For regular readers of the The Fives, you'll have to forgive me my recent pro sports slanted columns. It's just something about this time of year where Minnesota sports fans hopes usually soar (the Vikings haven't been mathetmatically eliminated from the playoffs and the Twins are often contending) that inspire me to think optimistically.

It usually only lasts about a week.

That being said, one shouldn't confuse being a Twins fan with being a Vikings fan. They are two distinct fan bases. Vikings fans have grown accustomed to being disappointed at one point or another in the season (it just comes earlier some seasons than others). Twins fans have grown accustomed to being pleasantly

surprised.

I often tell fellow sports fans is that the Twins could move away from Minnesota (as has been threatened this decade) or even contracted (as was planned by the dark lord Bud Selig) and I would only be less disappointed than if any of my other favorite teams moved. That's because they have done well and I'll actually have good memories of their team (even in the '70s when I went to see them 13 times at the old Met and they won only once.)

So, as they face a do-or-die game tonight with the Chicago White Sox to see who will be in the 2008 playoffs, I offer up my five best reasons to be a Twins fan.

5. Kirby Puckett

There are few teams in Major League Baseball that have for their best player of all time anything similar to Kirby Puckett, a player who single-handedly embodied a team's personality.

Small in stature (at least in height, where he stood only 5 feet 8 inches tall), he played bigger than life. But he played with an enthusiasm that seemed to make anything possible.

His performance in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series is arguably the greatest clutch performance of any player in World Series history (more on that later), but what makes Kirby the team's most beloved figure is that he was truly the underdog that overcame the odds. From his rise from the projects of South Chicago to playing for the long irrelevant Twins and leading them to a pair of World Series victory, he became the darling of Minnesota baseball fans.

During his career, his love for the game was evident to all who watched and listened. I can remember living near St. Louis when the Twins were playing in the 1987 World Series and a couple of DJs at an area station decided to prank Puckett by calling him early one morning at his motel room to try to unsettle the center fielder.

But when Puckett answered, it was quickly apparent he was having more fun than the DJs, even at 5 in the morning.

But he wasn't a cardboard cutout. After glaucoma cut his career short at age 35, he retired from the game.

He maintained a relatively high profile within the Twins organization for a few years, but allegations of sexual improprieties and trial (in which he was acquitted) forced him into virtual seclusion. It was during this time that he suffered a stroke and died prematurely at age 46.

His life, full of glory and tragedy, played out like a greek tragedy. In fact, there was even a play written about his life that deals with rise and fall of superstars in today's culture

. Regardless, though, the diminutive Puckett will be the biggest of Twins for generations of Minnesota baseball fans.

4. America loves the underdog

And few teams fit the bill like the Twins.

In opening his book about how to fix baseball, Bob Costas uses the Twins as an example, saying that Twins fans have no realistic hope of ever contending in the screwed-up system of Major League Baseball that ensures that the four or five teams have the odds eternally stacked in their favor.

Then, a few short years later, after avoiding a plan to contract the Twins (eliminate them), they came with a few games of reaching the World Series. And they have been contending ever since.

Unable to attract quality free agents, the Twins developed a farm system that is the best in all of baseball. Now, they eschew free agents over young talent, as evidence by this year's crop of the starting pitchers, the elder statesman being about 26 years old.

Not only that, but they lose their two biggest names (Torii Hunter and Johan Santana) to other teams with fat wallets, and they still go on to play beyond the regular season. I just hope it isn't just one game past the regular season.

The fact is, they play in a small market with a pathetic TV contract that pays them beans, but they continue to be competitive. When others ask me how I can be a Twins fan, I simply reply its far better than being a Red Sox fan where your team is given virtually every competitive advantage in the book and to do anything but win the World Series is failure.

But then I think of the poor Mets or Cubs fans, and I relish the Twins even more.

And the best thing about being a Twins fan - you're not a Yankees fan.

And of note, Las Vegas has adjusted to the fact that the sum is greater than the parts when it comes to the Twins

. Check out the World Series and Playoff odds, and they aren't the longest shots (or even the longest shots from the beginning of the season, with today's opponent the White Sox and the upstart Tampa Bay Rays taking those honors).

3. They are getting a new stadium

One of the biggest arguments against the Twins in general is the stadium in which they play, the Hubert H. Humphrey dome (affectionately known by Twins fans as the Homerdome).

And, to be honest, it is a monstrosity.

From the artificial turf to the cramped seating to the awful acoustics to the garbage bag in right field to the hard to see the baseball against the milky white roof - well, you get the idea.

But there are two things about the dome that aren't all bad. First of all, they likely wouldn't have won two World Series there if they had been playing in the old Metropolitan Stadium or any other ballpark. The dome field advantage has long been documented for the made for turf Twins.

Second, they are getting a new ballpark, and it looks to be real nice - outdoors and everything. Let's just hope that their home field advantage doesn't disappear when they deflate the HHH dome.

2.The Twins play baseball the way it should be played.

One of the main reasons the Twins are competitive this year is that they aren't a team full of souped up steroid sluggers who had to adjust after drug testing came into being.

Oh, they have had a couple of players suspended for steroids, but none of consequence. And their dreadful lack of power throughout the steroid era made them become the team they are today - the team your grandfather would have said "They play the game the way it should be."

That basically means that instead of swinging for the fence every at bat and simply trying to outscore their opponent, the Twins do all the little things that lead to victory.

Perenially, they are among the best fielding, pitching, baserunning and clutch hitting teams in the majors. Their stars - Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau - are among the most solid at their positions defensively as they are offensively.

Being a Twins fan is kind of like getting a great deal on a used car. It may not have all the bells and whistles that a new car does, but all the parts work together and they don't break down under the stress of all that travel.

1. The Twins play had a role in sidelining legendary homer Jack Buck

It's hard for me to tell whether my distaste for legendary broadcaster Jack Buck came before or after the 1991 World Series, but let's just say that after the series, there was no dobut.

A longtime announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, Buck's disdain for the American League and its teams were apparent.

It's not that he couldn't get enthusiastic, he just couldn't do it for a lesser team from an inferior league such as the Twins.

Here's a list of his most famous lines from memorable big games.

- In 1988, when Kirk Gibson hit his famous game-winning pinch hit homerun in Game 1 of the World Series, he exclaimed: "I can't believe what I just saw!"

- In 1985, in Game 5 of the World Series when Ozzie Smith his a walk-off home run, he shouted "Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!"

- In 1998, when Mark McGwire broke the single season homerun record, he announced "Pardon me while I stand up and applaud."

None of those are egregious by any standards.

However, in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series, Twins centerfielder Kirby Puckett had one of the greatest games ever by any player in any world series. After tripling home a run earlier in the game and making a spectacular leaping catch against the wall that saved an extra base hit, the pesky Atlanta Braves pushed the Twins to the point of elimination by putting the game into extra innings.

Meanwhile, Buck had gone on an exhaustive rant about how much better of a manager Bobby Cox was for getting the Braves into position to take the series and how Twins manager Tom Kelly (who would win his second World Series rings, one more than the Atlanta Braves have to this day) was simply being out maneuvered.

Then, Puckett, who had already had a game for the ages, slammed the game-winning, walk-off homerun in the 11th inning in one of the most memorable moments in World Series history.

Buck's call: "And we'll see you tomorrow night."

The calls flooded in from angry Minnesota fans after the series, and CBS let Buck go the next season.

CBS brass said it was because he didn't have good chemistry with fellow announcer Tim McCarver.

Or, it could have been he was a hack who liked to root for one team as much as he liked to announce.

I say it was the latter.