Tag: Carl Pohlad

This Day in Twins History – November 6

Jim Perry
Jim Perry

11/6/1970 – Minnesota Twins pitcher Jim Perry wins the American League Cy Young award in a close race. Perry receives 55 points to edge out Dave McNally (47), Sam McDowell (45), and Mike Cuellar (44). Perry is the first Twins Cy Young award winner.

Bill Campbell11/6/1976 – After having a career year with the Twins, reliever Bill Campbell becomes one of the first players to cash in on the new free-agent system. The reliever signs with the Red Sox for big money, a four-year, one-million dollar contract with an option for a fifth season.

11/6/2001 – MLB owners vote 28-2 to contract two teams before the 2002 season.  They tell the players’ association that the Minnesota Twins and the Montreal Expos are the targeted teams.  It was determined later that Carl Pohlad, the Twins owner voted for contraction.

11/6/2009 – The Twins trade outfielder Carlos Gomez to the Milwaukee Brewers for shortstop J.J. Hardy.

This Day in Twins History – June 22

Carew, Rod 166/22/1970 – In the fourth inning of the Twins game against the Milwaukee Brewers in County Stadium Rod Carew suffers a serious knee injury with torn cartilage and torn ligaments when Brewers 1B Mike Hegan rolls in to Carew at 2B trying to break up a double play. According to Rod Carew in his book “Carew”, my leg snapped back and went crack! He goes on to say that 2B umpire Jake O’Donnell had heard the crack and vomited. Carew was hitting .376 at the time underwent surgery and ended up in essence missing the rest of the season. Rod did return for 5 at bats late in September but did not get a hit. Carew had only 2 plate appearances against the Orioles in the ALCS with no hits.

6/22/1984 – In a teary home plate ceremony before the Twins-White Sox game at the Metrodome, Calvin Griffith and his sister, Thelma Haynes, sign a letter of intent to sell their 52 percent ownership of the Twins to Minneapolis banker Carl Pohlad for $32 million (some reports state it was $36 million) ending the longest family ownership of a team in baseball history. Griffith and his sister had been involved with the franchise since 1922, when they were adopted by owner Clark Griffith when the team was the Washington Senators.

Twins tickets today and yesterday

Twins ticketsTarget Field still has a layer of snow and the temperature will reach only 17 degrees today here in Minnesota but in Ft. Myers the Twins pitchers and catchers have already started daily workouts and the position players will be reporting soon. On Saturday, February 16th the Twins will begin selling single-game tickets. The last couple of years when the Twins opened single-game ticket sales the phone lines and web site got over-run and there were sometimes long delays in getting your tickets purchased. Based on the Twins poor showing the last two seasons and low expectations for 2013 I would not expect long waits to purchase your tickets this year.

To me, the question is should you buy your single-game tickets when they go on sale on Saturday or do you wait? The current quoted price for single-game tickets is only good from February 16 through February 22 because on February 23 demand-based pricing kicks in. Haven’t heard about demand-based pricing?  The Twins actually started that policy in 2012 and here is how it plays out in 2013. Beginning February 23, single game ticket prices in all seating sections will be determined on a daily basis according to current market demand. Prices may fluctuate upward or downward based on real-time market conditions. So the question is, will I get better value by purchasing my tickets now or will I be able to get a better price once the season begins. I guess it all depends on how well the Twins play and what the weather is like. Personally; I just find it irritating that the published single-game ticket price is only good for 1 week before the first spring training game is even played. I guess I am old school.

On the other side of the coin you can certainly argue that it is better to sell more tickets even if you have to sell them at a discount than to not sell them at all at full price. The customer benefits because he gets to see the baseball game and the team benefits because they get the fan in the ballpark where it is likely he will spend additional dollars on food and possibly merchandise. Where the rub comes in is that going to a baseball game is getting to be like buying an airline ticket, each person on that flight is going to go to the same destination on that particular flight but each of them may have paid a different fare to get there. I have a problem with that.

The other issue I see is that in order to keep the season ticket holder base happy the team has to sell the demand-based tickets at a higher price than what the season ticket holders pay or that becomes a huge issue in itself. Thus the demand-based tickets can only be lowered to a certain price base level but on the other side if all is going great, the team can jack up the price of the ticket to whatever the market will pay. I see little risk and high reward for the team with demand-base pricing and to me it is another gimmick that costs the fans.

The Minnesota Twins have been here since 1961 and over 81 million fans (through 2012)have come through the turnstiles at the Met, the Metrodome and now Target Field to watch the Twins play ball and most of them have bought tickets. I thought it would be fun to take a look at Twins ticket prices going back to 1961 when the ballclub played their first game at Metropolitan Stadium. I did a lot of research on Twins ticket prices and here are some interesting nuggets that I found.

In 1961 the Twins had 3 price categories, a box seat went for $3, reserved grandstand went for $2.50 and general admission was $1.50. In spite of owner Calvin Griffith’s miserly reputation he did not raise ticket prices until 1968, his eighth season here and he only increased box seats by 50 cents and reserved grandstand by a quarter. Keep in mind that the Twins played in the 1965 World Series during this period and still did not raise ticket prices. Think that would happen in todays world? Not a chance.

By the time the Twins were getting ready to move into the brand new Metrodome in 1982 they had completed 21 years at Met Stadium and the team had implemented ticket price increases just 8 times with the cheapest ticket going from $1.50 to $3.00 and the highest priced ticket jumped from $3 to $7.

In the 23 full seasons that Griffith owned the Twins from 1961 to 1983 (1984 does not count as the team was sold mid-season) he raised ticket prices 9 times (39%) and kept ticket prices at the previous rate on 14 (61%) occasions. During Griffith’s reign the average ticket price went from $2.33 to $6.00, an increase of 157.51%.

The Twins were sold to the Pohlad family in mid-season in 1984. Pohlad’s first full year as team owner was 1985 and his teams played in the Metrodome for 25 years from 1985 through 2009. During the Pohlad era in the Metrodome the Twins raised ticket prices 18 times or 72% of the time. They made no change to the ticket price 4 times, 16% of the time and they lowered ticket prices on 3 occasions or 12% of the time. The first drop took place in 1987 when the ticket price dropped 4% as the average ticket price went from $6.25 to $6.00 based on a $1.00 drop in lower left field seats. The second average ticket price drop occurred as the team entered the 1996 season when the average ticket went from $10.86 to $8.67 but this is kind of deceiving because the Twins added one new ticket category and dropped two high-priced categories and sold them as season tickets only and these category changes dropped the average ticket price when the ticket prices never actually changed. The third drop in average ticket price occurred as the Twins went into the 2002 season fresh off the “contraction” fiasco. The contraction business may have played a role in the ticket price reduction but what about the outrageous 53.58% average ticket price increase that took place prior to the 2001 season? Maybe the Twins realized that they over did it the year before, who knows? Bottom line, from 1985 through the 2009 season in the Metrodome under the Pohlad umbrella the average Twins ticket price went from $5.50 in 1985 to $30.25 which is an increase of 450%.

Between 1961 and 2005 the Twins had anywhere from 2 to 7 different pricing categories each season. Dynamic/variable pricing showed up in 2006 and the price categories jumped to 16, in 2009 it jumped to 24, in 2010 with the move to Target Field it more than doubled to 57 , in 2011 it crept up to 60 and in 2013 it jumps to 95.

I set up a new page called Twins Ticket Price History so if you want to see a year by year look at Twins ticket prices, some charts and tables showing ticketing information, and some ticket images including some interesting “phantom” tickets, check it out.

This Day in Twins History – January 6, 1967

Joseph HaynesTwins Executive Vice President Joe Haynes suffered a heart attack while shoveling snow at his Hopkins , Minnesota home on January 6, 1967 and died at the age of 49. Haynes was signed by the Washington Senators as a free agent in 1937. During spring training in 1938 Haynes met and became smitten with Thelma Griffith who was at the time Clark Griffith’s personal secretary and was the daughter of Bruce Robertson whose sister Addie was Senator owners Clark Griffith’s wife. Although Thelma and Calvin were never formally adopted by the Clark and Addie Griffith, they were raised by the Griffith’s as their own children.

After just 2 years in the low minors Haynes made his major league debut as a reliever for the Washington Senators on April 24, 1939 at Fenway Park and picked up his first big league win while allowing 1 earned run in 2.2 innings in a 10-9 Washington victory in 10 innings. Haynes pitched for the Senators in 1939 and 1940 before hurting his arm and was sold to the Chicago White Sox in January 1941 by his future father-in-law. Haynes ended up marrying Thelma Griffith in 1941 and pitched for the White Sox for eight years from 1941-1948. Haynes led the league in pitching appearances in 1942 and in 1947 Haynes had a league leading 2.42 ERA. In 1948 Haynes was selected to the AL All-Star team although he did not make an appearance in the game. Haynes continued to have off and on arm issues and was traded to the Cleveland Indians in November 1948 who then flipped him a month later back to the Washington Senators where he again pitched through the 1952 season before being released.

Haynes pitched in the majors for 14 seasons putting up a 76-82 won/lost record with a 4.01 ERA in 379 games with 147 of them being starts. Haynes was a pitch to contact pitcher giving up more hits than innings pitched but he had an HR/9 mark of 0.5 which was pretty darn impressive. Haynes served as the Senators minor league pitching instructor in 1955 and moved into the front office in 1956 and kept his position when the team moved to Minnesota in 1961. After Haynes passed away in 1967,  his widow, Thelma Griffith Haynes, continued to serve as an executive vice president, assistant treasurer, and part owner of the Twins until they were sold to Carl Pohlad in 1985.

Joe Haynes SABR bio.

Twins Turkey of the Year – 2012

The Minnesota Twins won 66 games in 2012, three more victories than they managed to put in the win column in 2011 and they again finished in last place in the American League Central division. Only three Twins teams have finished with worse records over the Twins 52 year existence in Minnesota, the 1982 team finished with a 60-102 record, the 2011 team finished 63-99, and the 1999 crew put up a 63-97 record. 2012 makes two years in a row with a finish of dead last in the division and only the second time in their history they have finished last two years in a row matching the 1981-1982 teams. Back in 1981 and 1982 everyone knew the Twins were a bad ballclub in full rebuilding mode but the current club does not see itself the same way. When the 2011 Twins team went 63-99 and barely dodged the 100 loss mark, team management wasted no time blaming it on all the injuries, truth be told, they did have a lot of injuries but still it seemed clear to me and many others that the Twins were in a dowward spiral. Twins starting pitching totally imploded in 2012 and the team used 12 different starting pitchers with only one getting more than 19 starts and that was Scott Diamond who started the season in AAA Rochester and still ended up starting 27 times.

When you look at some of the players on the 2012 team you can certainly find a number of deserving qualifiers for the 2012 Twins Turkey of the Year award. Lets take a look at some of candidates:

The fifth runner-up is starter Francisco Liraiano. After another frustrating start the Twins had seen enough and sent him packing to a division rival, the Chicago White Sox.

The fourth runner-up is starting pitcher Nick Blackburn. Blackie got off to a 1-4 start and then took a short trip to the DL from mid May to early June. Between June 6 and August 17 Blakburn returned to the rotation starting 12 games going 3-5 with 97 hits in 65.1 inning and a 6.89 ERA. The numbers were so bad that in spite of his $4.75 million salary the Twins sent him to AAA Rochester for the remainder of the season.

Third runner-up is another member of the starting rotation, recent free agent signee Jason Marquis. After personal issues delayed the start of his season, Marquis started 7 games between April 18 and May 20th allowing 52 hits in 34 innings going 2-4 with a 8.47 ERA and the Twins quickly released Marquis.

The second runner-up is starter Carl Pavano. With opening day in 2012 just around the corner reports surfaced that starter Pavano was facing a bizarre legal distraction. According to myrecordjournal.com, “police in Southington, Connecticut were investigating allegations that a high school classmate of Pavano’s, Christian Bedard, threatened to reveal an alleged homosexual relationship they had and to write a book about it unless Pavano apologized to him and bought him an SUV”. Pavano ended up making 11 starts going 2-5 and gave up 80 hits in 63 innings and posted a 6.00 ERA before going on the DL on June 4th and spending the rest of the season there. Another $8.5 million down the drain there.

This years Twins Turkey of the Year runner-up is Japanese import Tsuyoshi Nishioka who was in the second year as a Minnesota Twin making $3 million and he played in a total of 3 games in a Twins uniform going 0 for 12 and committing two errors. In spite of the fact that Nishioka was not able to hit or field in the majors, he considered himself a star and during the two spring training’s that I watched him participate in  you could usually find him and his interperter out in one of the back fields working out on his own instead of working out with his teammates. The Twins released him 2 years into a 3 year contract at his request but yet no one from the Twins organization has stepped forward and said who scouted him and how they arrived at the conclusion that Nishioka was a big league player. Former GM Bill Smith took the sword for that one but he should have not been the only one.

Jim Pohlad inherited the Minnesota Twins when his father Carl Pohlad passed away in January 2009. As has been stated many times, the Pohlad family has consistently followed a model of keeping the annual player payroll pegged to 50 percent of team revenue. The Twins have played in their spanking new Target Field ballpark since 2010 but their last two seasons there have been full blown disasters as far as the teams record is concerned.  However; the Twins loyal fans kept pouring through the turnstiles although in 2012 attedance has seriously started to lag. As owner and CEO Jim Pohlad is ultimetly responsible for the entire operation. Pohlad, team president Dave St. Peter and GM Terry Ryan have all stated that everyone is doing everything possible to get the team back on the right track, but then again what else would you expect them to say. All three have stated at different times that it is not all about money and that money does not insure a winning team and they throw out examples of teams that have gone to the playoffs in the past with low payrolls. I understand that, but to win on a consistent basis like the team ownership states is their goal, you need to have good players and good players cost money. Over the years the Twins have done what they could with the revenue they had to work with and a couple of times they won it all and I congratulate them for that. The team has taken great pride in playing ball “the Twins way”, promoting from within and making a few trades now and then and that has worked for them in the past, but times have changed and their revenue situation has changed and the Twins management group is stuck in the same old ways of doing business. Back when arbitration and free agency came into play, team owner Calvin Griffith saw the writing on the wall but could not adapt to the new business model and was forced to sell the team to Carl Pohlad. The Twins have said over the years that signing free agents is not the way to the promised land and yet we have watched the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, the Detroit Tigers and numerous other teams buy their way into the playoffs. I know this team does not get the revenue that the Yankees and many other teams get but you have to pull your head out of the sand and accept that change is necessary and that the business model for your team needs to change if you want to be successful year in and year out. When I was a manager in the IT business world I had a budget to work with and when I first started managing I did whatever I could to stay within my budget thinking that the more I stayed under the budget the better a manager I was. I quickly was shown the error of my ways being told that the money I saved during the year was nice but had I spent the money I was allotted in my budget I probably could have improved the service to our existing customers and/or brought in new customers but that did not happen because I chose to play it safe and save a few dollars. You need to spend money to make money, with all the businesses that the Pohlad’s own and run as well as they do, why don’t they run their baseball team the same way? If Jim Pohlad really wanted to field a winning team, he would, but he would need to spend more money to do so but apparently he is satisified with his current rate of return and doesn’t feel the need to change the way the team is currently run.

Excluding the United States  government, we all have budgets that we need to live with but a budget is just “an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time.” Our family home has provided us with a safe and comfortable place to live for a number of years but it has only done so because we have budgeted a certain amount of money annually to keep the house in as  good a condition as possible. We know that as time goes by that certain aspects of the home start to show some age and slowly start to deteriorate and need to be replaced. A baseball team is no different, you constantly need to spend money on parts that need to be replaced and we do that with money budgeted for that purpose. But now and then a time comes along in all home owners lives where a major problem arises, something totally out of the blue. Just when things were chugging along as you think they should a sudden storm arrives and high winds tear part of your roof off, the hail smashes gapping holes in your siding and a tree smashes your fence. What the heck is up with that? We sure didn’t plan on that happening and it is going to cost a lot of money to fix the home to make it leveable again but yet our budget does not allow for it. On the other hand, if we don’t fix the roof the rest of the home is going to be destroyed and a huge investment will be lost. The Twins suffered such a storm in 2011 but instead of taking the time to fix it properly they threw a tarp on the roof and told themselves that all is good with the world once again. Then in 2012 when they found that their roof was leaking like a sieve they tried some cheap do-it-yourself remedies that did not accomplish much. There is an old saying that goes something like this, “if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is to stop digging the hole deeper.” The Twins have to do what a logical home owner would do, they have to find and spend the money necesssary to fix their problem regardless if their current budget allows for it or not. You need to find the money to fix the roof and figure out how you can pay for it. It might mean selling something you can live without or you can take money that you has set aside for other purposes but you need to fix that roof or your investment is down the tubes. The Twins find themselves in such a dilema, their starting pitching staff needs to be replaced or the rest of their players are just wasting their time and soon the team will find fewer and fewer butts in the Target Field seats. It is time for this years Twins Turkey of the Year, Twins owner Jim Pohlad to step up and explain to president Dave St. Peter and GM Terry Ryan that he has their back with the necessary cash and they need to do whatever is necessary to fix the ailing Twins and put them back on the winning track or he will find someone else that can.

Previous Twins Turkey of the Year winners:

2011 – Joe Mauer

2010 – Brendan Harris

2009 – Glen Perkins

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This Day in Twins History – June 22

Rod Carew

1970 – In the fourth inning of the Twins game against the Milwaukee Brewers in County Stadium, Rod Carew suffers a serious knee injury with torn cartilage and torn ligaments when Brewers 1B Mike Hegan rolls in to Carew at 2B trying to break up a double play. According to Rod Carew in his book “Carew”, my leg snapped back and went crack! He goes on to say that 2B umpire Jake O’Donnell had heard the crack and vomited. Carew was hitting .376 at the time, underwent surgery and ended up in essence missing the rest of the season. Rod did return for 5 at bats late in September but did not get a hit. Carew had only 2 plate appearances against the Orioles in the ALCS with no hits.

Calvin Griffith

1984 – In a teary home plate ceremony before the Twins-White Sox game at the Metrodome, Calvin Griffith and his sister, Thelma Haynes, sign a letter of intent to sell their 52 percent ownership of the Twins to Minneapolis banker Carl Pohlad for $32 million (some reports state it was $36 million) ending the longest family ownership of a team in baseball history. Griffith and his sister had been involved with the franchise since 1922, when they were adopted by owner Clark Griffith when the team was the Washington Senators.

 

This Day in Twins History – January 5, 2009

Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad passed away at his Edina, Minnesota home at the age of 93. Pohlad bought the Twins from Calvin Griffith the teams original owner in 1984 for about $38 million.

A lot of Twins fans disliked Carl Pohlad primarily for two reasons. First, because he agreed to “contract” (eliminate) the Minnesota Twins in 2001 and secondly because many Twins fans felt that with all personal wealth, estimated at about $2.8 billion, that Pohlad should have spent more money on the Twins payroll in order to make them a more competitive team. Regardless of how you may have felt about Carl Pohlad, he did a lot for the Minnesota Twins and he has earned his rightful place in Minnesota Twins history. Pohlad led an interesting life to say the least, here are some of the high points.

Timeline

1915 – Born in Des Moines, Iowa

1942 to 1945 – Fights for U.S. Army in Europe during World War II earning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star

1946 – Starts first job at consumer finance company in Dubuque, Iowa

1949 – Joins Marquette National Bank in Minneapolis

1955 – Becomes president of Marquette National Bank and its holding company, Marquette Bancshares, Inc.

1960 – Buys Minnesota Enterprises, Inc., a private transit company, and turns it into a huge Pepsi bottling company

1982 – Takes over Farmers & Mechanics Savings Bank and saves it from closure

1984 – Buys and owns Minnesota Twins

1986 to 1993 – Part-owner of Minnesota Vikings

1993 – Serves as chairman of Mesaba Holdings, Inc., the airline that provides small-market flights for Northwest Airlines

 

A nice write-up on Carl Pohlad called “Remembering Carl Pohlad: What Will His Ultimate Legacy Be? ” makes for a good read.

You can find the Minneapolis Star Tribune obituary for Carl Pohlad here.

 

Some old newspaper clips about the Twins

The Minnesota Twins have had their ups and downs over the years and I ran across a variety of press clippings that pertained to the home-town nine and I thought that I would share them with you. Some are sad, some stupid, some funny and some historical but they are all part of Twins lore and history. Some will bring back some bad memories and other will cause you to to say, oh yes, I remember that. The clipping come from a variety of newspapers including the Boston Globe, Orlando Sentinel, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

April 12, 1985 – There will be no more spitting on the Minnesota Twins’ clubhouse floor. Nor will there be any more gum wrappers lying around or cramped dressing areas. The Twins Thursday unveiled the remodeled Metrodome clubhouse, done in the team’s colors of red, white and blue, with ash wood trim — the same color as baseball bats.”Some of these players make $800,000 a year, and they come in five or six hours before a game,” said architect David Shea, who was the principal designer for the remodeling.

June 30, 1985 (Peter Gammons – Boston Globe) – Billy Gardner got fired because (1) the Twins’ pitching fell apart, and (2) he simply is not in the mold of owner Carl Pohlad and GM Howard Fox. What can one say about a staff on which the only pitcher with an ERA under 4.20 was Frank Euefemia? Or when Ron Davis became so afraid of pitching that he hyperventilated in the bullpen and created excuses to beg out of games? Ray Miller was brought in to straighten out the pitching, and he is a man who deserves the chance. He needed to leave Baltimore, where his rapport with writers and his ambition had turned off pitchers and alienated fellow coaches.

September 20, 1985 – Baseball, as a business, is not for those with weak stomachs, says Carl Pohlad, who is completing his first full season as owner of the Minnesota Twins. Pohlad: ”I live and die every game. When I bought the team, I knew sports had more ups and downs than other businesses, and I thought I could cope. In my other enterprises, I can cope. But I have difficulty coping with a tough loss on the ball field.” Pohlad bought the Twins from long-time owner Calvin Griffith a little over a year ago. ”I used to think I was pretty good at managing stress,” the 69-year-old banking magnate told the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce.

July 29, 1986 – Amid rumors of his firing, Minnesota Twins Manager Ray Miller met Monday with top club officials to discuss the team’s poor performance and how to solve the problem. ”I’m not satisfied with the way the team’s been playing,” Twins President Howard Fox said in New York, where Minnesota faced the Yankees. ”I thought we’d be better than we’ve been. We’re re-evaluating the whole thing.” Fox said Twins owner Carl Pohlad has given him the authority to make any managerial change.

July 4, 1986 – Former Minnesota Twins’ farm director George Brophy, who resigned last January because of illness, will become a special assistant scout for the Houston Astros Aug. 1, he said. Brophy, 59, was struck in June 1985 by aplastic anemia, a life-threatening blood disorder. When Brophy still wasn’t back to work in January, Twins president Howard Fox asked him to take early retirement as part of a program established by owner Carl Pohlad for longtime employees. Brophy said he began to respond to a new form of treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

July 31, 1986 – Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad says he’s ”disappointed” with his struggling American League club but says he won’t comment on the future of Manager Ray Miller. Pohlad said ”we’re all disappointed” at the team’s record, which stood Wednesday morning at 43 and 57. ”I don’t like it, the fans don’t like it and neither does anybody else. We’re doing the best we can.”

September 13, 1986 – Tom Kelly, who guided the Orlando Twins to the Class AA Southern League pennant in 1981, was named manager of the Minnesota Twins on Friday for the remaining 23 games after Manager Ray Miller was fired. Kelly, 36, took over Friday night as interim manager after Minnesota President Howard Fox announced, ”It would be in the best interest of everyone concerned that the termination of Ray Miller’s position would take place at this time.””Our record games behind is exactly three games worse than it was last year at this time without a bullpen,” Miller said.

October 23, 1986 – The Minnesota Twins, who have said they hope to name a new manager by next week at the latest, have interviewed former Kansas City Royals and Chicago Cubs manager Jim Frey. Frey met for almost three hours Tuesday with Twins owner Carl Pohlad, said Pohlad’s son, Jim, a team director who was also in on the meeting. Jim Pohlad said the only candidates who have been recommended by Twins Vice President Andy MacPhail are Frey and Tom Kelly. Kelly, the Twins’ third-base coach for the last three years and former Orlando Twins manager, served as interim manager for the final three weeks of the 1986 season after Ray Miller was fired.

May 19, 1988 (Brian Schmitz, Orlando Sentinel) – The way I understand it, the Minnesota Twins will honor Orlando with their presence each spring only if the city gives them some choice property, presumably a chunk with a lakefront view. The Twins want freebie land to develop for economic opportunities outside of baseball, and if they don’t get it they’ll leave for Fort Myers in 1990.To the Twins, I say so long, goodbye and don’t let the door hit you in your pinstriped behinds. Baseball fans, calm yourselves. City fathers want the Twins to stay.

November 1, 1988 (Tim Povtak, Orlando Sentinel) – The ”privatization” of Tinker Field, which would give the Minnesota Twins almost total control of the baseball complex, is key to an arrangement that has brought Orlando and the major-league team close to signing a 10-year contract for spring training.Twins owner Carl Pohlad and much of his administrative staff met for an hour with city officials Monday in Mayor Bill Frederick’s office, discussing major points in the agreement.The Twins, who have one more year on their contract, and the city have been negotiating for more than a year.

January 10, 1989 – The Minnesota Twins will continue making Orlando their spring training base, at least for the next 10 years, if the professional baseball team agrees to a settlement offered Monday by the Orlando City Council.The council offered to pay $3 million over the next three years for the Twins to build new major and minor-league clubhouses, batting tunnels and a grandstand at Tinker Field. The city also relinquished its rights to concession and parking revenues associated with Tinker Field and agreed to provide 6,000 square feet in office space for team officials at the Florida Citrus Bowl.

January 26, 1989 (Larry Guest, Orlando Sentinel) – Spring baseball long has been a time of charm and grace, a respite of innocence when reality gave way to fantasy. It was six weeks of green grass and a warming sun, a genteel preamble of wind sprints and good will before the hard competition and grim business of the regular season took over.It was a ritual for the romantics, a flashback to the simpler times.Never has the passing of that poppycock been made more crystal clear than by the hard capitalists in charge of today’s Minnesota Twins.

February 3, 1989 – Minnesota Twins General Manager Andy MacPhail says the Twins should not be portrayed as ”Northern carpetbaggers” in their negotiations with the city of Orlando. MacPhail says the Twins simply are keeping up with the business of modern baseball.Orlando has been the spring-training home of the Twins for 53 years, but that relationship is in jeopardy. The Twins want the city, which is asking for a 10-year commitment, to upgrade facilities at Tinker Field to accommodate both their minor and major-league players.

October 8, 1991 – He says his job is tougher because he works in one of the smallest baseball cities, but Vice President/General Manager Andy MacPhail has excelled, and Monday he was given a new 3-year contract that will carry through the 1994 season.The contract is the first MacPhail has had with the Twins, having worked the past six years on 1-year agreements.”I’m very grateful to owner Carl Pohlad,” MacPhail said. ”There is no one I would rather work for than Carl Pohlad or nowhere that I would rather live and work than where I am.’MacPhail, 38, said the difference between making decisions in Minnesota rather than in New York or Los Angeles is that ”we have to balance everything in terms of affordability”.

October 16, 1995 – Thelma Griffith Haynes, the former co-owner and executive of the Minnesota Twins baseball club, died Sunday, Oct. 15. She was 82. Haynes of Lexington Parkway, Orlando, who co-owned the team with her brother, Calvin Griffith of Melbourne, sold it to Carl Pohlad in 1984. Her father, Clark Griffith Sr., founded the Washington Senators in the early 1920s. The family moved the ball club to Minnesota in 1961. Orlando was the team’s spring training site from the 1930s until 1990. Born in Montreal, Canada, she moved to Central Florida in 1982.

May 28, 1997 – Angered that the Minnesota Legislature took no action on their stadium proposal during this year’s regular session, the Minnesota Twins reiterated Tuesday that they will ask for permission to sell or move the team.The club hopes to get that approval at the June 10-12 owners meetings in Philadelphia and immediately would begin taking offers. ”We set out to get an answer from the people of Minnesota. We were told that answer was to be given through the Legislature,” said Bob Pohlad, son of Twins owner Carl Pohlad.

October 7, 1997 – Major league baseball would allow the Twins to leave Minnesota, Gov. Arne Carlson said after meeting Monday in Milwaukee with acting commissioner Bud Selig. Carlson made the comment after he and a group of legislators flew to Milwaukee to ask Selig how Twins owner Carl Pohlad’s deal to sell the Twins to North Carolina businessman Don Beaver would fare with team owners. Pohlad has said he can’t afford to lose any more money in the Metrodome, and that the team must have a baseball-only stadium with revenue from suites, club seating, and other amenities.

November 19, 1997 – The Twins moved a step closer to North Carolina when baseball appointed a five-man committee Tuesday to guide the team through the sport’s relocation rules. The Minnesota Legislature last week defeated a proposal to finance a new ballpark, and Pohlad has an agreement with North Carolina businessman Don Beaver to negotiate a sale unless stadium financing is approved by Nov. 30. Beaver has said he would apply to move the team to North Carolina following the 1998 season.

December 4, 1997 – Paul Molitor, who returned home to the Twins in 1996 and became the 21st player in history to top 3,000 hits, is expected to play elsewhere in 1998, which could be his final season. Ron Simon, Molitor’s agent, said Molitor probably will sign with Toronto or Baltimore by Monday because he is unwilling to play for the Twins in what could be a lame-duck season in Minnesota. Owner Carl Pohlad has an agreement to sell the team to a North Carolina businessman, and the team could move after ’98 unless it gets a new stadium.

July 20, 1998 – Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad plans to work out a lease that will keep his team playing at the Metrodome for the next two years, according to a published report. The Minneapolis Star Tribune cited an unnamed source close to Pohlad, who said Pohlad would work out the lease in the hope of finding a way to build a new baseball stadium.The Twins and the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission are scheduled for a settlement hearing today. The commission has filed a lawsuit trying to block the Twins from exercising an escape clause that would let them out of their Metrodome lease after this season.

November 7, 2001 (Phil Rogers) – In a move almost certain to eliminate the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos, Major League Baseball owners voted Tuesday to authorize Commissioner Bud Selig to fold two teams before the 2002 season. If the plan goes through, it will mark the first time since 1899 that Major League Baseball has closed an existing franchise. “We’re plowing historic ground here,” Selig said. Selig said the teams to be dissolved were not identified specifically during a meeting of owners and that there are more than two under consideration.

November 17, 2001 – JUDGE: TWINS MUST PLAY – Baseball was barred from eliminating the Minnesota Twins next season when a judge Friday ordered the team to play its 2002 home schedule in the Metrodome. Twins owner Carl Pohlad also was ordered not to sell the team unless the new owner agrees to have the team play its 2002 home schedule in the ballpark. The decision by Hennepin County District Judge Harry Seymour Crump throws into question last week’s vote by baseball owners to eliminate two major-league teams next season.

December 23, 2001 – Alabama businessman Donald Watkins, who wants to buy the Twins, shook hands with nearly 200 avid fans Saturday at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. “The weather may be cold up here, but the reception is warm,” said Watkins, who hopes to meet with officials of the commissioner’s office on Jan. 10 to discuss a possible purchase of the team. Current owner Carl Pohlad wants out after failing to gain approval of government financing for a new ballpark.

March 31, 2002 – An enjoyable summer could follow the lousy winter. After dealing with Commissioner Bud Selig, Carl Pohlad and other embarrassments to the grand old game during the offseason, it’s the fans who needed to hit the showers. They wanted to feel clean again. Along the way, the Twins became America’s Team, gamely fighting off contraction and vowing to contend. Everyone loves the underdog, so people from all over will be pulling for the plucky Twins. Pulling for the Minnesota ball club feels good because it’s like casting a vote against big, corrupt business — as represented by the owners who tried to make the franchise disappear.

August 17, 2002 – The axe is now hovering over Cinderella’s head, ready to ruin baseball’s best story. But for what it’s worth, sports fans, the executioners feel your pain. “It’s not the players who are hurting,” Denny Hocking said. “It’s not the owners who are hurting. It’s the fans.” If fans were paid by the lip service they receive, they’d all be Alex Rodriguez. For all the supposed angst, players started the Doomsday Clock. T-minus two weeks until the ninth work stoppage since 1972.

 

GM Ryan busy, Twins sign Ryan Doumit

Ryan Doumit being checked out by Pirates trainer

Holy Cow, GM Terry Ryan has been busy, on the job less than two weeks and he has signed Jamey Carroll and now today the Twins announced they have signed C/1B/OF Ryan Doumit to a $3 million one year deal pending a physical.  The deal apparently has some incentives and that is a good thing because the switch-hitting Ryan Doumit comes to Minnesota with some baggage. Injury type of baggage, in the form of a concussion history and that is not a good thing for a catcher.

Doumit was drafted in the 2nd round of the 1999 June free agent draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a catcher and has been in the Pirates organization ever since. Doumit made his major league debut in June of 2005. Although not rated as a strong catcher defensively, in his 7 big league seasons Doumit has played in 521 games but he has caught in 426 games, played the OF in 60 and played 1B in 35 games. Injuries have limited Doumit’s time in the line-up and he has never had more than 465 plate appearances in any of his 7 big league seasons.

OK, Ryan Doumit has an injury history but he is still a very nice pick-up and worth the gamble as I see it. Doumit has suffered injuries such as a broken thumb, broken wrist, and a fractured ankle not to mention the concussion issues I brought up earlier. He can play three positions and is a switch-hitter and will be 31 when the season starts in April. He has a little pop in his bat as his 67 home runs in 611 games attest and he has a .271 career average although he did hit only .250 in 2009, and .251 in 2010 but he hit .303 in 77 games last year.

I like the signing but if you think this will send Drew Butera packing you need to think again. Doumit is weak defensively and his strength is offense so there is no way that Gardy keeps him on the bench strictly as a back-up catcher day in and day out. Doumit will be in the line-up some where most of the time so Gardy still needs to have a back-up catcher available and that man will probably be Butera or another catcher with some defensive skills. If Doumit is the DH, Gardy will not want to risk losing his DH if he would suddenly need Doumit to catch. Even if Butera fails to make the team, I see no way the Twins do not carry three catchers next year. In spite of needing to carry three catchers, I like this signing and I give GM Ryan a big thumbs up. Keep working those phones Mr. Ryan, a starting pitcher would be nice and the outfield is still a big question mark.

Jason Bulger

The Twins also announced they have signed yet another relief pitcher to a minor league deal, this time it is former Angel Jason Bulger. Jason is a right hander and stands 6’4″ and goes about 210 and will be 33 in a couple of weeks. Bulger has been in the big leagues off and on with the D-Backs and the Angels since 2005 but has only appeared in 125 games with a 7-2 record. Bulger is another of those relief pitchers with control issues as his career mark of 5.1 BB/9 will tell you.

Finally, the Twins also announced that they plan to add another bronze statue of a former player outside Target Field next year but as yet the player has yet to be publicly identified. He would join statues of Harmon Killebrew, Kirby Puckett, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva and the late Twins owner Carl Pohlad and his wife Eloise. Who is it going to be? My guess would be Bert Blyleven and my dark horse choice would be Kent Hrbek. We will find out soon enough.

UPDATE November 23 – The Twins announced that they have officially signed free-agent catcher Ryan Doumit to a one-year deal worth $3 million.

Calvin Griffith in Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

Calvin Griffith (second from left) at the opening of the 1965 World Series - courtesty of Seamheads.com
Calvin Griffith (second from left) at the opening of the 1965 World Series – courtesty of Seamheads.com

November 17, 2010 – I recently had heard that there was Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and in doing some research on it, I ran across this story (Letters from Quebec: Induction Day at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Part Two) dated October 14, 2010 on http://seamheads.com/ by Bill Young. With their permission I have reprinted a portion of the article that pertains to former Twins owner Calvin Griffith. If you wish to read the entire article, please go to http://seamheads.com/2010/10/14/letters-from-quebec-induction-day-at-the-canadian-baseball-hall-of-fame-part-two/ , it is a good read.

By Bill Young – In mid-summer I wrote about the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ontario, and the successful Induction Day ceremonies it held this past June. I mentioned that the new inductees included Canadian pitcher Paul Quantrill—his 14-season major league career took him to Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York (Yankees) San Diego and Florida—and Robbie Alomar, a Blue Jay forever, if Toronto fans have any say in the matter. Charles Bronfman made a significant donation to the Hall’s development fund and even Babe Ruth’s granddaughter took part.

And I also made mention of two other men—Calvin Griffith and Allan Roth—who were inducted posthumously. Both Griffith and Roth were Canadians by birth and while their contributions to the game took place in the United States, it was fitting that they be honored by the baseball community in their country of origin. At the induction ceremonies, both were represented by close family members; the ceremony meant a lot to them.

Calvin Griffith was born in Montreal on December 1, 1911 into difficult circumstances. While still very young he and his sister Thelma were dispatched to Washington, D.C., where they were subsequently adopted by Clark Griffith, the iconic owner of the Washington Senators, and given the Griffith name. When Calvin seemed interested in following the family’s baseball footsteps, Clark made him a Senators’ batboy. Following graduation from George Washington University where he played baseball, Calvin began his own life journey in the minors leagues, first in Chattanooga (home of the Lookouts, where his mentor was the legendary Joe Engle, a close associate of Clark’s and married to Clark’s niece) and later Charlotte. By the early 1950s Calvin was back in Washington, in charge of the Senators’ day-to-day-operations.

When Clark Griffith died in 1955, ownership of the club passed to Calvin and his sister Thelma. Calvin continued to oversee the running of the club, including salary negotiations, while Thelma managed the financial side. Together they formed an effective partnership.

Calvin was behind the decision to move to Minnesota in 1961. Under his tutelage, the newly named Twins enjoyed great success, winning one pennant and two divisional titles. However, by 1984 he and Thelma had run their course. They sold their 52 percent share to Carl Pohlad for $32 million, chump change by today’s standards.

Calvin was old-school when it came to wages, and in the days before agents it was his custom to discuss contracts with players, one-on-one, in his office. According to pitcher Bert Blyleven, “You would go into his office and he would sit in a high chair behind a high desk and you would sit on a couch that sank down, so it was like you were looking up about 10 feet at this big owner. He would then basically tell you what you were going to make the next year, because that’s what he thought you were worth, period.”

Jim (Mudcat) Grant, who is best remembered around these parts as the Montreal Expos opening day starting pitcher, April 8, 1969, at Shea Stadium, when Nos Amours became the first non U.S-based team ever to play a regularly scheduled major league game, had his own take on Griffith. Grant had toiled with the Twins in the mid-1960s. According to him, Griffith “threw around nickels like manhole covers.”

Calvin Griffith died on October 20, 1999 at the age of 87, bringing to an end a life rich in adventure and challenges – and light years removed from the hardships he and his mother and six siblings endured during those first years in Montreal. His early story reads like a tale pulled from the pages of Boy’s Own or a novel by Horatio Alger.

Calvin’s father was Jimmy Robertson, originally from the Shetland Islands. Something of a minor league ball player, he was offered a tryout with the International League Montreal Royals in the mid-1910s although failed to make the team. Among the reasons, as Calvin once explained to my colleague Danny Gallagher, was that Jimmy, the minor-league ball player, was a major-league alcoholic. What limited income he had came from a modest newspaper distribution/delivery business he operated in Mount-Royal, a newly-established model community in the suburbs of Montreal.

But Jimmy had a sister, Anne, and this is where the story takes its remarkable turn. For Anne Robertson lived in Washington, D.C. She was married to Clark Griffith.

When Jimmy died in 1922, his widow, Jane, desolate and impoverished, turned to her sister-in-law for help. Soon enough the whole family was bound for Washington and the bosom of the Griffith family. And, to borrow from that old SNL skit, baseball was about to become very, very good to them.

The Clark Griffiths, who had no children of their own, in addition to formally adopting Calvin and Thelma, informally, gathered all the Robertson children under their wing. In time, all children became involved in baseball, in one capacity of another. For example: Calvin’s younger brother Sherrod (Sherry) Robertson built his own major league baseball narrative as a major league player and executive, and, in 2007 was himself inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Thelma became Clark’s secretary and married Joe Haynes, a career pitcher with the Senators and White Sox. Upon Clark’s death in 1955, along with brother Calvin, she inherited part ownership of the Senators. And then there was sister Mildred. She married the legendary Hall-of-Famer Joe Cronin! According to The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, “Joe Cronin was introduced to his future wife, Clark Griffith’s daughter Mildred, by Joe Engle, who had purchased Cronin from Kansas City in the American Association.” When they met, Engle is supposed to have said, “Hey Millie, I brought you a husband over from Kansas City.”

The Griffith family was delighted with Calvin’s selection to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. His own son Clark, noting that the recognition came a full decade after Calvin’s death, called it “a true honor for my father,” adding, “all of us are very proud that his legacy remains strong and will carry forward in St. Mary’s.”