When The Minnesota Twins came to The Twin Cities

January 17, 2:43 PMSouth St. Paul ExaminerRob Shirk

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the South St. Paul Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Metropolitan Stadium

Carl Pohlad, owner of the Minnesota Twins, died last week. Let's turn back the pages of history, shall we?

It is impossible to overstate the excitement in those days when Metropolitan Stadium, just to the west of South St. Paul, opened to host the newly relocated Washington Senators as our own Minnesota Twins. There were cattle just beyond the outfild fence, grazing next to soybean and corn fields in the sleepy town of Bloomington. Now there was major league baseball. The Twin Cities had arrived and finally had stepped out from that shady small town notion of the backwards minor leagues. But what had they arrived with?

They arrived with tightwad, egotistical, and racist owner Calvin Griffith, for one thing. Minnesota Nice was about to trade in it's booya for some Washington, D.C. southern comfort.

[We chose Minnesota] when we found out that you only had 15,000 blacks here. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here - Calvin Griffith

Holy, Moley, Ole, didja here what that man just said? Jeez...is he from the east coast or someting??

The team that arrived in the field just to the west of South St. Paul was a pretty good roster of players. The ghosts that came with them dating back sixty years was rife with a tradition of lousy pitching, with one notable except in in all-star Walter Johnson, notoriously pourous infields, dreadful outfielders, scattershot hitting and a tradition of losing.

The Washingto Senators were so bad they inspired a hit Broadway play, Damn Yankees, and one of the great baseball observations in history when San Francisco Chronicle columnist Charley Dryden joked: "Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League."

Welcome to Minnesota. Things have changed

Pitchers and catchers arrive for spring training on February 15 and as the mercury struggles to attain freezing for a high temperature we can hardly wait.

SUBSCRIBE to my Examiner Column by clicking the "Subscribe" link below this posting and receive timely updates on South St. Paul news.