Right now, delicious Dome Dogs will be cooking in Minneapolis’ Hubert H. Humphrey Dome for what may be the final time. The Twins move to a new outdoor park next year – a shiny piece of work they’re calling Target Field – and they’re leaving the dogs behind to rot. (Or serve at Vikings games, I guess.) But while the team was supposed to have made its last dome appearance on Sunday, the Twins fucked around and tied the Tigers for the AL Central lead instead, forcing a one-game playoff for the third time in four years. The winner of tonight’s duel will be shipped off to face the Yankees in what will likely be a blood-drenched ritual slaughter of a division series, but for now, happy thoughts flitter around the brains of Detroit and Minnesota fans like so many magical butterflies. Game starts at 5:07 EST.

I’m calling this evening’s playoff for the home team, to stay true to my earlier prediction, even though Twin Cities partisans probably shot their lucky load last night by winning the Brett Favre Praise-a-thon. I’m not gonna discuss ESPN’s endless Favre overkill, because in so doing I would only be contributing to the overflowing surplus of Favre commentary. But I will say that I wondered at length last night about his ability to run for statewide office in his native Mississippi. I betcha he could be Senator Favre by 2020, easy – he’s rich as hell, a beloved jock and Wrangler jeans spokesman, a first ballot Hall of Famer, and his q-rating has gotta be sky high back home. Knowing rich white dudes from Mississippi, he’d probably be a Republican.  But enough of this talk.  The old man sliced up the Pack D pretty good last night, and that’s as far as my jurisdiction – or his – goes.

Let’s get to the rest of this batch of Sporting Observations quick.

• Bad karma for homers: After I taunted the Fish in this space a week or so back, they eviscerated my Bills 38-10 on Sunday. Naturally. And after I shamelessly picked the Sabres to make the playoffs over Les Habs, they beat the Sabres 2-1 in OT on Saturday. Of course. The sporting gods were angered; now I will be quiet.

• Rangers fans are still booing Donald Brashear in the Garden. Of course they are – they have memories like elephants, and Brashear’s hit on Blair Betts in Game 6 of last year’s Caps-Rags series left an indelible imprint. Glen Sather’s genius knows no bounds. At least Gaborik isn’t hurt yet, and the Rangers have won a couple already.

• If you were starting a new professional football league, wouldn’t you make sure to at least have interesting uniforms and logos? I mean, you got nothing to lose – if history is any guide here, and it probably is, you’ll be out of business in six months or so anyways – so why not at least go down in style? Some of the long-defunct USFL & WFL logos were classics. The new United Football League doesn’t think like that, though. No, they’d rather have the ugliest set of logos and uniforms possible, to discourage anyone from mistakenly thinking that their league was at least half interesting. Feast your eyes on the “Florida Tuskers,” the “Las Vegas Locos,” the “New York Sentinels,” and the “California Redwoods.” Note that their uniforms are all exactly the same, except with different colors. What a mess. Still, folks like Dennis Green, Jim Haslett, and Ted Cottrell are coaching the teams, so who knows. Maybe it’ll be… quality.

I like LeBron calling out Browns WR Braylon Edwards, who should have known better than to take a swing at anybody outside a club at 2:30 in the morning, let alone a friend of the King’s. Side question: Who would you rather be hit by? I bet getting punched by Edwards would hurt pretty bad, but getting punched by James would hurt worse. Deep sporting observations this afternoon, huh?

• Quick divisional round baseball predictions, since the game’s on in a few: Yankees over Twins in 4, Angels over Sox in 6. Phillies beat out Colorado in 5, Cards over the Dodgers in 7. Between these picks and my hockey preview predictions, I’m handing you all a lot of ammunition for later.

• Trader Joe’s sells its own beer – it’s four bucks for a six pack, it’s 6.2%, and it’s called “Simpler Times.” I just discovered it this weekend, and after testing it out in the field this Saturday, I recommend it for hockey-watching. It’s not Molson or Labatt, but it’s stronger than most, it’s cheap as hell, and, best of all, the name of the beverage lends itself to reminiscing obnxiously about skaters of yore; we were discussing Ron Hextall, I believe, or maybe Phil Housley. At length. And loudly. Also, good beer to drink while shaking your fist at Don Cherry. Makes you sing the anthems better too.

Ok, that’s it for now. More later this week.