St. Paul Saints general manager Derek Sharrer watched with both glee and dread Friday night as No. 16 seed Maryland-Baltimore County thoroughly dismantled No. 1 overall seed Virginia in an unprecedented NCAA Tournament upset that people will talk about for years to come.

As a diehard college basketball fan, Sharrer was thrilled to be watching the historic performance in real time.

That said, his stomach was doing backflips knowing the minor-league baseball team he’s in charge of was out $10,000.

Why? Let’s rewind.

On Monday morning, the Saints announced on Twitter the team would give away $10,000 if a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 seed in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

All fans had to do was retweet the original tweet for a chance to win.

We don't have a billion dollars like @WarrenBuffett, but our GM @DerekSharrer has officially gone mad. The Saints will give away $10,000 if a 16 seed beats a 1 seed in #MarchMadness2018. All you have to do is retweet this to enter & we'll choose one winner if it happens. — St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) March 12, 2018

“Of course, we never thought it was going to happen,” Sharrer said. “I think No. 16 seeds were 0-132 (in the tournament since 1985). So, I felt like the odds of it not happening were pretty solid. That was definitely the expectation going in.”

Saints Director of Media Relations Sean Aronson was the mastermind behind the idea. It came to him during an early-morning workout session, and as far as he was concerned, it was a foolproof way to generate some interest on social media.

“Well, I do some of my ‘best thinking’ in the morning at the gym,” Aronson said with a laugh, realizing the irony of that statement now that his workplace is out $10,000. “I was, like, ‘Why don’t we just do this?’ I never thought we were actually going to have to give away $10,000, because it seemed impossible that something like that would happen. I was like, ‘Yeah. This is a great idea.’ ”

It didn’t take long for the tweet to gain momentum. As the week progressed, more and more people retweeted it, and it was sitting right around 6,000 retweets by the the time the opening round started Thursday.

“It definitely generated a lot more interest in those No. 1 seed vs. No. 16 seed matchups,” Sharrer said. “I’ve never been more invested in those games than I was this week. And I think the people that retweeted that original tweet would say the same thing.”

The first three No. 1 seeds took care of business easily, with Kansas beating Penn 76-60 and Villanova handling Radford 87-81 on Thursday. Then Xavier dominated Texas Southern 102-83 earlier Friday, leaving only the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, Virginia, to take on Maryland-Baltimore County, which lost 10 games during the regular season to the likes of Army, Colgate, Towson and Stony Brook. Oh, and Albany — by 44 points!

It looked as if the Saints’ bank account was safe. And yet …

“After Xavier won last night I actually went to the grocery store because I was actually least worried about Virginia losing,” Aronson said. “Then I check my phone as I’m leaving the grocery store and I see the score, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ I got home and I flipped it on and was like, ‘Well, I better get on Twitter.’ ”

Getting 28 points from from UMBC star Jairus Lyles, the underdogs started to pull away in the second half, turning a game tied 21-21 at halftime into a 74-54 rout. Related Articles John Shipley: In what’s been a lousy year, Saints provide a much-needed win

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“We honestly went into the week making the offer and kind of hoping it was going to happen,” Sharrer said. “It makes it a lot more fun if it actually does happen.

“And we can kind of relate to being a No. 16 seed as a minor league team in a major league market. It was a really interesting dynamic rooting for them, while also knowing by the end of it that we were probably going to have to write a check.”

Soon after the game, the Saints’ Twitter account announced the team would pick the winner of the $10,000 on Tuesday afternoon via Facebook Live.

Anyone who retweeted the original tweet before the Saints capped it on Friday night is eligible to win.

Saints NCAA Tournament Promotion Nets One Lucky Fan $10,000, Live Drawing March 20 At 1 p.m. Central On Social Media https://t.co/iplFbFw1Dp pic.twitter.com/eOeghvqYEg — St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) March 17, 2018

Sharrer said the plan is to pull the data from Twitter and create a list before the drawing. He wants to literally draw a name out of a bin, meaning the Saints have some work to do over the next few days.

Unsurprisingly, the original tweet started to blow up on Friday night, and as of Saturday afternoon, it had 750,000 impressions, 50,000 engagements and 17,000 retweets.

“This whole thing fits with who we’ve been over the last 25 years,” Sharrer said. “We want people to think of us and think of fun. … This was a way to take that feeling in the ballpark and plug it into the Twittersphere and let people have fun with us there.”

Fun, and $10,000.