There’s the old sports adage about how the wisest of all manage to save their best for the very end. If that’s true, it would seem the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome did it properly.

When a Metrodome-record 54,088 patrons strolled through the venue’s doors for the final regular season game ever on Oct. 6, 2009, they had no idea what was to come. The Twins felt fortunate to be there after chasing down the Tigers and erasing a seven-game deficit in the American League Central over the final 26 games with an 18-8 stretch. Meanwhile, the Tigers needed a final day gem from Justin Verlander in Chicago to stay tied with the Twins after going 11-15 down the stretch.

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But if you thought the pennant race was interesting, Game 163 managed to top it all with twists, turns, amazing plays, gaffes, heroism and controversy. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of that game, The Athletic Detroit and The Athletic Minnesota spoke to 23 players, coaches and staff members who were on hand to witness a chaotic game that lasted 277 minutes and spanned 12 innings. Here’s their story of how it all went down.

The buildup

Ramon Santiago, Tigers second baseman: We had a lead the whole year, pretty much. We lost some ground later in the season. Anything can happen in baseball when you face an MLB team every single day. Like we said in baseball, “They drive Mercedes, too.”

Miguel Cabrera, Tigers first baseman: I remember, in September, they were really hot. When we played (in Detroit late in the month) and we split the four games two-and-two, I remember I said, “No, we got this because there’s no way they can catch up in our division.” And they got it on the last day.

Steve Liddle, Twins bench coach: We had been scoreboard watching Game 162, because the Tigers had a tough time beating the (White Sox). The (White Sox) had been struggling, but it’s just one of those teams that the Tigers had trouble with. … All the fans stayed around in the Metrodome. I remember after the game, everybody going out and high-fiving fans. “We got more life. We got more life.”

Jesse Crain, Twins relief pitcher: The stadium was full. We’re sitting there watching (Tigers-White Sox on the field). And you never pulled for Chicago as much ever before, but it was so exciting. I’ll never forget that weekend.

Ron Gardenhire, Twins manager: When it was all over with, there was a nice little party celebration and players running around high-fiving the fans and it was cool. It was one of those kind of surreal things that you’re like, “Wow, did that just really happen?”

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Liddle: That was our second year in a row with Game 163. They say every game doesn’t matter — every game does matter, I’m sorry. You might not be able to win the pennant in April, but you can lose it. It was important — every game is important throughout the year, and sometimes you think, during a marathon, you might lose one game to win the next four or five. But you gotta be careful doing that, because Game 163.

Pregame

In the era before MLB’s Wild Card Game, the tie atop the AL Central set up a tiebreaker game with a spot in the playoffs on the line — the loser would be out. There was a slot on the schedule for a potential tiebreaker game to take place on Oct. 5, 2009. But the Twins shared the Metrodome with the Minnesota Vikings, who were scheduled to play on Monday Night Football that night, pitting Brett Favre against his old Packers team. So Game 163 was moved to Oct. 6. Winner would get the 103-win Yankees the next day in New York.

Joe Vavra, Twins hitting coach: It was a bunch of nobodies … We had Matt Tolbert, we had (Jose) Morales, we had guys you never would have heard of. Alexi Casilla. We had a lot of utility guys playing that game.

Jim Leyland, Tigers manager: There weren’t really any secrets, as far as what the Minnesota Twins had and what we had. We knew each other pretty well, obviously. You just go about your business like you always do. Everybody knows it’s a one-and-done game, so there’s not really any rah-rah stuff or pumping up.

Matt Guerrier, Twins reliever: With the Vikings against Green Bay on Monday night, we couldn’t play that night at the dome. So we all went to that game and we’re like, “Wow.” The electricity in the dome during that football game was crazy.

Curtis Granderson, Tigers center fielder: We got in I think on Sunday, and we were going to play Monday but then they moved us to Tuesday so we went out to eat. This is the first and only time this has ever happened. We’re eating, we order, whatever, and the server goes, “Hey, our manager brought this. This is compliments of the manager.” And it was a full bottle of Grey Goose. I was like, “Hey, that time that we can’t enjoy it, now you’re going to give it to us?!” I remember we laughed when it happened, and everyone was like, “What should we do? We should take it.” But they had already opened it and everything. I was going to ask for a to-go bag and bring it for later.

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Nick Punto, Twins second baseman: Brett Favre, yup. We not only had the season end on a Sunday, and that was intense as it was. We had to wait another full 24 hours until we got to have Game 163 underway. So it started out intense and finished intense.

First inning

The game began at 4:08 p.m. The Twins started 28-year-old right-hander Scott Baker, who would finish the season 15-9 with a 4.37 ERA. In the top of the first, Baker retired the side, getting Curtis Granderson to fly out, striking out Placido Polanco and inducing a Magglio Ordonez flyout to right field. 

Rick Anderson, Twins pitching coach: You look at the kids, the young pitchers, and you just don’t know how they’re gonna react. (Baker) just attacked, did what he did, didn’t try to do nothing more.

Dustin Morse, Twins senior manager, player relations: I remember KFAN radio, Paul Allen kind of coined the term “Big Spot Scott.” It seemed like Baker had all the big games in 2009. When he was on the mound you felt like he was in control. He was a pretty calm person. He just didn’t have a lot of highs and lows with him. But he was quietly getting it done.

Punto: The thing with Scott Baker, he’s perfect for those scenarios. I think his heart rate doesn’t ever get too high and it doesn’t get too low. He’s just one of those demeanors where there’s not going to be a moment too big and he’s going to embrace it and he’s got great stuff to do it.

The Tigers started a 20-year-old Rick Porcello, a former first-round pick who went 14-9 with a 3.96 ERA in his rookie season. Denard Span grounded out to begin the inning. After an Orlando Cabrera groundout, Joe Mauer hit a ball to center and hustled in for a double. Jason Kubel then lined out to short to end the inning. 

Leyland: I remember (Porcello) being real aggressive … with his stuff. I’m sure he was pumped up, but it wasn’t like he was fazed at all, to be honest with you. I’m sure there were some emotions running, but you’d have never really known it. He was there to compete. He was a young guy, he was aggressive, he just went after them. He was fantastic.

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Porcello: It was incredibly loud. The biggest memory I have — which is kind of a weird one because there were some incredible games — but the first base hit that I gave up was to Mauer. But the sound and the crowd, it sounded like it was a three-run homer. And it just sticks out to me how loud it was, really, that was one of the few atmospheres that I really couldn’t hear myself think when, you know, there was runners on base or in a bit of a jam.

Second inning

Miguel Cabrera took a pitch left over the plate for a leadoff double. Carlos Guillen flew out to center, but the Tigers put runners on the corners after a Ryan Raburn bloop-single to right. Baker escaped after a Brandon Inge lineout and a Gerald Laird popout.

Anderson: It was unbelievable. Every pitch affected the game. Both teams, it was just a battle. … It was one of those games — you’re on the edge of your seat the whole time, even coaching.

Justin Morneau, Twins first baseman: (Baker) was just a guy that — it’s like every time you looked up, there was nothing. I mean it’s not like he was a pitcher who threw 98 with a wipeout slider or anything. He just threw four pitches for strikes and you looked up and he was in the sixth or seventh inning here and gave us a chance to win pretty much every time we went out there.

Porcello got through the second easily, getting Michael Cuddyer to ground out, then striking out Delmon Young and Morales swinging.

Inge: The funny part about Rick … when he thinks about how to pitch — and this is just going into Porcello’s head, having talked to him many times — he’s trying to think the game through instead of being a kid and just going out there and competing. That was one of the main times where we saw that if he would just stop thinking and go out there and compete like he was a high-school kid on the mound somewhere, he’s better off. That’s all he did. He wasn’t thinking about anything. He wasn’t thinking about pitch selection or how he was going to throw a pitch or mechanics. He was just literally out there doing it, and it was one of the best games I’ve seen him throw.

Porcello: I remember it was pretty much everything I could do to keep my emotions in check, and slow the moment down, and be able to go out there and just perform. I remember, the entire day taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself down and just think about simple things as far as pitching goes. I think that would help me just keep my focus on the game and not think about everything else that was a do-or-die situation.

Third inning

With two outs in the inning, Ordonez singled to score Curtis Granderson, who had walked and advanced to second on a groundout, and put the Tigers up 1-0. Miguel Cabrera, who had been questioned by police earlier in the year after reportedly driving with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit and getting in an altercation with his wife, faced chants of “AL-CO-HOLIC” as he came to the plate. Cabrera blasted a two-run home run to center field on an 0-2 pitch to hush the crowd and give the Tigers a 3-0 lead.

Cabrera: It was one of the loudest games I’ve ever played in my career. … (The home run) opened up the game. I think it gave us a lot of confidence that we could win this game here in Minnesota.

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Punto: (Baker) could have fell apart when Miguel Cabrera hit that big home run, but he didn’t. He stayed in there. He had three great pitches. He knew how to pitch. He used both sides of the plate. He was definitely a guy we were excited to have on the mound with a team like that.

Joe Nathan, Twins closer: When Miggy hit the three-run homer early and it was, it almost was like a sinking feeling like, “Oh man, this is not, I just don’t got a good feel right now. It doesn’t feel like this is heading in our favor.”

With the bullpen starting to stir, Baker struck out Guillen to end the inning.

Gardenhire: We were definitely talking about (making a pitching change). You just couldn’t get behind, it was one of those games. Their bullpen was strong at the end, and they could make it probably a five- or six-inning game, and then go to those guys. We knew the same thing, but we had so much confidence in (Baker) and he’d pitched really well against that team.

Tolbert led off with an infield single (a diving stop by Inge at third likely prevented a double). Punto struck out swinging, but Span singled into left field to put two runners on. After an Orlando Cabrera fly out, Tolbert tagged to put runners on the corners. Porcello made an errant pickoff throw to first base, allowing Tolbert to score.

Gardenhire: The one thing we did back then was put the ball in play. We had the scat backs that could slap the ball around and that’s kind of how we got back into it.

Mauer walked and Zach Miner started to warm up in the Tigers bullpen.

Porcello: Basically go be closer every inning. Put up as many zeros as I can, get as many outs as I can and take us as far as we can go, you know? And that was it. I knew if I had given up two or three runs early, I probably would’ve been out of that game. You know how playoff games are usually managed. It didn’t bother me at all. I knew there was going to be action like that. And you know those games can erupt quickly. You’ve got to be prepared for any situation.

Porcello struck out Kubel to end the inning and prevent further damage. The Tigers led 3-1.

Porcello: Kubel was the guy in that lineup that I had a really hard time with. He hit a bunch of home runs off me that year. It seemed like every time he came up he’s hitting a double or a homer. And I got him out the first two at-bats and it was like, it was big for me, my confidence level, because I got by that guy. I felt really good about how I was attacking the rest of the lineup.

Kubel: I think (Porcello) struck me out on something, on one high too. … He was a sinkerballer, so you’re looking down and if he can continuously just keep throwing it up and hard, that’ll make it tough on you.

Fourth inning

Raburn singled to begin the inning, and Anderson went out to visit Baker after he fell behind in the count to Inge.

Mauer: You didn’t really have to tell (Baker) too much. He wasn’t one of those guys that you needed to get on. I think he was just more of like, “Hey, let’s let the past be the past … what’s happened happened. What can we do to go from here?” And you know, Scott was very professional, worked hard and he knew what he needed to do, but a lot of those times, those meetings were just to go out there and just give him a breather, especially with everything that was on the line that day.

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Baker got Inge to foul out, then got Laird to bounce into a 5-4-3 double play (as Punto avoided a takeout slide from Raburn at second base).

Punto: That was way before Chase Utley rule. That was just good old hard nose Jim Leyland baseball right there, Ryan Raburn. Ryan Raburn was one of those guys. … It’s funny, I was laughing with (former MLB second baseman) Skip Schumaker the other day, we were talking about how easy it would be to be a second baseman in the major leagues today, not having to worry about Jose Guillén or Michael Cuddyer or Ryan Raburn or some of these guys that are out to kill you. Like literally, they cannot wait to get in there and made sure there’s some sort of car wreck at second base. They’re not trying to hurt you. They just want to see a nice car wreck.

Porcello regained his composure in the fourth, retiring Cuddyer, Young and Morales in order and bringing his strikeout total to six.

Porcello: (Throwing the fastball at the top of the zone) is something that I do now a lot, and at that time I didn’t know how much of a weapon that was — that those pitches played off one another. I honestly, I didn’t do it for several years after that. I focused so hard on my sinker that I kind of didn’t look at that game and realize how effective forcing was off that. I didn’t necessarily take advantage of how well that it worked early on in my career.

Anderson: Both sides — Porcello, in that kind of a situation, you would think going in, “OK, we got this rookie. Let’s see how he handles it.” Well, my God, he’s been pitching a long time, it looks like. Just both sides. Nobody was in awe. Nobody was trying to do too much. It was just fun to watch.

Fifth inning

Baker allowed a two-out Polanco single, but Ordonez grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning and keep the score at 3-1. 

Gardenhire: (Baker) could elevate the baseball, which was good against them at the time. We talked about that more now than ever. At the time, that’s what Scott did, so we had faith in him, and he hung in there.

Porcello stayed in a groove, setting down Tolbert, Punto and Span, making it seven Twins retired in a row. 

Inge: A lot of people talk about the one game, but it was so much more than that to us. It was 162 games before that that we meshed as a family, getting us on the right track. And then nothing surprised us. We all had the pieces put in place, and we battled.

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Gardenhire: (Porcello) was really good. The thing about him is he always had a great sinker. And this time he was flying it up high so instead of sinking it, he was going up here, which crossed levels, but the one thing throughout the whole year is our team made a lot of great adjustments.

Sixth inning

Baker set down Cabrera, Guillen and Raburn, escaping the heart of the Tigers’ order without trouble. 

Michael Cuddyer, Twins first baseman: (Baker) always gave us a chance. He always kept us in the game. I knew if Scott could keep us in the game for a few more innings that we were going to be able to battle back. Obviously, Porcello had a great season and a great run. But I know we faced him enough times to have a good idea that we were at least going to be able to scratch a few runs across the board.

Porcello got Orlando Cabrera to fly out, then recorded his eighth strikeout when Mauer couldn’t hold up on a high fastball. But Kubel sent a solo homer into the upper deck in right field to make it a 3-2 game. 

Gardenhire: That’s when we knew we were in for a game.

Kubel: It just wasn’t going our way up until that point, and then I don’t know if that got a little spark or not, but it was definitely a big hit. Like I got a lot of that ball. That’s a good feeling. It got real loud and gave us a little bit more life, but that let us know that we’re still in this, we’re definitely in this thing. (Porcello) became a Cy Young winner (in 2016), he’s not an easy guy to go against. So yeah, that was a definite little jolt.

Inge: I’ve never heard a louder stadium in my entire life. They were so loud, and it’s just sounding off the dome and echoing around. Honest to God, I think we all had headaches on the plane home, just from the noise. We might have had headaches from pure exhaustion, but the noise had a lot to do with it. It was awesome, actually. It was so loud. It was crazy.

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After Porcello walked Cuddyer, Leyland replaced Porcello with Zach Miner. 

Cuddyer: When you’re in those situations, you just want to string good at-bats together. My first at-bat I struck out on fastballs up and (Porcello is) a sinkerballer, especially that year. He really relied on the two-seamer and he was throwing 94-96 that game, throwing fastballs up. I had to change my game plan. I had to re-shift my thinking, my approach and that kind of helped me work the walk because I kind of widened what I was looking for, which allowed me to shrink my zone.

Young singled to put runners on the corners, then Miner hit Brendan Harris on the left elbow to load the bases. After a mound visit, Miner got Tolbert to fly out, and the Tigers escaped the inning with the lead intact.

Gardenhire: It was a really emotional game, so many things happened. We had chances, they had chances.

Porcello: I felt very good about how I performed on a big stage. … We didn’t go out there and lay an egg. We played our ass off. They played their ass off. There’s two good teams, and this is it.

Punto: Porcello was tough. He was just tough because he kept lefties at bay with that cutter. I mean it was just, you could cut it right on top of your hands. He could sink it away. So he was just very effective. He’s an innings-eater. It was hard to make him throw pitches because a lot of his pitches were strikes, so it wasn’t like we were going to be able to get into the bullpen off a guy like that. He threw way too many strikes, even though they weren’t good strikes to hit.

Seventh inning

After a leadoff walk to Inge in the top of the seventh, Gardenhire pulled Baker in favor of Jon Rauch. Rauch recorded the first out when Laird popped out on a bunt attempt, then got the second out when Santiago flied to center. Jose Mijares, a left-hander, entered to face the left-handed Granderson, who singled and advanced Inge to third. Matt Guerrier entered on the mound and got Polanco to bounce out and end the inning. 

Anderson: You go into those games, you know the tension is there anyway. You try to keep it lighthearted. “Hey, this is gonna be fun, boys.” You say, “Everybody’s available. Gonna throw the kitchen sink at ’em.” We had to, and that was the approach. Everybody was available. As a matter of fact, we used everyone.

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Guerrier: It is a playoff game, so it’s basically you’re thrown into a Game 7 right away. So, you know, you are all right, I’m ready for anything. (Anderson) basically told us: “Hey, get down there a little earlier, be ready to do your things a little bit earlier. You never know when we’re going to make that move.” I always tried to be ready no matter whether it was the second inning or the eighth inning. I was trying to be ready when that phone rang. It could be me.

Gardenhire: You put all your stock in these guys all year long, and we said right away these guys have been doing it all year long, so we have to keep going to them. We knew Matty could spin the ball.

With Miner still pitching, Punto led off with a single to left. Miner struck out Span, but then Orlando Cabrera belted a two-run homer, just over the left-field wall and the outstretched glove of Raburn. The Twins took a 4-3 lead.

Punto: I just remember the crowd was deafening. It was so intense. Literally, that home run, soon as it went over the fence, in my mind, I knew we were still in for a dog fight, but that was just a huge momentum swing. And now I felt the momentum was on our side. With the 10th man, or the 26th man if you will, being at the Metrodome, we were just such a tough team to beat when we had them on our side.

Guerrier: What’s crazy, that turn of events from getting out of a little bit of a jam in the seventh, and then we’re down one and Orlando Cabrera hits the two-run homer to take the lead, and then it becomes a party … we’re jumping around and everybody’s going crazy.

Gardenhire: You can imagine the place was just — you couldn’t hear each other, of course. Me and (Anderson) start talking about how we’re going to get through these last innings, and all this stuff.

After Mauer followed with a single, Leyland brought in the left-handed Fu-Te Ni to face the lefty Kubel, who flew out. Ni was replaced by Brandon Lyon, who ended the inning when Cuddyer hit a comebacker to the mound. 

Liddle: When the Twins beat the Braves, Jack Morris, that’s a great game. But this one right here is one of those. It’s not in the World Series. But instead of a 1-0 game, you had swings, you had chances. It wasn’t just like a pitching duel. You had highs and lows for both teams. You had, I don’t know how many lead changes. …. To have three or four lead changes in Game 163, that’s what I’m talking about.

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Vavra: You live and die with each at-bat. You see the ones, how they perform under pressure. Every at-bat, we’re down 3-0, 3-1, 3-2, then we got a chance, we’re at home, win this thing late.

Eighth inning

With the game hanging in the balance, Ordonez launched a leadoff, solo home run off Guerrier to tie the game at 4. 

Guerrier: I’ve gotten out of the (seventh) inning, kept us where we wanted to be. … (Orlando Cabrera homers) and it becomes “All right, we’re going to win this game.” And then you go, “All right, I got to help get to that, get those outs to get us to that win.” The hardest part of, I think, going back out for a second inning is either working out of a jam or having a big change in momentum.

Anderson: We took the lead, had Matty Guerrier in. And then Ordonez. Ahhhh.

Guerrier: When you end up facing the team 18, 19 times in a season, there’s not many tricks left in your pocket.

Leyland: Magglio was set up for the dramatics. In 2006 he hit the homer to put us in the World Series. So that wasn’t any surprise. Magglio was a very professional hitter. Of course, that had the whole team pumped up like it should and like it would in that situation.

Santiago: When Magglio hit a home run in the eighth … I remember, I went (down) the stairs, and I saw the whole clubhouse covered, for the champagne celebration. I went to get something. I didn’t mean to go in there and jinx us or whatever.

Guerrier got Miguel Cabrera to ground out, but issued walks to Guillen and Raburn. Joe Nathan, who finished with 47 saves and a 2.10 ERA, entered the game. Nathan got Inge to pop out, then struck out Laird on a curveball. 

Nathan: There was rarely times we had to go out and get more than three outs. You could probably count on one hand, the times we all had to do that. That whole game was intense, from inning one all the way through, and in 12, so even though we weren’t in the game we felt the vibe, the atmosphere, we felt the importance of every pitch, every out. And so getting into that game, I believe there was one out when I came in, and for me, my thought was, “Just worry about Inge.” If I could get Inge out and get us the two outs, it didn’t matter where the runners were.

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With Lyon on the mound, Young, Harris and Tolbert went down in order, setting up a tie game entering the ninth inning. 

Liddle: For either team to come away victorious, it was one of those deals where, “Hey, flip a coin. Last man standing.”

Ninth inning

With Nathan back out on the mound, Santiago led off the inning with a bunt single, just beating a diving Cuddyer to the bag.

Nathan: No matter when I went out, it was always, “All right, get the leadoff guy out,” and we could kind of take a breath and go from there. … And he bunts for a single, and it definitely becomes, “OK, now we’re going to have to really go to work and figure out how to work our way through this lineup,” and then from there it really gets worse.

Adam Everett pinch ran for Santiago, and in stepped Granderson, who finished his career with an 1.179 OPS vs. Nathan in 21 plate appearances. Granderson fisted a base hit down the right-field line, sending Everett to third. 

Cuddyer: I remember that play and (Santiago) beating me. I was disappointed we didn’t get Santiago out, great bunt. But then it compounded once Grandy got on base.

Nathan: Just put it in the right spot at the right time, and here we are, and now my mind goes from the, “Oh shit” moment to the, “All right, I got to limit the damage.” Now I’m sitting there going, “They’re going to get one. We got to try and keep this at one and give our guys a chance to tie it up. Let’s not try to be too perfect and make this inning really bad by allowing a crooked number.”

Though he wasn’t commanding his fastball well, Nathan still had a nasty off-speed pitch working. His slider was a key in striking out Polanco, who only whiffed 6.8 percent of the time in 2009, the second-lowest K-rate in the majors.

Nathan: (Polanco) was such a tough out. My thought was “Let’s get a double play and let’s get a sac-fly and let’s try to limit the damage. Don’t try to do too much here and do something stupid and load the bases with nobody out with two of their most dangerous hitters coming up.” … I got two strikes, I’ll admit it, and I got myself in a situation where I was like, “Well shoot, now that I got here, let me see if I can make a pitch that I don’t throw that often,” because I knew I had a pitch to play with. … I know he can’t be looking for this pitch because I don’t throw it and that was a kind of a front door slider … start it at his head and hopefully freeze him because I don’t throw it a lot. I’m thinking maybe he might think that I’m going to try to come inside hard to set something up away. And so I thought maybe I could start a slider off the plate and he’ll freeze. And I just happened to just absolutely put it in the right location, it froze him and got the punch out, fortunately.

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Mauer: (Polanco) could handle the bat. That was a big strikeout. … They had the guy they wanted up in that situation and that was one of probably the biggest strikeouts (Nathan has) ever had.

But Nathan still had to face Ordonez and Cabrera.

Cuddyer: That was the first time and only time that I had thought we’d lost. Magglio is coming up with one out. I knew if we’d get down it was going to be tough because (Fernando) Rodney was fresh. … I even said it to Grandy when he got on first base, “Man, I think this is about it right here. I think we’re done.” He said, “You never know.”

Granderson: I remember being at first with Cuddyer at first, and him and I are talking, and he goes, “Man, you guys are going to win it.” And I was like “Ah, you never know.”

Nathan: One of the greatest right-handed hitters ever. And you had Magglio, who was probably swinging a better bat at the time. And so I’m sitting there going, “Oh boy. Do I pick my poison here?” I knew I had a lot of success against Miguel, but in no way am I trying to get him up with bases loaded in that situation. And so I’m sitting there going, “You know what, I have to pitch to Magglio and go after him, and I can’t pitch around him because this’ll be the one time that Miggy jumps through, as he does.” It was just about being aggressive, trying to work ahead to Magglio.

Ordonez smoked a line drive, but it found the glove of shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who fired to first for a 6-3 double play.

Granderson: Sure enough the next ball gets hit, and I ended up getting doubled off. It was one of those where as soon as he hit it, I knew I couldn’t go anywhere. But I ended up taking a step too far and then just couldn’t get back.

Cuddyer: A tremendous play by Orlando.

Nathan: I’m not even sure what pitch it was in the at-bat, but (Ordonez) barrels it up and from my perspective, I know where it’s heading. But you never know, A) where a defense is positioned, you don’t know if maybe they shifted slightly and you just don’t know what this ball’s going to do. (It’s) right to Orlando and Grandy, I mean, you could probably replay that a hundred times and 99 times he’s getting back and he’s not taking that extra step, which ultimately caught him off guard.

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Nathan was fired up after the play, pumping his fists three times as he escaped the jam.

Guerrier: You don’t see Joe lose his cool too much like that. And I mean, to see him and the environment get those big outs to keep us tied there is, I mean, it’s just, that’s what it’s about. … I don’t think anybody went into the clubhouse. We were all sitting in the dugout for every inning, every pitch, every bat.

Mauer: It was very rare. … But that just tells you what type of atmosphere it was at that time. I mean, the place was rocking and it was a big part of the game.

Nathan: Yeah, I had a double-fist-pump action and I’ve got to say that was definitely one of the more excited moments, I knew when I got back from from the dugout, I knew I could settle myself down. I almost got the point where I was like light-headed, celebrating with Orlando Cabrera and then I said, “Wait a minute, I may still be going back out. Take a seat, get a breath, let’s get ready for another inning.” But they came over and said, “That’s enough.”

Lyon went out again to begin the ninth but walked Punto on 10 pitches. 

Punto: To be able to battle and get that one up was, for us, I felt like that was kind of a big moment just because we did eat up a bunch of pitches from Brandon Lyon.

After a sacrifice bunt from Span, the Tigers brought in Fernando Rodney, who had 37 saves that season. Orlando Cabrera hit a ground ball to third, but Inge made a diving stop to take away extra bases.

Mauer: (Inge is) probably one of the best athletes I’ve ever seen. I’ve been around the All-Star Games and just watching some of the things he could do, he was very impressive. But good guy, great competitor. He’s one of those guys you watched on the other side. You’d love to have him on your team.

Rodney: That’s the kind of game that’s really emotional. If you win that game, you get to go on. You have to step up, it doesn’t matter if you’re rested.

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The Tigers intentionally walked Mauer, then Carlos Gomez grounded out to send the game to extra innings. 

Leyland: When we got to that point in the game, we knew (Rodney) was the best we had late. When it got to that point, he just wasn’t coming out. He was gonna be out there, and he was.

Anderson: It was not so much missed opportunities, but great plays. I remember watching Inge, it’s like, “How are you doing this?” Diving and making plays, it’s like, damn!

10th inning

Jesse Crain came on to pitch the 10th and got Miguel Cabrera to ground out. But after Crain hit Aubrey Huff with an 0-2 pitch, Don Kelly came on to pinch-run. Crain struck out Raburn with a 95 mph heater, but Inge doubled into the left-field corner, scoring Kelly from first and putting the Tigers ahead 5-4. 

Inge: Honest to God, it’s like a blur to me. It really is. I guarantee you know more than I do. My biggest takeaway wasn’t one play, one hit: It was just looking over in their dugout, them looking back in ours, and it was just … there was such determination on both sides of that thing. It was crazy.

Crain: (Inge) hit a double and (Kelly) ended up scoring. And then of course I’m like, ‘This is brutal, that’s not how I wanted this game to end.”

Crain quickly regrouped and got Laird to ground out to end the inning. 

Crain: You play so many baseball games that you give up a home run or a run. It’s eating at you, but you just got to forget about and go to the next pitch. Especially in a game like that, they can’t get another run. So, my next thing, my next goal was to keep that guy on second base after I let him score. There’s no way we can go down by two runs. … You just have to forget about what happened.

With the game on the line and Rodney back for the 10th, Michael Cuddyer led off the inning with a blooper to left field. Battling the Metrodome lights, Raburn slid to make a play but came up short, and the ball bounced to the wall for a triple. 

Cuddyer: When I hit it, I didn’t think Raburn was going to catch it. It was one of those ones where you swing hard and they don’t realize you didn’t hit it on the barrel. You couldn’t hear anything, so you couldn’t go off sound. … Off the bat, I was fairly confident it was going to be a single and was hoping for it to bounce over and him getting caught in between. Then when I saw him dive, and fortunately when it hit the ground, I’d never broke stride. I was busting it out of the box because I was expecting it to bounce and maybe I could advance on a bobble. I had to slide late and to the right to try to (block) Inge’s view of the ball so I didn’t get tagged. That’s why my slide looked kind of awkward. But it was awkward for a reason.

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Miguel Cabrera: The fly ball to left field changed the whole game. Raburn, he didn’t see the ball because it was hard to play in that stadium because of the lights.

Kubel: We got extra life because (Raburn) lost the ball on the roof. I’ve been there before, a few times. It’s not fun, and that helped us out a little bit too. There’s one spot in particular, I never lost balls in right or center field, just left field. There’s one spot coming in where it’s just different. And I’ve lost a few there, and that’s where that ball got lost too.

Leyland: That dome was a tricky place to play. Of course, the home team knew a lot more about it than the road team. It just seemed like something freaky always happened in that ballpark, not just in that game, but any game. There was always a little chopper that went over an infielder’s head or a popup that bounced over the outfielder’s head. It was so spongy, it bounced so high. You try to drill your players for that in pregame, but you just can’t simulate the game conditions. It was a hard place to locate the ball, too. It was a hard place to locate the ball in the outfield, with all the fans and the roof.

The Tigers brought in the infield as Young chopped out and Harris walked. 

Inge: There was nothing that fazed (Rodney). Nothing could ever faze him. And we knew, win or lose, when he was out there, that’s the guy we wanted out there. No one’s perfect, but if someone’s perfect, it’s probably close to being him.

Rodney: It’s not easy to face those guys. It’s a really difficult time to play. You see it with a lot of guys, it’s different. Some get tight. I like it. You play in the moment.

Alexi Casilla entered to run for Harris before Tolbert hit an RBI single just past the glove of Polanco to tie the game. 

Kubel: That’s how we kind of always were for the years that I was brought up, ’04 my first year, and all the way through, is we always just played. We grinded it out, played small ball. … We had big-name guys, we had superstars, but we had a lot of other guys that just came in and just did the job and it wasn’t … I don’t know, it’s just a bunch of little guys, little things like that, single, walk, get the guy over. … Like when I went to other teams, they talk about do it the Twins way, that’s the hard-nose, right way to play the game.

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Cuddyer: I was happy when Tolbert came up to the plate because being left-handed and fast, I knew he gave us a better chance because if he hits a ground ball to short or second and it’s not just absolutely roped, that he was probably going to be able to beat the double play out and we were going to score. Once I saw him hit the ground ball, obviously being close to second it worried me a little bit, but then it rolled into center field.

Crain: Afterwards, you’re mad. But luckily for us it ended up in a good spot and I didn’t have to dwell on it overnight.

The next batter, Punto, hit a liner to left. Raburn made the play and fired home, nailing Casilla at the plate as Laird applied the tag to save the game.

Cuddyer: I thought it was getting down, but I didn’t think it mattered because I thought Casilla was going to tag up and score. Either way, I thought it was over.

Punto: I really did think it was over. They had to be played perfect. Ryan Rayburn was out there playing me perfect. But I had Alexi Casilla, who was young, super heady, very fast base runner. So I knew that all I had to do is get one in the air and he was going to be able to tag up. And unfortunately I don’t think he had time to get back to the bag to tag up, if you go back and look at it. But if he tags up, yeah, the game is over.

Mike Herman, Twins media relations director: At the end for extra innings we were up, down, up, down. I’m going down the stairs from the tunnel to the dugout and when we’d get out we’d run back upstairs and sit in my office and watch it and try not to throw things.

Morse: TBS was doing the game and they had their laundry-list of postgame walk-off interviews. Mike and I were tasked with three or four guys to do interviews. You don’t know who’s the hero and the guy that sets it up, the winning pitcher, whatever. The Metrodome had 44 stairs up and down. Up and down. Every bottom half of the inning we’d go down there and say “This is it,” and we wouldn’t score and you’d get frustrated and you’d head back up.

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Gardenhire: That was the best game I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve never seen so many things happen. I think if you ask Jim Leyland the same thing, he’d be like that was one of the games that he’ll never ever forget. We could’ve won it, we could’ve lost it a lot of different times. Big plays were made, we got thrown out at home.

11th inning

Crain struck out Everett before Ron Mahay entered the game and struck out Curtis Granderson. Bobby Keppel took over on the mound and got Polanco to line out to end the 11th. 

Vavra:  You’re so into it as a coach. You’re so into what the players are doing and all the hard work. It was a matter of getting on a plane and going one place or another place. Your bags are sitting in the middle, not knowing what way you’re gonna go.

Frank Hanzlik, Twins visiting clubhouse attendant: The clubhouses were just separated by the laundry room. Two or three times (we wheeled the champagne back and forth). We were just doing what their equipment manager wanted to do. He would say, “Get it out of here.” I was like, “OK.” “We could start putting plastic back up.” Finally, he said to just leave it in the hallway. … It’s not too bad (putting plastic up) if you have all hands on deck. You can get it going quick. Back at the Metrodome, it was nothing like Target Field. You don’t have the TVs. It wasn’t as fancy, stuff to protect and it was the last year at the Dome. It was kind of like, “What happens, happens.”

Rodney remained on the mound and got the first out of the bottom half when Granderson robbed Span of a single in center field. Orlando Cabrera struck out swinging despite protesting two called strikes. Mauer grounded to second to send the game to the 12th. 

Leyland: Fernando Rodney was a horse. He wasn’t coming out. He just kept going. I had so much respect for him before that game, but it just doubled after that game. He was a warrior.

Rodney: The one thing I remember is they go, “Are you ready for one more?” I said yes. They asked a few times. They wanted to know if I felt good to come back. I said yes. … It’s the last day of the season so there’s no room for rest.

12th inning

With Keppel on the mound, Clete Thomas lined out to center for out No. 1. Miguel Cabrera fell behind in the count but worked a walk before Kelly singled and moved Cabrera to third on a close play (Kelly took second on the throw). Keppel intentionally walked Raburn to load the bases, then threw a pitch that appeared to brush off Inge’s jersey. In the era before instant replay, umpires did not call a hit by pitch despite a heated argument from Inge.

Inge: (I still get asked) all the time. All the time. … There are two things about me: One, I don’t argue (with umpires). The other is, I want to hit. I always want to hit. I don’t want to take the easy way out. And with the severity of this game, one, when that thing hit me, I knew it hit me. Two, I was gonna take my base because it was a huge, huge base in that game. So I argued. And I argued like, very surprised I didn’t get ejected, to be honest with you. Because there was many, many, many things said within a very short period of time, that was very uncharacteristic of what I would normally be like, because of the situation. (The umpire) understood it. But at the end of the day, you got to try and make the best of what happened, and it didn’t work out. But it was a huge, pivotal turning point, and I wish you didn’t have to rely on an umpire.

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Leyland: It looked like it hit him. You could see the shirt kind of move. So we were pretty sure, but there was really nothing you could do about it. The umpire said no. And I understand that. I respect that. It’s not that easy of a call. But no sour grapes about that. It’s just funny though, how it turns out. If you have replay, that whole game could be different, possibly. We could have won it, we might not have. Who knows? I’m not saying we would have won it. But we would have had the lead in extra innings with the lead and still one out.

Gardenhire: You know how much the wind blows in the Metrodome when we turned our fans on? I believe it was the fans.

Porcello: You know what the worst part about that was? Is that he missed hitting him with the bases loaded and he got hit in the jersey, and we would have scored another run and probably won the game, and 10 years later that would have happened. But at that particular time, that wasn’t, there was no replay and we lost.

Anderson: Nowadays, it’a a run, hit by pitch and you go home. But back then, they say it didn’t, and we ended up getting out of the inning.

Inge grounded to Punto at second, who fired home and forced out Cabrera. Laird ended up chasing a 3-2 pitch, and the game remained tied. 

Vavra: Nick Punto’s play, really, bases loaded. He’s got to make a decision, where he can’t make a double play. But he comes home with it and gets the guy out. We get the strikeout of Laird behind him. That’s amazing. That play was like, “Wow.”

Punto: I didn’t think that me and Cabrera could turn two, not on Brandon Inge. I know how hard he runs down the first-base line. … I know that he hit it off his front foot and he hit. He was going to beat that out if I tried to flip that ball to Cabrera and get a double play. So I charged that ball. I know that Joe Mauer is going to be ready for the ball, and I’ve just got to hope that I make a nice throw and we get that out and keep the inning alive for Bobby Keppel.

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Anderson: We used everybody. We had (Brian Duensing) left, and he was scheduled to throw Game 1 in New York the next day, and hell, he’s getting ready to go. It was like, you can’t prepare. You got to get this one game, and whatever it takes, you go with it. I believe (Duensing) was the last one there. I think we did have him going.

Rodney returned for yet another inning, but a Gomez leadoff single set the stage for the Twins. Cuddyer grounded into a 5-3 fielder’s choice before the Tigers chose to intentionally walk Young. With runners on first and second, Casilla took a 1-1 pitch and grounded it into right field. 

Gardenhire: They basically are the guys that kind of gave the effect of who our team really is: Little slap guys who irritate the living crap out of people. Instead of the big boys walking up to the plate that we had, we had those little guys coming up there, and we knew they were going to put it in play.

Morse: I remember Terry Ryan talking about we traded (pitcher) J.C. Romero for an A-ball wild card-type prospect, and it was Alexi Casilla. I remember Terry being proud of the scouting staff and a lot of the people involved in identifying Alexi as a potential major-leaguer. And then he had such an impact on one of the biggest games in Twins history. It was a proud moment for the baseball scouts that a guy that was pretty obscure became a part of Twins lore.

Gomez rounded third and scored easily as the Twins mobbed home plate. After a four-hour, 37-minute battle, they advanced to face the Yankees in the ALDS.

Granderson: When the ball got hit I was like, “Oh, we might have a shot now.” And I looked at the replay, and I think when the ball was fielded he was almost halfway. There was no reason to even throw.

Herman: Carlos Gomez, after he slid across home plate, he threw his helmet up in the air. I was running out there trying to figure out who we were going to get for the interviews, and all of a sudden I look up and it landed right behind. It was like 25 feet in the air. … It was chaos. Utter chaos. Guys are running to jump on Carlos Gomez, and then guys are running to go get Alexi Casilla, who then started running out toward left-center field. Then the whole pile started going out that way.

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Leyland: From a selfish standpoint, I’m talking about myself, when you’re retired from managing, laying around, you think about the games you were involved with. The good ones, the bad ones, the in-between ones. You think about certain situations. That’s a game that always comes to mind, like the Braves-Pirates game in ’92. I have no regrets at all. I don’t remember any moves that I made that I second-guessed myself. I don’t know if I managed great. I managed like I always managed. I tried to put my players in the best spot to win the game, and I felt comfortable with the way I managed the game. I’m sure Gardy did, too. But we lost the game and they won.

Liddle: Two guys who didn’t start the game won the game. Carlos Gomez wound up scoring the winning run, and Alexi Casilla wound up driving it in with a base hit. It just happened to be a good matchup. Alexi had numbers off Rodney. I remember, because I kept a chart on the bench of our hitters versus the opposition’s bullpen. Alexi had numbers off of Rodney, and it just so happened that he came up in that situation, and he was able to drive a ball through the infield, and Gomez scored with a headfirst slide and ended the heavyweight match. Just a tremendous game. It was really sad that someone had to lose.

Vavra: Gomez was flying. That was pretty exciting — as a hitting coach, I go running out like we won the World Series.

Aftermath

The Tigers became the first team in history to have a three-game lead with four games remaining and lose the division. The Twins met the Yankees for a 6 p.m. game the next night, and with a depleted bullpen, got swept in three games. In 2010, the Twins said goodbye to the Metrodome and moved to Target Field. In 2011, Sports Illustrated named Game 163 the best regular-season game of the previous decade. In 2012, Major League Baseball added a second wild-card team and a yearly one-game wild-card round in each league.

Morse: Bobby and I decided to carpool together because he was living in a guy’s basement in Shakopee, Minn., and I was living in Shakopee at the time. Of all guys, I wasn’t extremely close to Bobby Keppel. He was a great person and a really nice guy, so he offered me a ride. … I remember driving with him to the airport and both are just dissecting the game and I remember looking at him and saying, “You’re the answer to one of the more epic Twins trivia questions of all time. Who was the winning pitcher of Game 163?” He just kind of chuckled. It was unbelievable.

Morneau: If you were to quiz me on that one, I probably would have forgot.

Liddle: Out of everything that happened in that game, the thing that will stick with me for the rest of my life, is both teams had so much respect for each other, that at the end of the game we shook hands. You just don’t see that in pro ball. You just don’t see that. It was a mutual respect everybody had for each other, because, what a game!

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Santiago: I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you right away: That’s one of the best games I ever played. I played in a World Series before, and for me, that’s still one of the best games. For me, that’s like a Super Bowl. You don’t got tomorrow. You got to play all-out that day. … I have a CD of that game in my house. I’ve gone back and looked at it a couple of times. … It’s still one of the best games I’ve ever played.

Mauer: It was like a heavyweight bout, you know? That’s what I remember, the whole game just back and forth. It probably wasn’t the most well played or clean game I’ve ever been a part of, but it was definitely the most entertaining and just exciting game I’ve ever been a part of.

Vavra: There was a big on-field celebration, then we all went into the locker room and had a total celebration. Then somebody came down and said, “Hey, there’s 55,000 people out there that aren’t going to go away.” So everybody went up and the players started parading around and high-fiving fans up in the stands and stuff. But then it was over, man. We had to get on a plane.

Liddle: I think it kind of created today’s wild-card situation. I think MLB may have saw, “Hey, look at the excitement from this one-game playoff.” If you’re a wild-card team — neither one of us were able to set out pitching — and really, it hurt us. And it would have hurt the Tigers, too, to use all your pitching for just one game, and then go and play a series with the Yankees. You can’t limp into a series with the Yankees after having a bloodbath the night before, playing Game 163. So anyway, it hurt us in the next series. We fought so hard to get in. It really was unfair for the next series. But what a game.

Leyland: It was one of the greatest games in the history of baseball. One of them. It would rank in the top, I don’t know how many games, but it would rank as one of the best games ever played. It was really a postseason game without the title of postseason. How could you have a better game for baseball people — players, fans, everybody involved?

Inge: I remember being worn out and completely exhausted mentally and physically at the end of that sucker. That was the best and worst game I’ve ever been a part of. Two teams went at it like I’ve never seen and never been a part of, so that was the best competition I’ve ever faced, as far as back and forth, but the worst outcome. I guess there’s a silver lining, because we were so tired — either team that won, it didn’t matter — we were going into a fresh, hot New York Yankees and were gonna get spanked anyway. But honest to God, it was probably one of my favorite games playing. The atmosphere there, I’ve never — World Series, anything — I’ve never been in an environment quite like that.

Inge: I’m telling you what: I wouldn’t change anything, results or anything. I would still want to be a part of that game if it was played tomorrow. It’s why we play the game, to be honest with you. It’s why we should play the game — to compete on a stage like that.

(Top photo: Bruce Kluckhohn/Getty Images)

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