In all the excitement over the Twins, here are the Minnesota sports stories you may have missed

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: We're going to stick with baseball for a few more minutes. You've been listening to the radio today, you've most likely heard something about this.

COMMENTATOR: Swing and a miss! Finally! 21 years in the making. And the Twins advance with a victory in two straight over Toronto. And they will meet the Houston Astros in the ALDS.

CATHY WURZER: That's the sound of the Twins winning their first playoff series since 2002. And as the players get ready for the next one in Houston, the team has announced they'll be hosting watch parties at Target Field this weekend. In all the excitement, you may have missed the week's other stories in Minnesota sports. So here to talk baseball and beyond, our sports guys. Wally Langfellow, Eric Nelson.

They co-host the 10,000 Takes sports talk show on radio and TV. Wally's also the founder of the Minnesota Score Magazine. Eric's the Minnesota Vikings reporter for CBS Sports Eye on Football. How are you guys doing?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Great, after the last couple of days of Twins baseball for sure.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Hey, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Hey, Eric. By the way, thanks for joining us yesterday. Eric, by the way, was great, Wally. Giving us a look at that first win. And now, of course, Twins are on to the next phase of the playoffs. And I have to say, I didn't think it could happen. I'm kind of embarrassed.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, I mean, and you have good reason. I mean, after having lost 18 straight playoff games stretching over 19 years, breaking that on Tuesday and then advancing with the win, as you just heard from the telecast yesterday. 21 years in the making. 2002 when they beat the Oakland A's in the first round.

By the way, that was the Moneyball team that the Twins beat back in 2002, famously depicted in a motion picture called Moneyball, with Brad Pitt, oh, by the way.

CATHY WURZER: That's right.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: So the Twins right now as we speak are working out at Target Field getting ready. They will head to Houston. They will play two games in Houston. One on Saturday, one on Sunday. They return to Minnesota on Tuesday, and that will be a 3:00 start. So get used to these afternoon games. Potentially more of them to come.

But in any case, they do play on Saturday. The good news was yesterday, they got great pitching again, both from starter Sonny Gray and from the bullpen. They win two-nothing. And the controversy, and it's going all across our neighbors to the north in Canada. When the Blue Jays in the fourth inning took out, inexplicably, starting pitcher Jose Berrios. I mean, he had just struck out three guys in the inning before to end the inning. He was pitching-- well, dealing, as they say.

And Berrios comes out of the game. They were going by analytics, they were going by a computer. They were going by a chart that they had charted out before the game. And they take him out of the game. The Twins proceed to score two runs and go on to win at two-nothing. Carlos Correa again, the defensive hero. Made a great play on a pickoff move to pick off Vlad Guerrero off of second base.

So they did a lot of things right, and they are headed to Houston and that should be a lot of fun.

CATHY WURZER: Hey, Eric, Carlos Correa, doesn't he have ties to Houston?

ERIC NELSON: Yes, he does, Cathy. Carlos Correa played on the Houston Astros World Series title team in 2017. He's viewed as a villain in a lot of major league baseball cities because he was part of that sign stealing scandal the Astros were involved in were they banged on garbage cans to alert their teammates of what pitches they were going to see. He definitely is not a popular guy in Los Angeles, because they beat the Dodgers in a World Series. And they don't really like him a whole lot in New York City, because the Yankee fans feel like the Astros cheated to beat the Yanks in a playoff series.

The other footnote on Carlos Correa-- because he was a fixture in Houston. His wife is a former Miss Texas. Now they've got roots down up here in Minnesota, and he's been signed to a long term contract. But this will be an emotional return for Carlos Correa when the Twins and Astros play Saturday at Minute Maid Park in Downtown Houston. And the Astros won the World Series last year, Cathy, under Dusty Baker, the veteran skipper who finally got a World Series ring.

And they've been in the American League Championship Series, which would be the next round six straight years. So they're trying to make it seven. They have players like Jose Altuve, who looks more like a jockey. He's 5'5", but he can ball, as they say. Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, and Justin Verlander, one of the top right-hand pitchers of this era.

CATHY WURZER: OK, so that's baseball. Let's talk Vikings. This is a big weekend, too, because the Vikings are going to host the defending Super Bowl champion, Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. Wally, take it away.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Yeah. So supposedly, that's the storyline, right. But of course, all you hear this week is, is Taylor Swift coming to town again?

[LAUGHS]

Following Travis Kelce, her boyfriend, I guess. The Kansas City Chiefs' tight end. And so putting that aside. The game is at 325 at US Bank Stadium. The House of Noise, as Eric and I like to call it. Vikes coming off their first win of the year. They beat Carolina last Sunday, as we know. They're now 1 in 3.

Vikings defense came up big in that game, particularly in the second half when they shut Carolina out. This week, they'll have their hands full, the Vikings defense will. With Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and company. Chiefs are 3 in 1 on the season. Eric and I have a running bet. I say that Taylor Swift is not going to show up. He says she is. I have a feeling that there's more to it than just him guessing that she's coming.

CATHY WURZER: Well, Eric, don't you think she almost has to come now that Mayor Frye dubbed Minneapolis Swiftie-apolis when she was here earlier in the year?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Absolutely, Cathy. And I know you're a gossip junkie and you've been all over this Taylor Swift--

CATHY WURZER: Not that I care.

ERIC NELSON: --Travis Kelce romance or whatever it is. But we have a lot in play Sunday. Chiefs Kingdom, as they call it down there in mid-America, will be trekking up I-35 from Kansas and Missouri and Iowa to watch the Super Bowl champs as they invade the Purple Nation. And then Swiftie Universe might be here, too. And that brings the fringe fans in, if they can afford the tickets. They're about $190 on the secondary market.

Swift has been at the Chiefs' last two games, one in Kansas city, the other in New Jersey. The Jets played just eight miles from Midtown Manhattan. So that's basically New York City. NBC showed Taylor Swift on their broadcast 17 times Sunday night in the Jets game. Now Travis Kelce had the audacity to say the media is focusing on Taylor too much. But who is he to talk, Cathy? He does spots for Lowe's, State Farm, Campbell's Soup, McDonald's, Bud Light, Sleep Number, Pfizer, Direct TV.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

ERIC NELSON: And one other footnote. Patrick Mahomes, best quarterback on the globe right now, is the son of ex-Twins pitcher Patrick Mahomes. And he used to run around the Metrodome as a little kid.

CATHY WURZER: I did not know that. No, see you--

ERIC NELSON: Now you do.

CATHY WURZER: I do know that, and I don't know why Travis had just-- I think he'd just do ads and forget about playing football. OK, before we go-- before we go, the fight for the Little Brown Jug is this weekend, too, right?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: It is. Gophers playing host to Michigan. Michigan is the number two ranked team in all of college football. They are 19 and 1/2 point favorites to beat the Gophers. It is going to be a tall task for Minnesota. Michigan, unbeaten. As you said, they're battling for the Little Brown Jug.

A quick little history lesson. Why the Little Brown Jug? Well, when Michigan coach Fielding Yost back in 1903 brought his team to Minneapolis for the Michigan-Minnesota game, Michigan student manager Thomas Roberts was told to purchase something to carry water. Yost was concerned that Gopher fans might contaminate his water supply. So Roberts purchased a five-gallon jug for $0.30 from a local variety store in Dinkytown.

The jug itself is a red wing pottery five-gallon beehive jug, and was made, of course, in Red Wing.

CATHY WURZER: This is true.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: It will be on national TV.

CATHY WURZER: OK. We'll have to watch, obviously. See? All right, Eric, final word from you.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Well, the Little Brown Jug is really just a rumor in Dinkytown. Michigan dominates in this series. 76 wins for the Wolverines. Only 25 for the Gophers. Three ties. Minnesota hasn't beaten Michigan in Minneapolis since 1977. That's like three stadiums ago. Memorial Stadium, the Metrodome, and now, Huntington Bank Stadium.

CATHY WURZER: Good point.

ERIC NELSON: And as Wally said, the Wolverines are a top tier team coached by Jim Harbaugh. And they've never lost in Minneapolis at the new venue, Huntington Bank Stadium. So if Minnesota were to pull off the colossal upset, the Gophers would garner a lot of attention on Saturday. They would steal headlines from the Minnesota Twins.

CATHY WURZER: Oh my gosh. All right, you guys. Thanks much. Have a good weekend.

ERIC NELSON: See ya, Cathy.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: See ya, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. That's it for us on Minnesota Now this week. Our senior producer is Aleesa Kuznetsov. Our producers are Alanna Elder, Ellen Finn, Gretchen Brown. Our technical director today was Mr. Alex Simpson. Theme music composed by Minnesota-based musicians Abby Wolfe and Joe Horton.

Oh, we so appreciate you joining us this week on Minnesota Now. If you've got a story idea for us or just a comment or a question, minnesotanow@mpr.org is our address. Have a good day.