Brief recap: This is the "Sweet 16" of what I determined to be the 16 greatest single-season teams in Minnesota sports history. I limited my prospective candidates to teams that play at the highest possible level of college or professional sports. There were 16 numbers chosen at random for the 16 teams. The team assigned No. 1 "played" the team assigned No. 16, and so on. The first matchups were played Tuesday; now we're down to the championship game.

• 1987 Twins vs. 1991 Twins: In setting out to do this weeklong series, I had a loose definition of what defined "success" in a season. The end result mattered, to be sure, but so did the impact on the community, how much the team captured fans' imaginations as well as other elusive intangibles. In those hard-to-define categories, the two final teams were pretty similar.

On one hand, nothing can top the emotion of a franchise's first World Series title, which the 1987 Twins delivered in dramatic fashion. On the other hand, the worst-to-first 1991 Twins didn't just win another championship. They won what I consider the best World Series of all time.

So in picking a winner of this mythical matchup, I had to turn more to the raw data. The 1987 Twins ranked eighth in the AL in runs scored and 10th in ERA during the regular season. For the season, they were actually outscored 806-786. They won 85 games to capture a mediocre AL West, and were 29-52 on the road. They played their best when it mattered most, but … the 1991 Twins were simply better. They won 95 games, including 44 on the road, and had superior pitching. The 1987 Twins captured the hearts of a generation starved for a championship. But the 1991 Twins are the best team in Minnesota major sports history.

READER FEEDBACK

A number of you e-mailed or called during the week with suggestions and comments about the series. Here is some of your feedback, to which my general response is it was difficult (but fun) to pick the field and the winners:

• Tom S.: "You have one glaring omission from your Sweet 16. The 1975 Vikings were hands-down the best single-season Vikings team of that era."

• Jeff: "A team that saw Nick Punto appear in 135 games and couldn't win a playoff series shouldn't be in the best 16 teams in Minnesota history. I would have actually taken the 2002 [Twins] over the 2006 team."

• John: "Despite the NCAA forcing the best Gophers men's basketball team of all time (1976-77) to forfeit all 27 games played that season, shouldn't this team have been included as part of your 'Sweet 16'?"

• Marshall: "How can you leave off the 2010-11 NCAA men's hockey champion UMD Bulldogs?"

• Tom A.: Left a voicemail lamenting the lack of any Gophers wrestling teams in the mix.

michael rand