April 19, 2010 – Ray Barton the artist/designer who was commissioned by Twins team owner Calvin Griffith in 1961 to design a logo for the Minnesota Twins passed away at the age of 80 of cancer at his Little Canada home on April 18, 2010.
The logo (shown below) showed two baseball players (Minnie and Paul) shaking hands across the Mississippi River. Minnie who represents Minneapolis and the old Minneapolis Millers wears number 20 and Paul who represents St. Paul and the old St. Paul Saints wears number 10. The original logo had the letters “MT” for the Minnesota Twins on the players’ jerseys instead of the “M” for Minneapolis on one and “StP” for St. Paul on the other. The words “Win Twins” have been replaced with “Minnesota,” but the primary design of the logo featuring two players on opposite sides of a river shaking hands with a baseball in the background has remained virtually unchanged over the past five decades, said Clyde Doepner, the Twins’ team historian. The emblem has been part of almost every Twins uniform since the team began play. It was absent only on the 1972 road uniforms when only the faces of “Minnie” and “Paul” were shown, and on the 2009 gray pin-striped road jersey, which featured commemorative patches of the Metrodome and former owner Carl Pohlad. Barton was not that thrilled with his design, thinking it might only appear on paper cups but Calvin liked the logo and thought that it would show that the Twins ball club truly represented both cities and the state of Minnesota in spite of the fact that the Twins home park was located in Bloomington and made it the Twins signature logo that 50 years later stands proudly over the Twins new Target Field. Ray Barton was paid $15 for his original design back in 1961.
