A caller to a sports talk radio station the other day told the hosts he was well-prepared for playoff baseball. "I've got my bottle of whiskey, my nitro pills, and my Pepto Bismol, all lined up here in front of the TV." Given that I live in Boston, this man was a Red Sox fan, but Yankees fans could have used all three remedies in the twelve innings it took to even up things with the Twins last night.

In the afternoon before Game Two of the ALDS, a man threw himself onto the tracks at the 161st Street/River Avenue subway station, the station right at Yankee Stadium. I know because I was riding the D train at the time, and the were stopping all trains at 145th Street in Manhattan and making everyone get out. One announcement said 161st Street was closed for a "police investigation," and another reported the reasons as "a severe customer injury." Most of the thousands of riders stranded at 145th street milled around wondering whether to go back downtown and cross over to another line, or just wait to see what would happen. A subway policeman, trying to clear the platform, passed through the crowd with a bullhorn. "Block tickets will be issued upstairs at the window," he was saying, but when someone asked him why, he said--not into the bullhorn--that some idiot had jumped the tracks.

"Man, if you're going to kill yourself, do it at home, not at rush hour," said the woman next to me in line for a "block ticket" that would get us on a bus into the Bronx, at least.

If only the poor guy could have held on for a seven or eight more hours, perhaps he would have seen that no situation is hopeless. Not even when the best postseason reliever in history (sorry, Allie, Eck) coughs up a lead and the one guy you didn't want to beat you just hit a home run in the 12th inning.

Bus transfers and all, I still arrived a few blocks from the Stadium with two hours still to go before game time. The line outside the Court Deli on 161st Street snaked around the block and a quick glance inside showed the place packed with people in pinstriped jerseys and blue satin field jackets. Yankee Pizza a few doors down was packed, too--about half of the seats filled with cops grabbing a bite before Stadium/street duty. I made my way through the crowded streets to Stan The Man's Bag Check, dropped off my overnight bag, and then headed in.

The courthouse that overlooks the outfield glowed in the setting sun as I found my seat in the upper deck. The air was still warm and I took my jacket off and stowed it in my bag, where gloves, scarf and earmuffs awaited, in case this Game Two should turn out to be as nippy as last year's, when we *^#@$# froze. Some Twins were still taking batting practice but the "Yankeeography" playing on the Diamondvision absorbed my attention. Very few people had made their way to their seats at that point and it was like having the world's biggest, loudest home theater all to myself.

The nighttime chill soon descended however, and the sky darkened to that familiar, enclosing dome above the Stadium lights--no stars, no clouds, just a blackness as impenetrable as any back curtain in a Broadway theater. What a production was about to unfold in front of it.

With the temperature dropping, I put on my NY turtleneck and jacket, though no gloves yet. I put my chilly fingers into my pockets and waited for the announcement of the starting lineups.

So few people were in their seats when the lineups were announced, that the cheers for each player sounded weak in my ears. Compared to a month ago when Boston was here, the lack of volume was shocking. But how many people were held up on the B train? How many still eating in the Court Deli? About a third of the seats were full, but you knew more were coming.

One reason the seats were still so empty at the time when lineups were announced was that for postseason TV they do things a bit differently. So instead of the usual routine, where the Yankees take the field and then we have the National Anthem, this time the anthem came just after the lineups and a full twenty minutes before the first pitch. Lieber delivered it--a strike at 91 miles-an-hour--at 7:10 pm, and we were underway.

The darn, pesky, indefatigable Twins scored first. Jacque Jones singled, a ground ball that got through the hole at second. Torii Hunter followed with a grounder to A-rod, good for the force at second, but no double play. Need I remind anyone that the Twins turned five double plays the night before to kill every Yankee rally, a new Division Series record? Would not turning one here bite the Yankees?

Yes. Justin Morneau, the young first baseman they Twins like so much they let Gold-glover Doug Mientkiewicz go to the Red Sox, laced a double into right that Sheffield had trouble picking up. Sheff unleashed a throw to try to get the runner at home, but was not in time. Jorge, though, then fired the ball to third where A-rod slapped the tag on Morneau, who had tried to leg it to third. The inning was over on the play, but Torii Hunter--damn him--had scored.

Hunter is one of the most likable guys in baseball, and I hold him singularly responsible for beating the Yankees in Game One, damn his eyes. For those who need reminding, it was Hunter who robbed Barry Bonds of a home in the All-Star game a couple of years back, with a circus catch over the wall. Hunter is a master wall-climber and a regular star on Sportscenter highlights. He robbed A-rod on Tuesday night of what was either going to be a homer or a double off the wall, and also cut down Jorge Posada at the plate with a perfect throw on a different play. The Daily News reported that Ron Gardenhire had been amused to read the lips of some Yankees fans during pre-game introductions, when one said to the other, "They've got Torii Hunter. Who are the rest of these guys?" Well, having Torii Hunter is apparently better than chopped liver, even if it is from the Court Deli. I considered putting my earmuffs on.

Then Derek Jeter came to the plate. Three pitches later, I wasn't cold any more. Jeter hit what is surely the longest home run I have ever seen at Yankee Stadium, since it went deep into the black batters' eye. "You just had a feeling he was going to do something like that," I said to Julian, who had arrived by then, with his wife Heather, and sat down next to me. The scoreboard informed us, when the screaming had died down somewhat, that Jeter was only the third player to hit a "black" homer in the postseason. Trivia question: who were the other two? Julian and I thought Reggie, of course Reggie, and the other had to be a non-Yankee or we'd know it... Andruw Jones? In 1996, Game One of the World Series? (Whoops, turns out it was the Mariners' Jay Buhner. Good guess, though, wasn't it?)

Later in the inning, the Yankees had two out with men on second and third for Jorge Posada. Jorge just hadn't looked right to me the night before (we watched the game on TV from a sports bar), and he didn't look right here, either, swinging at the first pitch and popping it up.

The final member of our party, Lori, then arrived. The stands everywhere were now filled and the Stadium was reaching its more usual October pitch. But there was not much to yell about in the next inning. The Twins got two more runs off Lieber, who walked the leadoff man. Now, Jon Lieber almost never walks anybody, and I began to wonder if home plate umpire Mark Wegner was having a tough night. Although Lieber struck out raw recruit Justin Kubel (or is it Jason? He was announced as Justin, but the newspapers called him Jason...), two ground balls up the middle followed, and a sac fly, for two runs. Really you couldn't say Lieber was pitching badly at all. Only Morneau's hit in the first was a liner. Everything else was on the ground, which is a good sign, normally.

After that Lieber settled down well, allowing only three more hits into the seventh inning. It probably helped that the Yankees tied it up in the third, when Gary Sheffield followed a single of A-rod's with a home run. A-rod put the Yankees ahead with a homer of his own in the fifth. AND, as if that wasn't enough, he also had the RBI single in the bottom of the seventh in a textbook small-ball inning for the Yankees, when Cairo led off the inning with a walk, Jeter sacrificed him to second, and A-rod cashed him in promptly by gently serving a ball into the outfield. "That was a thing of beauty," said my brother. "Didn't try to do too much," I agreed. The Yankees might have had more there, if the Twins didn't turn a much disputed 1-6-3 double play that Joe came out to argue, but hey, it was the insurance run we wanted. Our "God Bless America" rally in the seventh. The plan now would be Gordon and Rivera and go home happy.

Well, it didn't work out quite that way. WIth one out, Gordon faced Jacque Jones and struck him out on a wicked breaking ball that broke so much it went right through Jorge and all the way to the backstop. Torii Hunter (again!) followed with a hit, and with two men on, Torre did something that I didn't agree with. He brought in Mo.

Now, earlier I called Mariano the best postseason reliever of all time, but "everyone knows" he has a tendency to give up some bloop hits. With two lefties coming up, I'm sure Joe envisioned him handling them, but Morneau fisted the first cutter he saw off the handle of his bat, just enough to drop it over the infield and score a run. The Koskie swung late at a pitch and hit a pop fly almost foul down the left field line, which bounced fair and into the stands, plating the tying run. The lead was gone. Mo did not blink. He struck out Kubel, and got Guzman to hit a comebacker. It was a typical Mariano appearance on the mound, his stuff was fine, but the results were not.

A malaise of disgruntledness then settled over the Stadium. The fellow five rows in front of us who had been leading the cheers in our section also took a header into the row in front of him (the upper deck is very steep...). All we saw was his beer and the bottoms of his sneakers go flying.

It didn't help that some guy named Juan Rincon sat the Yankees down 1-2-3 in the eighth AND the ninth. "What is going on here?" Lori asked. "We shouldn't have to work this hard. I'm seriously unhappy." She called her son Max, who was just a few miles away at the family apartment in Riverdale, to tell him not to wait up for us.

After the eleventh, Julian and Heather had to give up and leave. So they were spared seeing Torii Hunter (that guy again!!) hit a home run off Tanyon Sturtze, who was entering his third inning of work. Lori and I were determined to stay through the inning. At least two thirds of the crowd was still there, alternating between the usual screaming lunacy we are used to in October, and a sullen silence punctuated by sporadic growls at the umpire, Mark Wegner, who seemed to still be having trouble seeing strikes out of the hands of Yankees, but saw quite a few out of the hands of Twins that the 56,354 umpires in the stands disagreed on. Who can say? Was Wegner that bad? We figured he was, since we saw Jorge Posada really giving it to him at one point. When Wegner called John Olerud out on strikes to open the bottom of the twelfth (a checked swing), we sat back in our seats. Reflexively, I looked at the scoreboard to see how the Red Sox were doing, before reminding myself the standings didn't matter.

Then Cairo came to the plate, and worked out a walk against the Twins closer, Joe Nathan, who was also in his third inning. In the Bronx, we are like sharks who smell blood in the water. The crowd came to life. Joe Morgan, covering the game for ESPN, remarked on it in the Daily News. "One minute this place was dead," he said. And then it wasn't. Nathan was tiring, and with Jeter on deck... it was time to scream again. The Twins had a little mound conference. What, are they discussing how to pitch to Jeter? Make 'em shout to be heard.

Jeter then walked on four pitches, bringing A-rod to the plate. Now, this man had already been directly responsible for three of the Yankees' five runs. He needed to be responsible for one more to tie the game.

I have no idea what pitch Nathan threw him, but whatever it was, Rodriguez crushed it. The ball sailed high and far against the black backdrop of Bronx sky. I thought for sure it was gone, but no, it somehow hit first, and then bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double. The tying run, Cairo, scored, and Jeter stood on third, ninety feet from winning the game. Amid chants of "M-V-P! M-V-P!", Sheffield was walked. So with the bases loaded, Hideki Matsui came to the plate, and Ron Gardenhire spared Nathan the final humiliation and brought in "struggling" lefty J. C. Romero to try to get Matsui to hit into one of those 4-6-3 double plays you see so often if Matsui is fooled.

Matsui was not fooled. He hit a smoking live drive on the first pitch he saw, a liner that would have been a sure hit if the outfield had not been playing shallow to try to cut off the run. Didn't matter. Jeter had already decided he was tagging on anything out of the infield. Anything at all. The throw was a weak one, cut off at first, and late to the plate. Jeter slid across with a vengeance and the leaped in the air. We leaped in the stands. Leaped and roared and threw confetti into the updrafts that carried the paper and shouts and strains of Frank Sinatra up into the black sky.