There are a lot of opinions out there floating around about former Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith and the two most common ones are that he was cheap and that he was a racist. I am not going to get into the racist discussion here and now but I did want to share with you a piece of a column that Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Dick Cullum wrote on August 20, 1968.
Having watched Griffith bring his baseball team to Minnesota and watching his team over the years I tend to agree with Cullum that Griffith was not a cheap owner.
Griffith was the last of the dinosaurs, the owners that depended on their baseball team to pay all the bills. Griffith did his best for as long as he could but baseball was changing and Griffith knew the end was near and when arbitration was introduced in 1974 the hand-writing was on the wall.
Griffith didn’t had out raises automatically like teams do today and he made players convince him that they deserved a raise. Keep in mind this was back in the day that owners pretty much had the players totally under their control with no free agency or arbitration. This was back in the days when contracts were year to year and if you had a bad season you could count on a pay cut. Personally I miss that, now days if players have a bad season they still get a raise or they are under a long term deal and they get big raises anyway.
Like Cullum points out in his column, when Griffith had the money, he spent it to pay his staff and his players to make his team better and the Twins were the highest paid team in the American League for a number of years in the 60’s. Calvin Griffith donated to many causes and the list of players he helped out financially either during or after their baseball careers ended was a long one. Griffith kept Minnesota Twins ticket prices unchanged from 1961 through 1967, show me an owner that does that today. Griffith wasn’t a saint but he wasn’t the evil owner that many Twins fans remember him as being.
Interesting magazine article on Griffith.Hard to believe that it is 40 years since the Twins
last game was play at the Met.
Never could get used to games at the HHH Metrodome and the “baggie”.
The 1991 World Series , which I believe ranks up there as one of the more
exciting ones obviously was played there (as was the ‘87 series), but I was never
so glad when they moved to Target Field.
I think I mentioned it before, but Thom Henninger’s “The Pride of Minnesota: The Twins in the Turbulent 60’s” is a must read for any baseball aficionado , but
especially for the Twins fans!!
With Kaat and Oliva going into the Hall of Fame next summer, this book
focuses on those years that these two were a big part of those exciting teams.
What a dope! You have it already at the end of the essay.
Don’t hire me for any freelance espionage work. LOL!
Happy New Year, John.
John,
In a long ago post, you provided a link to a magazine article on Griffith. I thought I saved in my favorites to read at a later date. Alas, I can’t seem to find it.
Do you remember that article? If so, could you possibly repost the link.
With the winter doldrums and colder weather,
time is more readily available and would like to read it.