Charlie Aldrich threw out the first needle when I called to ask him about the demise of his beloved New York Yankees.

"Oh, I was going to send you some flowers," said the Waterloo East and Northern Iowa graduate. He was laughing.

Very funny. Of course, my beloved Minnesota Twins had just been beaten by the White Sox in a one-game playoff to decide the American League Central championship. Thus, Chicago moved on to the postseason; Minnesota stayed home. And I'm waiting for my flowers. Nick Punto will get a bust in Cooperstown before they arrive.

Nonetheless, Aldrich has gone from baseball's rose garden to the weeds. In other words, welcome to my world.

The Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since the strike in 1994, It's been a wonderful year for dedicated haters of the pinstripes. For guys like Aldrich and his fellow members of the local Yankee Pinstripe Faithul Club, it's been relatively tough. Ex-New York manager Joe Torre is in the playoffs with the Dodgers. The rival of rivals, the Red Sox, are playing in October, too.

That's a shot to the heart.

"It's like the death march," said Aldrich. "My dieharded-ness is being put to the test right about now."

Aldrich, though, knows what to do when the going gets tough.

He throws out a few more needles, and hits the target with the precision of Rivera in the ninth.

He observed the sudden rise in popularity of a certain franchise that plays in Fenway Park and won the 2007 World Series.

"I've never seen so many Boston Red Sox hats," he said. "I'd never seen those before. Now, all of a sudden, they pop up all over. You always see Yankee hats, no matter what."

Then Aldrich tossed Carl Pavano's name into the conversation. For years, Aldrich has suggested to me that the Twins should take Pavano, his bad arm and his obscene contract off the Yankees' hands. I have pointed out to him that while the Twins have indulged in their share of bad ideas over the years, such as signing Mike Lamb to a free-agent deal, acquiring Pavano would be the equivalent of hiring Stump Merrill as a manager.

Aldrich chuckles, and then deals with another issue.

"The question isn't why am I a Yankee fan," he said. "The question is, why isn't everybody a Yankee fan."

Aldrich chuckled again, and such was the tone of the conversation - purely for fun, strictly for laughs. He may be hurting a bit, but the sense of baseball humor remains bright.

Besides, Aldrich can laugh now. He probably knows what the rest of us common folks suspect. They'll be back. They always come back.

Consider what happened in 1991, when the Twins won their second World Series since moving to Minnesota from Washington. My team dominated the Yankees that year, winning 10 times in 12 meetings. New York, under Merrill, finished fifth in the AL East at 71-91.

A year later, the Twins went 7-5 against the Bronx Bombers.

Then the good times stopped rolling. As the Yankees revived under Buck Showalter and Torre, they whipped the Twins with regularity. Over the next 16 seasons, Minnesota won the season series once, in 2001. The Yankees countered by going 13-0 against the Twins in 2002 and 2003.

And, in case you haven't heard, the Yanks claimed the World Series four times during a five-season span from 1996 through 2000.

Aldrich has been a Yankee fan since childhood. His mother was born in New York, so the family went East now and then for a reunion, and a trip to the Bronx. He remembers seeing Mickey Mantle and Bobby Richardson and Joe Pepitone.

He also recalls the collapse when Mantle and Whitey Ford and the rest grew old.

After that came another renaissance with Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson.

Finally, after missing postseason play for 13 years, the Yankees advanced 13 consecutive times before the streak ended this fall.

So Aldrich knows. Maybe it'll be next year, maybe not until 2010. But the Yankees are certain to play in Octobers to come, just as surely as Carl Pavano is overpaid.

Meanwhile, the local Pinstripe Faithful Club will welcome former Yanks like Mickey Rivers to the Cedar Valley.

And the needles will be flying once again.

"We're the silent majority," said Charlie Aldrich, laughing all the way.

Contact Jim Sullivan at (319) 291-1434 or jim.sullivan@wcfcourier.com