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Shannon Stewart fought off the fans, pulled down the ball and perhaps preserved the win for Minnesota.
No Jeffrey Maier to save the Yankees this time.
Stewart's leaping grab of Hideki Matsui's ninth-inning drive helped the Twins hold off New York to win 3-1 in Tuesday's playoff opener.
"Who knows what would have happened at that point?" Yankees manager Joe Torre said.
Bernie Williams had started the inning with a single off Eddie Guardado, and Matsui probably would have wound up with a double if Stewart had failed to make the catch and the ball had bounced off the upper part of wall.
Stewart, acquired from Toronto during the All-Star break, had to fight off the sun in the first early afternoon postseason game at Yankee Stadium since 1981.
"I just went back on the ball," Stewart said. "It was a tough sun out there. I picked it up at the last minute."
Stewart hit the wall and fell to the field. It wasn't immediately clear whether he held on to the ball.
"I saw it go in his glove," Guardado said. "I was watching closely, believe me. Then I saw him hit the wall, and I was hoping he held it."
MANAGING MENTOR: Torre was Ron Gardenhire's first manager in the major leagues, when the Minnesota skipper was promoted from the minors to the Mets in 1981.
"He kept me almost all the way through my first spring in the major leagues with him and he called me up in September, gave me a chance to play," Gardenhire said. "I've always looked at Joe kind of like a father figure, as a manager-type guy. He's very calm in everything that he does. He'll walk up to you, put his arms around you and tell you stuff like, "Kid, put that in your memory bank,' after you've screwed up something pretty bad."
Torre moved from the Mets to Atlanta, where he won a division title in his first season in 1982. He also managed the Cardinals from 1990-95 before taking over the Yankees.
"He handles himself well. You always look up to people like that," Gardenhire said. "He's a great manager, a lot of fun to be around. As a player, he was great. If you couldn't play for Joe, you couldn't play for anybody."
Gardenhire hit .232 with four homers and 49 RBIs in parts of five seasons as a utility infielder with the Mets.
NOMAR RETURNS: Nomar Garciaparra is back at work after a rare day away from the Red Sox.
The shortstop skipped the regular-season finale at Tampa Bay on Sunday to watch his fiance, Mia Hamm, at the Women's World Cup in Columbus, Ohio.
Garciaparra said Red Sox management approached him about skipping the game, and then he went around the clubhouse making sure it was okay.
"I brought it up to teammates, one by one, and they were like, "You've got to do it,"' Garciaparra said.