Today is Sunday, Sept. 29, the 273rd day of 2024. There are 93 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 29, 1982, Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with deadly cyanide claimed the first of seven victims in the Chicago area; the case, which led to legislation and packaging improvements to deter product tampering, remains unsolved.

Also on this date:

In 1789, Congress officially established a regular army under the U.S. Constitution.

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In 1938, British, French, German and Italian leaders concluded the Munich Agreement, which was aimed at appeasing Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

In 1954, Willie Mays of the New York Giants made a running, over-the-shoulder catch of a ball hit by Vic Wirtz of the Cleveland Indians in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series; “The Catch” would become one of the most famous plays in baseball history.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed an act creating the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1990, the construction of Washington National Cathedral concluded, 83 years to the day after its foundation stone was laid in a ceremony attended by President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 2005, John G. Roberts Jr. was sworn in as the nation’s 17th chief justice after winning Senate confirmation.

In 2017, Tom Price resigned as President Donald Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services amid investigations into his use of costly charter flights for official travel at taxpayer expense.

In 2018, Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, agreed to pay a total of $40 million to settle a government lawsuit alleging that Musk had duped investors with misleading statements about a proposed buyout of the company.

In 2021, a judge in Los Angeles suspended Britney Spears’ father from the conservatorship that had controlled her life and money for 13 years, saying the arrangement reflected a “toxic environment.”

In 2022, rescue crews piloted boats and waded through flooded streets to save thousands of Floridians trapped after Hurricane Ian destroyed homes and businesses and left millions in the dark.

Today’s Birthdays:

Writer-director Robert Benton is 92.
NASA administrator and former Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is 82.
Actor Ian McShane is 82.
Jazz musician Jean-Luc Ponty is 82.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa (lehk vah-WEN’-sah) is 81.
TV journalist and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel is 76.
Olympic gold medal runner Sebastian Coe is 68.
Rock musician Les Claypool is 61.
Actor Zachary Levi is 44.
Actor Chrissy Metz (TV: “This Is Us”) is 44.
Actor Kelly McCreary (TV: “Grey’s Anatomy”) is 43.
Football Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson is 39.
NBA All-Star Kevin Durant is 36.
Pop singer Halsey is 30.

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. — Gabe Mier opened the front door Thursday morning, showing off a wide smile and a new lollipop he had just gotten after a trip to the chiropractor. When asked how he was feeling, he gave a big thumbs up and giggled.

For 5-year-old Gabe, it was great to be home, after spending five days in the hospital.

Gabe suffered a skull fracture to the back of the head and a bruise on his brain, after a wagon overturned Sept. 18 at Bushel and a Peck Orchard in the town of Lafayette, Wis. He was trapped under the wagon, and needed to be airlifted to a hospital in St. Paul.

His mom, Angie Mier, said she was stunned when hospital staff told her last Sunday night that he was ready to be released.

“I was very scared to leave the hospital, because we had all the support there,” Mier said Thursday. “I couldn’t believe he had progressed enough to come home on Sunday. I was excited to come home.”

Gabe is wearing a C-collar around his neck, and Angie Mier said he’s going to have to wear it all the time for at least the next two weeks.

“They couldn’t get a good scan of his spinal cord, because of the inflammation of his tendons and ligaments,” she explained.

Mier said the worst day was last Friday, noting that Gabe couldn’t keep food down and he needed IV fluids. He also has had problems with his balance. But, he steadily improved over the next couple of days.

Gabe attends St. Mark Lutheran School, but he will be staying at home for at least two weeks. His fellow kindergarten students showed up at his home and decorated his driveway in superhero art, so he would see it when he was released from the hospital.

“The school has been phenomenal,” Mier said. “I can’t say enough good things.”

Angie and Will Mier said they plan to stay home from work to watch him as he recovers.

“We’re limited on what he can do, and he gets tired easily,” she said. “He does really well in the morning, but it doesn’t take much to get him exhausted.”

With the Miers not at work, they thanked the community and their school for stepping up to help. Angie said the school has provided them with multiple meals. A GoFundMe account, which sought $12,000, has raised more than $48,000 as of this weekend.

“Words cannot even express how people have just been amazing and supportive,” Angie Mier said. “The money donated has really taken a lot of stress off us both. Overall, we feel incredibly blessed. We thought we’d be spending more time at the hospital.”

Recalling the crash

Angie, Will and Gabe Mier, along with Angie’s father, Bob Schmick, were on the lead wagon as it went through the Bushel and a Peck Orchard on Sept. 18.

“We noticed it was speeding up, and I thought we were going too fast,” Angie Mier recalled. She said it suddenly jackknifed and overturned. Luckily, the second wagon, connected to the back of the one they were in, detached and separated from theirs so it also didn’t flip. The Miers say the accident happened between 10:50 and 10:55 a.m.

“It could have been so much worse,” Angie Mier said. “The fact no one died is absolutely a miracle.”

However, it was clear that Gabe had suffered some serious injuries.

“I went head-first into the ground,” Gabe said.

“When I looked at him, he had blood gushing from his head,” Angie Mier said.

Will Mier took off his shirt and wrapped his son.

“I knew the bleeding had to stop, and it was the closest thing to me,” Will Mier said. “And I’m thankful I could get it under control.”

Schmick has an injured knee, neck and back, and he was in concussion protocol for 24 hours.

The Miers said first responders were on the scene quickly, and once the first one showed up, a number of ambulances quickly followed. The Lake Hallie Police Department, Chippewa Fire District, Chippewa Falls Fire Department, Cadott EMS and Fire, Boyd EMS, Bloomer Ambulance, Eau Claire Fire and EMS, Mayo Clinic Health Systems, Chippewa County Public Health, and Chippewa County Department of Health and Human Services were all on hand to address medical needs.

A medical helicopter arrived and flew Gabe to Regions Hospital in St. Paul. Gabe was then transferred to the nearby pediatric intensive care unit at Gillette Children’s Hospital and Clinics, where he spent his five days recovering. While they were released last Sunday, they didn’t come home until Tuesday.

Will Mier stressed that the family holds no one at fault.

“We have no hard feelings with the orchard,” he said. “It was a complete accident.”

Angie agreed, saying, “It was very scary, but it could have been much worse for everybody.”

Minnesota United seems to have things going in the right direction, having won four of its last five games. And for the first time in more than two months, the Loons’ efforts also meant that the Allianz Field crowd got to sing “Wonderwall.”

Minnesota’s 3-0 win against Colorado was its first home win since July 20, and its first win of any kind against a playoff team since May 18th — an important milestone, as Minnesota closes in on a playoff berth of its own.

The Loons ended the night eight points clear of tenth-place FC Dallas. So, with just three games to play, only a complete collapse would see Minnesota slide out of the postseason picture. The Loons, in fact, have put themselves squarely in the competition to climb to seventh or above, which would mean they’d avoid the 8-vs-9, wild-card game entirely.

The Loons opened the scoring just 16 minutes into the night, in a rather unexpected manner — and nobody was more surprised than striker Kelvin Yeboah.

Robin Lod, on the right of the goal, attempted to volley a long cross from Joseph Rosales. His attempted shot was wayward enough to go down into the ground, bounce up, and hit an unsuspecting Yeboah in the face, but the mistake deflected off Yeboah and bounced just inside the near post, leaving Colorado goalkeeper Zack Steffen no chance at all.

The assist was Lod’s 15th of the season, tying a Loons single-season team record; it was also his assist that was most likely to result in him having to buy dinner for a teammate, as an apology. For his part, Yeboah became just the fourth player in league history to score in five of his first six matches.

Two minutes into the second half, Yeboah doubled the Minnesota advantage — this time, with full knowledge of the situation. Midfielder Joaquín Pereyra drove into the Colorado area, next to Hassani Dotson, and the two combined to get the ball to Yeboah near the penalty spot, and the striker made no mistake, taking a touch and then driving home his seventh goal in just six games for the Loons.

It was part of what was a pretty comprehensive performance from Minnesota, through the first hour of the match. Minnesota held Colorado to just one shot on target, and that from outside the penalty area, through the first 60 minutes. Combined with Yeboah’s two goals, it allowed the Loons to sit back into a comfortable defensive shape, and look for opportunities to break forward.

Dotson finished off the scoring for Minnesota with a pretty solo goal. Dotson picked up the ball near the right sideline, carried past four Colorado defenders to the top of the penalty area, and beat Steffen inside the near post to put the Allianz Field crowd into party mode.

Minnesota now has 12 points from the six games since the end of the midseason break for the Leagues Cup, just about the same rate that put Minnesota near the top of the league standings before players started departing for summer tournaments. Manager Eric Ramsay has always insisted that his team was less like the squad that struggled all summer, and more like the one that exceeded expectations in the early going.

It remains to be seen where the Loons end up this season. But for the first time in months, on Saturday, the faithful in St. Paul got to see what Ramsay was talking about.

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Like they’ve done for the past six months, the Twins showed up to the ballpark on Saturday and prepared to play a baseball game. Only this one, for the first time since March, simply didn’t matter.

Their postseason fate was sealed a day earlier when they were eliminated from the wild card race. Saturday’s 9-2 loss at Target Field to the Baltimore Orioles only added a small insult to a much larger injury.

Zebby Matthews, a rookie who began the season at Class-A Advanced Cedar Rapids and was thrust into service due to an injury to Joe Ryan, could not contain the playoff-bound Orioles, giving up six runs in three innings.

It was part of a night in which the Orioles (90-71) scored in six of nine innings and the Twins (82-79), whose demise has in part come as their offense has tailed off, was silenced by Baltimore up until the ninth inning with two outs when Ryan Jeffers hit a two-run home run.

The loss was yet another in a string of them for a Twins team that reached a season-high 17 games above .500 on August 17 and has followed that by going 12-26.

In the aftermath of their elimination, as they grapple with the fact that they will be watching from home next week when the playoffs begin, the Twins are still trying to digest what went wrong.

“We’re in this spot where we have to spend the whole offseason thinking about this and looking for ways to make sure moving forward this doesn’t happen again,” shortstop Carlos Correa said.

The Twins searched for those answers during the season. They tried being patient in their approach to problem solving, manager Rocco Baldelli said. They tried more aggressive directions.

It didn’t matter.

“We tried several methods and that’s the part where, yeah, that will irk me,” Baldelli said. “That will continue to irk me and bother me because you always believe that there is an answer. You always believe that there is a path that could work. And in six weeks … the several paths that we went down, they all ended in the same place.”

There’s plenty of blame to go around, from ownership, which slashed payroll in the offseason, to the front office, to coaches and players.

Correa, the team’s highest-paid player and a leader in the clubhouse, tried to shoulder much of it himself after the shortstop missed much of the second half dealing with plantar fasciitis.

“If you have anybody to blame, blame me for going down for two months and not being part of the team,” Correa said. “I think that’s one of the main reasons.”

Injuries — not just to Correa — played a part. So did bullpen blowups. So did a rotation that put extra strain on the bullpen. So did the offense’s dramatic drop off. Royce Lewis, one of those who tailed off in the second half, said he “ran out of gas.”

A collapse like the Twins’ has so many different root causes, so many paths for leadership to investigate, dissect and try to understand what went wrong and how to best move forward.

Now that the season is almost over, that’s their next challenge.

“Whenever we (go) through the whole self-reflection, it’s not only on the field but off the field,” starter Pablo López said. “There’s going to be a lot of talk on what we could have done better.”