And as it begins, so it ends. Fourteen games. Fifty-three at-bats. No home runs. Yet it can be said that Bret Boone did have as much an impact on the success of the Minnesota Twins as he has had with the Seattle Mariners all these many years. His three-week tenure in the Twin Cities served as a mighty yawp from a once-mighty warrior, a proud death cry that rang true and loud from the shores of Puget Sound to the merry-go-round at the Mall of America, refracting briefly off of the mighty Monongahela, the mighty wrists of Hank Aaron and the Jones Brothers, and the stately ghost of Ray Kroc. Boone’s feats on the field of play could be classified as Bunyan-esque, so please permit me the chance to wax in a Runyan-esque fashion about his feats and qualities.

It was a pleasure to share the booth with young Bret during the 2003 post-season, especially during that classing American League Championship Series between the proud New York Yankees and the upstart Boston Red Sox. He was a man of few words, just as his swing was a movement of few motions, but his words were insightful, indicative of his many years playing this great game. And, moreover, he knew when to let the moment speak for himself. As soon as his brother Aaron connected with a Tim Wakefield offering and sent it deep into the heart of Red Sox Nation like a scud missle, I watched intently Bret’s reaction to his brother’s success. After all, his team at the time – the team that brought him into the world of Major League Baseball, the mighty Seattle Mariners – was two years removed from their last playoff appearance. I saw in Bret’s stoic face a mixture of emotion – the pride one feels when a sibling succeeds, and the jealousy that success breeds in a true competitor. Watching him watch his younger brother glide around the diamond, I could see a younger Bret horseplaying with his baby brother, giving him Indian rope burns and making him eat grass or crickets while father Bob was away earning his keep under the tools of non-ignorance. That same mischevious glint survives today in Bret’s steely blue gaze, even apart from the stirrups and athletic supporters and shaving cream pies.

It is this glint that briefly propelled Bret into the status of super-stardom. In a year where the resolve of America was tested fully, Bret passed with flying colors, setting career highs in multiple categories, and earning consideration as the Most Valuable Player on a team full of thrifty value. On a team that was reeling from the loss of a tried and true competitor (a man named Alex Rodriguez), it was as if Bret chose to become A-Rod, hitting predigious home runs and driving in clutch runs as if touched by A-Rod’s magic stick. He did so with the flourish of a superstar, his bat slicing through the strike zone with laser-like alacrity, and ejecting from his hands to twirl twig-like to the ground as the ball would rise and rise and never come down. And always with that sparkle, that twinkle, that mischevious rapscallion-like countenance that suggested a mature Denace the Menace pestering that red and white sphere like a twine-filled Mr. Wilson.

It was this glint that drove Terry Ryan to rescue Bret from the inglorious consignment his release from the Mariners bestowed upon his broad shoulders. Indeed, in his third game for the Twins, against the soaring Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Bret briefly shrugged off his disappointment and delivered an RBI that meant the difference between a Twins victory and a Twins defeat. While he would only drive in two more runners, do not let it be said that Bret did not want to do more for his team. Think of Bret’s abbreviated tenure with the Twins not as a question mark, but as a semi-colon, bridging the gap between the Luis Rivas phrase, and whatever phrase, or phase, may follow.

Fate is a fickle lady of the evening, and her wants and wiles are as fleeting as the kiss of a brisk northwesterly wind off of the Chesepeake. Bret’s Twins career serves as a microcosm of his career in toto, progressing from struggle to grand succees to ignominious defeat in one lunar cycle. But the moon shall not set on such a great baseball player – indeed, another team will come calling, with a void between first and second base that needs to be filled. And, as he has proven so many times, Bret Boone can ably fill any hole that needs filling, whether it be the long gap between bases or the gap between a hanging breaking pitch and his wicked lumber. Let us hope that the next hole he fills is not the grave where his career will soon reside.

Former Major League catcher Tim McCarver returned from retirement in 1980 to become one of many players to have played in four decades. In 2003, McCarver, a three-time Emmy winner, set a record by broadcasting his 13th World Series on national television (surpassing the late, great Curt Gowdy).