My day at the ballpark today

I went out to the Lee County Sports Complex this morning and there was not much going on. There were a couple of players doing some special work with a couple of coaches but when I left around Noon there were no other Twins players working out. Not sure where everyone was.

I wandered off to the minor league side where there was more activity but still a relatively small group of pitchers going through fielding drills. I watched for awhile and decided that I had enough and wandered over to my car. As I was putting my camera equipment away I heard a loud bang on the top of my car, what the heck? It turned out one of the players had hit a long foul ball that hit my car. Fortunately it caused no damage but it did attract a lot of attention from bystanders. A Twins employee saw it happen and picked up the ball that had rolled about 10 yards away and gave it to me saying “here is culprit that hit your car”.

I left a few minutes later and exited the back way onto Plantation Boulevard. Right after I made a right turn on to Plantation a long home run ball from one of the adjacent fields came flying over the fence and netting and bounced in my lane about 20 yards in front of my car just missing my car. Had I been about a second or two quicker a ball would have hit my car for the second time in less than 5 minutes. What the heck is up with that? Of all the times I have gone to the complex my car has never even been close to being hit and here it almost happened twice in 5 minutes. I am sure the players got a kick out of it but I didn’t have time to look and see.

That is my excitement for today. The good news is that exhibition games start tomorrow. I was able to pick up a schedule of the minor league games that will be played at the complex and a first copy of the Twins Minor League Spring Training Roster. There are a handful of players on the roster born in 2004, my goodness. We will take the week-end off and go back again next week.

What’s up at the ballpark you say?

Taking down Luis Arraez

I made my first trip out to the Lee County Sports Complex Tuesday morning to see what is going on out there before Spring Training starts. I had hoped to get out there back in early January to take in some of the Twins Fantasy Camp games and chat with some former Twins players that serve as team managers and coaches but I had a nasty cold for about two weeks that just didn’t want to go away so I thought it best to stay away.

When I got out to the complex today it was a beehive of activity from trucks delivering office equipment, landscaping activities going on around the complex (which actually withstood Hurricane Ian back in late September fairly well), a cherry picker taking a huge Luis Arraez images down from above the ticket office, to major and minor league players working out on numerous fields.

On my walk to the back fields I noticed a player heading towards me and he looked familiar but I just couldn’t place him, it turned out to be Louie Varland and I got his picture, wished him good luck and embarrassingly I forget to introduce myself. How dumb is that? I didn’t make that mistake on all the other players I met today. This time of the year no one is wearing uniforms with numbers so it is often very hard to know who is who. What surprised me I guess is how many players are already here with pitchers throwing on at least three fields. Catchers all over the place and one of those catchers was Christian Vazquez. Looks to me like Vazquez is going to be an easy player to like as today he signed autographs for a group of people and posed for a picture for me, even went to the trouble of taking off his catching gear first. He reminded us “that I am number 8 and not number 7” and everyone got a good laugh including Christian in an obvious reference to Joe Mauer.

I met a gentleman on the back fields from Indiana by the name of Robert McCammon who is a retired school teacher and now spends winters in Florida and works part-time at Hammond Stadium during Spring Training. He grew up a Washington Senators fan and is now a Twins fan and last year he published a book called Walter Johnson Had No Idea. Twins President Dave St. Peter wrote the Forward for the book. I have a copy of the book and am anxious to read it since I just wrapped up my latest Baldacci novel yesterday.

It was so nice to be at the complex on a nice sunny day with temperatures in the low 70’s and watching people catching and throwing a baseball around again. It is a fun time of the year, no one has lost a game, no one is injured yet, no pressure on anyone to make the team, no trade rumors flying around and everyone is happy and in a good mood. How can you not love baseball at this time of the year. I took a number of other pictures that I will share with you in the next few days.

Update on 2/8 – You can see the rest of the 2023 Spring Training pictures here.

Twins and postseason play

Jack Morris

Here it is early February and Spring Training hasn’t even begun and I am writing a piece on the Minnesota Twins and the postseason. Believe me, I have no magic 8-ball and I am not here to predict the future, I am here to share some Twins postseason history with you and give you a chance to look and see who the Twins best and worst postseason players have been over the years. It can help fill some of your time before Spring Training starts.

The Minnesota Twins have not had much success in postseason play of late, but that is not news, is it? The Twins have been in the playoffs in 2020, 2019, 2017, 2010, 2009, 2006 and have not won a single game. I am not going to remind you here how many games in row that the Twins have lost in the playoffs. The last time they won a playoff game was in 2004 and the last time they won a playoff series goes back even further, not in 2004, or 2003 but in 2002 when they beat the Oakland A’s three games to two in the ALDS before losing to the Anaheim Angels in the ALCS four games to one.

Back in the old days there were no playoffs and the teams with the best records in each league (AL & NL) advanced to the World Series to determine the MLB champions. Who knows, maybe that was really the best and fairest way to crown a worthy MLB champion. It seems to me that the more teams that are in the playoffs, the lesser the chance, that the best team comes out the winner. But we are not discussing the merits of the playoffs here because as we know back in 1969 the playoffs came into existence and they have been changing and growing ever since and now we are at a point that six out of the 15 teams in each league make a playoff appearance and if it was up to Commissioner Rob Manfred there would be even more teams in the playoffs.

Twins make-over at Target Field continues

According to a recent Minnesota Twins Press Release the following changes will take place at Target Field not to mention a new and much larger scoreboard that had been announced earlier.

Click on this link to see what it should all look like https://fb.watch/iqCv4uRNfV/

MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, MN – The Minnesota Twins, in partnership with Dimensional Innovations, today unveiled designs for the newest, technologically-enhanced additions to the Target Field experience: An updated Minnie & Paul celebration sign with the words “Win! Twins!” rising above the ballpark in centerfield, and the club’s “TC” mark encased in a revolving, illuminated baseball medallion sitting atop the rightfield tower. These two elements, both featuring design and technology elements unique to the Twins and Target Field, will be put into place over the next two months and make their official debut during Minnesota’s 2023 Home Opener on Thursday, April 6.

Mudcat Grant didn’t put up with racial bigotry

Jim “Mudcat” Grant

Jim Grant was generally considered an easy going likable person, but as the 1960 season drew to a close, his refusal to tolerate bigotry, more than a decade after Jackie Robinson had reintegrated the major leagues, had costly consequences as written about in the September, 28 1960 issue of The Sporting News by Hal Lebovitz who covered the Cleveland Indians for the baseball’s bible at the time.


The Indians held their minor-league camp in Daytona Beach and offered Grant a tryout. It was here that Mudcat became his name. “A guy named Leroy Bartow Irby saw me, decided I was from Mississippi and called me ‘Mudcat,’” recalled Grant. The nickname stuck and Grant came to embrace the name. Jim Grant signed with the Cleveland Indians as an amateur free agent prior to the 1954 season and started his career in C ball with the Fargo-Moorhead Twins (an omen?) at the age of 18. In his first four minor league seasons from 1954-1957 he started 95 games, pitched 828 innings, had 63 complete games and posted a record of 70-28 earning him a trip to Cleveland in 1958. Grant pitched for the Indians into the 1964 season, then spent 3-1/2 years with the Twins including posting two of Minnesota’s three wins over the Dodgers in losing the 1965 World Series. In the last four years of his major league career he pitched for the Dodgers, Expos, Cardinals, Pirates and A’s, leaving the big leagues after the 1971 season.

After his playing days, Mudcat was a television broadcaster for the Indians, Dodgers and A’s. Grant also wrote a book called The Black Aces: Baseball’s Only African-American Twenty-Game Winners. He has given back to baseball by serving on the board of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, on the Baseball Assistance Team and on the Major League Baseball Alumni Association. Jim Grant passed away on June 11, 2021 in Los Angeles at the age of 85.

Twins ticket prices up in 2023

Minnesota Twins single game tickets for the entire 2023 home schedule went on sale in mid-January and for the first few days the Twins even waived all ticket buying fees. Nice gesture but the fee gouging on ticket sales needs to stop. It is not just the Twins, it is across the board, selling tickets is a part of doing business and it should not be an extra charge thrown on top of already high ticket prices. Maybe the fee waiver for that short span of time was to try to cover the Minnesota Twins embarrassment for their ticket price increase of about 4.29% after a 2022 season in which they finished in third place with a 78-84 and 14 games behind the division winning Cleveland Guardians. Prices in 86 categories of 93 categories across all three tiers went up by anywhere from $1 to $5. The Twins are coming off their lowest attendance since 2001 excluding the the 2020-2021 season impacted by COVID.

Single Game Tickets

Tiered ticket pricing for single game tickets first started in Minnesota back in 2006 and over the years the Twins have had anywhere between two to five ticket tiers. In 2019 the Twins dropped back to three price tiers and that policy remains in place in 2023. Assuming, that all goes as planned there will again be 81 home games in Target Field, 65 of the 81 games (including the Home Opener) have been designated as “select” or middle of the road games while the “value” and “premium” tiers which each had 16 games last season dropped to 8 each in 2023.

The Twins continue to use demand-based ticket pricing that they implemented in 2012 and that means that ticket prices will fluctuate based on a variety of factors but will not drop beneath a floor price that season ticket holders pay. Some people call this variable or dynamic ticket pricing and is used by many sports teams but whatever you call it, it means digging deeper in your pocket for a ticket to the ballgame. Some folks look at it as scalping your own tickets. This process kicked in the day after single game tickets went on sale.

Average ticket prices for the various tiers in 2023

As I mentioned earlier Minnesota Twins single game ticket prices for 2023 went up in most (86 of 93) ticket categories. When all is said and done an average ticket price for 2022 was $38.94 and in 2023 the average ticket price is $40.61, an average increase of $1.67 per ticket or 4.29%.  Ticket prices in 2023 went up 4.71% in the “value” category, 4.29% in the “select” category and 4.04% in the “premium” category. If you want to see the details, stop by our Twins Ticket Price History page.

Minnesota Twins and the playoffs

The Twins have been playing baseball in Minnesota for 62 seasons and have played 9,803 games, winning 4,867 games and losing 4,936 games for a winning percentage of .496 and have advanced to the playoffs 14 times or 22.6% of the time.

Maybe we should not be that surprised, the Washington Senators who moved from Washington D.C. after the 1960 season and became the Minnesota Twins had a .465 winning percentage. Year after year, the Senators were a laughingly bad team, prompting famed sportswriter Charley Dryden to joke: “Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.” The Senators played in Washington for 60 seasons and won 3 pennants (1924, 1925, & 1933) and won one World Series title in 1924. In that regard the Twins it seems are not much better having played for 62 seasons and won 3 pennants (1965, 1987, & 1991) but they have won two World Series titles, in 1987 and again 1991.

Twins announce 2023 Spring Training invites

The Minnesota Twins announced today that 25 players on minor league contracts have been invited to major league spring training in 2023.

Joining the Twins will be nine pitchers: left-handers Danny Coulombe and Evan Sisk; right-handers José De LeónRandy DobnakBlayne EnlowCody LawerysonPatrick MurphyAustin Schulfer and Brock Stewart; six catchers: David BañuelosJair CamargoChance SiscoGrayson Greiner, Chris Williams and Tony Wolters; seven infielders: Andrew BechtoldMichael HelmanAustin MartinBrooks LeeAaron SabatoElliot Soto and Tyler White; and three outfielders: Willi CastroMark Contreras and Ryan LaMarre.

Of the 25 players invited to camp, 13 have major league service time: Willi Castro (Detroit), Mark Contreras (Minnesota), Danny Coulombe (Los Angeles-NL, Minnesota and Oakland), José De León (Cincinnati, Los Angeles-NL and Tampa Bay), Randy Dobnak (Minnesota), Grayson Greiner (Arizona and Detroit), Ryan LaMarre (Boston, Chicago-AL, Cincinnati, Minnesota, New York-AL and Oakland), Patrick Murphy (Toronto and Washington), Chance Sisco (Baltimore and New York-NL), Elliot Soto (Los Angeles-AL and Minnesota), Brock Stewart (Los Angeles-NL and Toronto), Tyler White (Houston and Los Angeles-NL), and Tony Wolters (Chicago-NL, Colorado and Los Angeles-NL).

Twins pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report on Wednesday, February 15, while position players are scheduled to report on Sunday, February 19. The first full-squad workout is scheduled to take place on Monday, February 20.

Former Twins “fireman” Bill Campbell passes away at the age of 74

Bill Campbell took a last look around Met Stadium in 1976 before leaving the Twins as a free agent. Star Tribune File Photo

Bill Campbell was born on August 9, 1948 in Highland Park, Michigan. Campbell passed away on January 6, 2023 in the Chicago, Illinois area where he was under hospice care after a long battle with brain cancer.