OVERVIEW: MINNESOTA TWINS

In case you were wondering, yes this blog has been hijacked by some guy who thought about filling the void of a spring and summer without baseball, by posting stories about baseball. I'll be back posting the drivel that that normally appears in this space, when and if baseball ever returns. In the meantime, here's a story written several years ago for another site, about the franchise that currently plays up in the great state of Minnesota:

The Minnesota Twins franchise, one of the eight charter member teams of the American League, began its life in the Major Leagues as the Washington Senators. In 1909, the great baseball writer Charles Dreyden coined the phrase that would follow the team through its time in the nation's capital and by extension, the expansion team (today's Texas Rangers) that replaced it:

Washington: first in war, first in peace, last in the American League.

The original Senators were so famous for their losing ways, they even made a Broadway musical about them. Damn Yankees is a modern day Faust story about a Senators fan who sells his soul in exchange for a chance to help his beloved team win the pennant against the eponymous Bronx Bombers.

But it wasn't all gloom and doom for the Senators; unlike the St. Louis Browns, (today's Baltimore Orioles) who were truly an atrocious team for practically all fifty years of their existence in The Gateway City. In that same period of time the Senators boasted three American League pennants and one World Series title, all during the twenties and early thirties, competing directly against those Damned Yankees who themselves were fielding some of the most storied teams in the history of the game.

In 1907, the best player the organization has ever put on the field joined the team. He was a 6'1" pitcher from Humboldt, KS by way of Fullerton, CA, with an easy looking side-arm delivery which belied the incredible speed of his fastball, the likes of which no one had seen before, and few have since. His name was Walter Johnson. Baseball writer and statistician Bill James among others, rates Johnson, with some reservations, as the greatest pitcher in the history of the game.

Through thick and thin, Johnson, aka ”The Big Train,” spent his entire playing career, all 21 years of it, with the Senators. He pitched just shy of 6,000 innings, finishing his career with an astonishing 2.17 ERA and a winning percentage of .599 which given that he played half of his career pitching for losing teams, is saying something. In 1914, Johnson accounted for 40 percent of the victories for his team, 36.

Another name indelibly linked to the organization is Griffith. Clark Griffith, a former major league pitcher and player/manager with the Reds and the Highlanders (Yankees), was hired as manager of the Senators in 1912, buying a percentage of the team in the process. That year, Griffith took a team that never had anything close to a winning record, to a second place finish and a 91-61 record, virtually inverting their previous year’s record. It would take twelve more years of ups and downs, but the Senators finally won their first pennant in 1924, as well as their only World Series title when they beat John McGraw’s New York Giants in seven games. The Big Train, who lost his first two starts in that Series, won game seven coming in as a reliever, pitching four scoreless innings despite giving up that triple shown in the video below to Giant second baseman Frankie Frisch in the top of the ninth. The President and First Lady Grace Coolidge, herself a huge baseball fan, were at the game:



By that time Griffith owned controlling interest of the team, and he would remain in charge for the rest of his life.

Upon Clark Griffith’s death in 1955, ownership transferred to his nephew (and adopted son), Calvin Griffith. Like his adopted father, the young Griffith, also a former ballplayer, was a baseball man through and through, known for his remarkable scouting talent. Unfortunately the younger Griffith was less skilled at PR; he was a king of the malaprop, and a life-long sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease. After the glory days of Walter Johnson and the team’s success in the twenties and thirties, the team languished, seldom making it out of the second division of the American League. Attendance in the fifties at Griffith Stadium was also abysmal and as several major league teams opted to leave their cities in search of greener pastures, Washingtonians feared the same fate would befall their Senators. Not to fear Calvin told them. In 1958 Griffin wrote:

I have lived in Washington, D.C. for about 35 years. I attended school here and established many roots here. The city has been good to my family and me. This is my home. I intend that it shall remain my home for the rest of my life. As long as I have any say in the matter, and I expect that I shall for a long, long time, the Washington Senators will stay here, too. Next year. The year after. Forever.

Two years later, he moved the team to Minnesota.

As a cash-strapped organization for most of its existence, the Senators/Twins organization did have a strong farm system which was starting to produce promising talent in the their waning years in Washington. Harmon Killibrew came to the attention of Clark Griffith in 1954 on a tip from then Idaho senator, Herman Welker. The 17 year old slugger was hitting .847 in semi-pro ball in his home state, and the Senators scooped up the youngster, beating out other interested parties by signing him as a Bonus Baby. Other excellent young players developed in the Senator’s farm system who made the trip to Minneapolis were pitchers Camilo Pasqual, Jim Kaat, shortstop Zoilo Versalles, and outfielder Bob Allison.

Like the St. Louis Browns before them who moved to Baltimore, the change of scenery did good for the former Senators, now the Minnesota Twins. With a nucleus of solid players, in their 1962 sophomore season in Minnesota, the Twins won 92 games, their best record since 1933. It was that year the organization signed yet another young prospect who would become a star, a right fielder from Cuba by the name of Tony Oliva. Oliva would join the the big club in 1964. The following year, the Twins came out on top of a tight three way pennant race, winning their first pennant in Minnesota, the organization’s first since 1933. In a classic World Series, it took a brilliant game seven shutout performance by LA Dodger great Sandy Koufax to defeat the Twins.

Although the Twins would remain competitive for a number of years, they failed to win another pennant under the ownership of Calvin Griffith. Despite some brilliant moves including the discovery and signing of a young Rod Carew, Griffith found it difficult to compete in the new age of baseball free agency.

Cut out of the same cloth as his adopted father as well as other long-gone baseball owners such as Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack, Griffith was the last major league baseball owner who depended entirely on the game for his income. Likewise, his methods of running the team were based more on the 1920s model. For example, he refused to spend money that he didn't have. Perhaps in his opinion his greatest accomplishment, something he always took pains to point out, was the fact that his Twins never owed anybody a cent. His tight-fisted running of the team, (“He throws around nickels like they were man hole covers” was one of the cleaner descriptions of him), was blasted by fans who longed for a winner and couldn't understand why the their team could not compete against teams with owners with deeper pockets such as the Yankees.

Griffith’s mouth certainly didn't help matters. In 1978 before a gathering of the Lions Club of Waseca, MN, Griffith was quoted as saying this about the team’s move to Minnesota:

It was when I found out you only had 15,000 black people here. Black people don't go to ball games, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. It's unbelievable. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here.

For his part, Griffith claimed he made those remarks while trying to get a chuckle out of the crowd after a few drinks. He'd spend the rest of his life apologizing for them, but it didn’t matter, from that point on in the eyes of Minnesotans, Griffith was not only a cheapskate, but a racist too, a combination that didn’t fly in progressive Minneapolis.

Other than the inane remark, the exact contents of which are questionable, there isn’t much evidence that Calvin Griffith was an honest to goodness bigot. He was simply an out of touch man who refused to change along with the changing world around him. In 1976 when his pitcher Bill Campbell became a free agent, Griffith offered him what he considered a generous $8,000 raise to his $30,000 contract.

Campbell turned Griffith down, choosing to accept a $1,000,000 contract form the Red Sox instead.

The Griffith family sold the Twins in 1984 to Carl Pohlad, a wealthy local banker for $32 million.

Turns out, Pohlad got the team for a song.

In 1987 and again in 1991, the Twins went to the World Series, this time winning the championship both times. The seven game ’91 Series against the Atlanta Braves is considered by many to be one of the greatest Fall Classics of all time. Star players from those teams included pitcher Frank Viola, first baseman Kent Hrbek, and center fielder (and Chicago native) Kirby Puckett, all of whom were products of Calvin Griffith’s eye for talent, and his beloved farm system.

The Twins haven’t been to the Big Dance since.