Carolina missed free throws that would have clinched the game, and Oregon was only one point down. Two or three times, all Oregon had to do was get the rebound of brick-like UNC free throw, take the ball down the court and make a shot to win the game. And the Ducks couldn’t do it. North Carolina came up with a couple of weird offensive rebounds and won the game.

Gonzaga, which beat South Carolina in the other semifinal, was reduced to similar court rubble by North Carolina in the final, which one reporter wrote by saying if anyone wanted one word to describe the final, they’d have to go all the way through the dictionary to ‘U,’ for UGLY! 

North Carolina won 71-65, after Gonzaga missed nine consecutive shots and went one stretch of 8:27 withut a basket. The refs called every touch — 27 fouls in the second half alone. That may have contributed to such misplays. Gonzaga shot 33.9 percent, and North Carolina shot not much better at 35.6, as star Justin Jackson went 0-9 from 3-point range.

We’ve seen a player or two seize up from the pressure, but I can’t recall entire teams seizing up! Sad that after such great games as Oregon over Kansas, and North Carolina over Kentucky, the Final Four was reduced to such a disappointing finish.