Thirty-six years ago today, Minnesotans thrust the first Homer Hanky skyward as Gary Gaetti stepped up to the plate.
As Gaetti hit the first of his two home runs in Game 1 of the playoffs, the air inside the Metrodome filled with 60,000 flailing white handkerchiefs that the hometown newspaper had handed out for free before the game. It was Oct. 7, 1987.
In the stands, Terrie Robbins watched the stadium erupt in fluttering fabric.
"Oh, my God," she said. "It worked."
Robbins, the mother of all Homer Hankies, came up with the idea, the name and the tenacity to convince her bosses at the Star Tribune to shell out $200,000 — the equivalent of more than half a million dollars today — to celebrate the Twins' first playoff appearance since the Nixon administration.
That first home run transmuted the Homer Hanky into something more than just a nice promotion. Suddenly that little scrap of cloth held all our hopes and dreams, and Minnesotans could not get enough.
"It was one big wonderful blur," said Robbins, who soon had 14 printing shops churning out Homer Hankies around the clock to keep up with demand.
"We had to bring them in in armored cars and put them in our safe," she said, as the Twins kept winning and the fans kept waving. Maybe the Twins would have made it to the World Series without Hanky encouragement. But no one was willing to take that risk.