Jim Thome delivers another dramatic moment to beat his former team

The slugger seemed to float, his heavy stride lifted by the screaming crowd, his quiet nature overcome by the thrill of this win against his former team -- the team that didn't think Jim Thome, now nine days from his 40th birthday, had enough left in his hall of fame career for one more season on the South Side.
Thome rounded third base and let out a holler. His two-run nfl jersey
home run, the first walk-off homer in Target Field history, one he rocketed 445 feet to right field, had just clinched a 7-6, 10-inning win over the White Sox and boosted the Twins' lead over Chicago in the American League Central to four games.
And now, with third base behind him, Thome headed into the throng of teammates ringing home plate who were jostling with excitement about the celebration to come. To prep for the host of jabs and slaps he was about to receive, Thome threw his helmet high in the air, a spontaneous action that caused home plate umpire Bill Hohn to backpedal in fear of getting hit by the falling helmet.
Thome appeared thrilled, joyous even. But he apparently was not surprised.
"I think Thome told people he was going to do something here," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He did it."
Of course this man, with a career almost mythical by now, would call his shot. And of course afterward his humility would not allow him to admit such a bold statement. Michael Cuddyer didn't hear the pronouncement but said with a grin, "I wouldn't put it past him."
Minutes earlier Thome blinked back the shaving cream pie shoved in his face by Jon Rauch, the pitcher on whose arm the loss in this back-and-forth ballgame would have rested.
Long before Rauch jogged in from center field, Gardenhire, perched atop the dugout bench during batting practice, spoke hopefully of a plan for his former closer. Gardenhire wanted to limit Rauch, dispatched from the bullpen's most important role to one of uncertainty and waning confidence, to game situations that would help the right-hander bolster the belief in his pitches.
A 10th-inning entrance with the score tied 5-5, safe to say, was not the situation the Colts jersey
manager was searching for, but Gardenhire had little choice. His starter, Scott Baker, lasted only 4 2/3 innings and blew a 4-0 lead, and innings later his new closer, Matt Capps, asked to protect a one-run edge, did the same, giving up a 5-4 lead by allowing a leadoff homer to Alexei Ramirez. Capps finished the ninth with the score tied, but Rauch gave up the go-ahead run in the 10th.
All that was erased later, swept away by the flick of Thome's giant wrists, the ones that caused the Twins a fair amount of heartbreak over the years, the ones that have hit 12 homers like this one -- game-ending smashes that led to home plate celebrations.
The Twins' 10th started with Delmon Young, whose homer in the fifth gave the Twins a 5-4 lead. Young singled on the first pitch he saw from Chicago reliever Matt Thornton, and now up came Thome. Both dugouts know how this story can end, they'd seen it too many times, though now the elation of watching Thome stride to the plate as the potential game-winning run belonged in the Twins' dugout, the appropriate dread transferred from Gardenhire to Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen.
Thome, Chicago's beloved slugger for four years, had spent a great amount of time watching Thornton but never from this close, never with a bat in hand, never in the batter's box. Now he had three chances to end this ballgame. He needed only two.
With the sellout crowd of 40,714 standing, Thornton's first pitch came in as a fastball at 95 mph. Thome swung through. The next one, a fastball at 93, he muscled high and deep to right field. Thome dropped his bat and watched the ball speed through the black sky, but there was never any doubt this ball would land over the fence. The question was when it would finally fall.
The final estimation, that it fell 445 feet from home plate, made it the longest home run in Target Field history.
"For me that's got to go down as one of the better games I've ever played in," Thome said. "In moments like that, in that situation, you're not going to do it all the time."
Perhaps not, but when Thome walks to the plate -- a vision Cowboys jersey
Gardenhire likens to watching Babe Ruth step in -- there is always the chance.
"We brought Thome in here for a reason," the manager said. "And that's one of them."