Calvin Griffith was born Calvin Robertson on December 1, 1911, in Montreal, Quebec. Calvin was the second child of seven children born to Jane Davies and James Robertson, who married in 1908. His family included an older sister, Mildred (who later would marry Joe Cronin, Washington shortstop and future American League President), a younger sister, Thelma (who would marry Washington pitcher Joe Haynes), and younger brothers Bruce, Sherrod, Jimmy, and Billy. Jimmy and Billy were twins born in 1921. By that time the situation with his family had become a struggle due to Calvin’s father’s alcoholism, which eventually would cut James’ life short in 1923 at the age of 42. The family had little money and it was necessary for Calvin to work to help support the family.

In the summer of 1922 the family was visited by James’ sister Addie Griffith, wife of Clark Griffith, at that time the owner of the Washington Nationals. It was decided that Calvin (age 11) and his younger sister, Thelma (age 9), would return to Washington, D.C., and stay with the Griffiths. From this point on Calvin and his sister were raised as members of the Griffith family. Upon the death of Calvin’s father, the rest of the Robertson family also moved to Washington. Although Calvin and Thelma were never formally adopted by the Griffiths, they did have their names legally changed – in Calvin’s case from Calvin Griffith Robertson to Calvin Robertson Griffith.

Calvin began his involvement with baseball as the Washington batboy in 1922. This continued on through the world championship season of 1924 and the American League championship season of 1925. In 1928 he entered the Staunton Military Academy, graduating in 1933. After Staunton, Griffith entered the George Washington University, which he attended the next two years. During his time at Staunton and George Washington, he played baseball as a pitcher and catcher.

In the spring of 1935, Griffith left George Washington and went to work for the Washington organization at its Chattanooga farm club as secretary-treasurer, and in 1937 he took over as head man. With the team struggling in mid-season, Clark fired the manager and enlarged Calvin’s duties to include field manager. In 1938 the elder Griffith promoted Calvin to the same all-inclusive post with their affiliate in Charlotte. In 1941 Clark called Calvin back to Washington to take over a newly opened position with the big league club as assistant secretary, head of concessions.

Gradually Calvin began taking over the responsibilities of his uncle. Specifically he began attending league meetings in place of Clark, along with taking charge of making player trades and negotiating contracts with the media.

Clark Griffith died on October 27, 1955, and on November 1, at age 43, Calvin was elected president of the Washington Nationals. In the reorganization, Joe Haynes was named roving minor league pitching instructor; Sherry Robertson became assistant farm director; Billy Robertson assumed the position of supervisor of Griffith Stadium personnel and maintenance; and Jimmy Robertson remained as director of concessions. Calvin had inherited, along with his sister Thelma, 52% of the Nationals’ essentially debt-free franchise. The ballclub and the stadium were valued at approximately $4 million.

The Move to Minnesota

By 1955 the Washington franchise had suffered through years of poor performance and attendance. Rumors of offers from Louisville, Los Angeles, and Minnesota’s Twin Cities were confirmed by Calvin in the authorized biography written by Jon Kerr in 1990. But political difficulties in moving a franchise out of the nation’s capitol and a one-franchise city likely led to the delay in any transfer of the Senators. An article in the Washington Post January 15, 1958, bylined by Calvin, stated:

I have lived in Washington, D.C., for about 35 years. I attended school here and established many roots here. The city has been good to my family and me. This is my home. I intend that it shall remain my home for the rest of my life. As long as I have any say in the matter, and I expect that I shall for a long, long time, the Washington Senators will stay here, too. Next year. The year after that. Forever.1

Shirley Povich’s article in Baseball Digest later that year detailed Griffith’s testimony before the U. S. Senate’s Anti-Trust Committee. There Calvin tried to backpedal, explaining that what he had said above did not mean that he would not stay should the club no longer be able to financially function in Washington.

With many large cities clamoring for major league baseball and the major leagues dragging their heals on expansion, in 1959 52-year-old New York lawyer William Shea championed the creation on of a new eight-team major league — in Shea’s case largely to replace the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants who had departed for the West Coast in 1957. The threat of Shea’s Continental League sparked further talks by the American and National Leagues regarding expansion. Part of this discussion included consideration of Minneapolis-St. Paul as an expansion site, or alternatively, as a site for relocation of Griffith’s Washington franchise. Griffith had been promised a guaranteed annual attendance of 750,000 and an estimated $430,000 media contract by the Twin Cities delegation. Part of a possible expansion plan included the addition of a new team in the nation’s capitol, as Griffith’s possible relocation of the Senators was being challenged in the courts at the time by minority owner H. Gabriel Murphy.

The next year expansion finally became a reality. The National League voted at a meeting on October 17, 1960, to expand to New York and Houston, with those teams beginning operation for the 1962 season. In a meeting on October 26, the American League voted to expand to 10 teams for the following season (1961). Calvin Griffith would be allowed to move his franchise to Minnesota, with a new American League franchise replacing his in Washington.

Success in the 1960s

The Senators were greeted warmly in Minnesota. Ticket orders rolled in well in advance of tickets going on sale for the opening of the 1961 season. Minneapolis sportswriter Sid Hartman probably put it best:

The Senators became the Minnesota Twins, moved into Met Stadium, took over the concessions business, and there were relatives all over the place: Joe Haynes, Thelma Haynes, Sherry Robertson, Billy Robertson, Jimmy Robertson. You didn’t know who was in charge of what. Your reaction was, “What is this? We didn’t get a ballclub. We got a family.” It was like being around the Beverly Hillbillies.

And then there was this guy Howard Fox. He wasn’t a relative, but he was the guy hanging out at Woodhill and Wayzata Country Clubs with Calvin. We wondered, “How does Fox fit it?”

…

It was an odd organization, but who cared? It was terrific to have major league baseball. The Upper Midwest went crazy, sending buses throughout the summer from every little town in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, and even Montana.2

The Twins were very successful at the gate from the beginning. From 1961 though the 1970 season Minnesota topped one million in attendance each year, including totals of over 1.4 million in four of those years: 1962, 1963, 1965, and 1967. The team also showed dramatic improvement on the field. With last-place finishes in four of the last six seasons in Washington, the Twins started with a seventh-place finish in 1961 (in the expanded ten-team American League), jumping to second in 1962 and third in 1963. After a sub-par 1964 season, the Twins won the American League pennant in 1965 and came close in 1967.

Much of the improvement was due to quality players that were signed and developed in the Senators/Twins farm system, most notably Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, outfielders Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, and three-time batting champion Tony Oliva, first baseman Don Mincher, 1965 Most Valuable Player and shortstop Zoilo Versalles, and pitchers Camilo Pascual and Jim Kaat – all important members of the 1965 pennant-winning ballclub. By the end of the decade the system had also produced future Hall of Famers Rod Carew and Bert Blyleven.

Calvin was not above interjecting his opinions or directives when it came to his managers. A commonly cited example was when he insisted that Sam Mele stick with rookie Rod Carew during the 1967 season, when Carew was making the jump from playing class A ball in 1966.

In the mid-1960s, Calvin’s son, Clark II, joined the organization. Joe Haynes passed away in 1967 due to a heart attack at age 49; Sherry Robertson died due to injuries suffered in an automobile crash in Houghton, South Dakota in 1970 at the age of 51. George Brophy took over as farm director for Sherry Robertson, and Howard Fox became even closer to Calvin as a confidant/advisor.

The Hiring/Firing of Billy Martin as Manager

Since the move to Minnesota Calvin had been though three managers. Cookie Lavagetto, the holdover manager from Washington, was dismissed during the 1961 season and replaced by coach Sam Mele. Griffith let Mele go early in the 1967 season and replaced him with coach Cal Ermer, who lasted through 1968.

To lead his club on the field, Griffith appointed Billy Martin as manager on October 11, 1968. Billy had played for the Twins in 1961, his final season as a player. In 1965 the Twins brought Martin back to the major league club as a coach–a position he held through the 1967 season. In 1968 Billy was sent to the Twins’ triple-A affiliate in Denver to manage the team.

Billy’s tenure as a coach with the Twins had been controversial–most notably his physical altercation with Traveling Secretary Howard Fox in 1966, which had carried over from a charter flight into the hotel. The two publicly made peace, but Fox would continue to dislike Martin. Another notable altercation occurred during the 1969 season when Martin fought with his own pitcher, Dave Boswell, outside a bar on August 7. This event was not popular with Calvin, who said he had warned Martin against going to the same establishments as his players before he was hired as manager. Calvin did, however, support Martin’s fine of Boswell for the incident.

The Twins won the West Division of the American League that season, the first year of divisional play, and they entered the best-of-five playoff series against the East Division champion Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles won the first two games in Baltimore by one run each and then beat the Twins at home 11-2. In the third game, Billy had chosen to start Bob Miller over Jim Kaat, a decision which Calvin let it be known that he did not approve.

According to Tom Mee, the Twin’s public-relations director at the time, the decision to fire Martin came at a meeting during the World Series in New York City on October 13. Everyone in the assembled group of six was asked to express his opinion about whether or not Martin, working 1969 under a one-year contract, should be rehired. Everyone spoke against Martin until it got to Mee. According to Mee, the “pro-Billy” people were not there–Sherry Robertson, in particular — and only Mee ended up speaking up in favor of Martin. After everyone had spoken Howard Fox called the question, saying, “Well, what are you going to do?” to Calvin, who responded, “I’m gonna fire his ass.”3

The firing was very unpopular with fans and the media. Don Riley wrote in the St. Paul Pioneer Press the day before the firing:

Just remember what I told you. Griffith may not be popular with the masses but I don’t believe he’s stupid. If he didn’t rehire Martin, he leaves himself open to the biggest fan revolt since Gopher [University of Minnesota] fans learned there are football fields where you can see the game for five bucks . . . 4

And in his column the day after:

Griffith couldn’t have done a more dastardly work of unpopularity if he turned down a reprieve for Joan of Arc – or got caught drilling holes in Washington’s rowboat.5

Arno Goethel, the Twins’ beat writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, added an analysis of the situation a couple days later. All the sources of conflict were mentioned: Martin’s temperament, the Howard Fox conflict, Calvin’s second-guessing of Billy’s managerial style, the fact that Billy did not have complete control over the make-up of his coaching staff, and that Martin couldn’t tolerate the nature of the Twins charter flights, which frequently included relatives and associates of Twins front office personnel. According to Tom Mee, the organization never did fully recover from the firing of Billy Martin as it moved into the 1970’s. 6

Failures in the 1970s

As Griffith searched for a replacement for Martin, he uttered one of his more memorable quotes: “I can’t tell you what I intend to do, but I can tell you one thing; it won’t be anything rational.” 7 Griffith eventually hired Bill Rigney, and in 1970 the Twins’ again won the West Division. And again they lost the American League Championship Series in three straight games to the Orioles. This was to be the Twins’ last division championship under Calvin’s ownership. Rigney survived as manager until 1972, when he was replaced in mid-season by Frank Quilici.

Aging stars combined with lack of replacements led to the Twins failures of the early 1970s. As the decade wore on, the change in baseball’s reserve system led to further problems for Calvin. He had been brought through the Nationals organization, learning from his uncle that a baseball team was operated with a bottom line, and was concerned with making a profit, not spending money that team didn’t have. Avoiding debt and interest payments were always foremost in his management style.

After 1970 the team drew over a million in attendance only twice (1977, 1979) at Metropolitan Stadium. These lower attendance figures meant less revenue for salaries, which Calvin already considered too high for mere ballplayers. Calvin reacted to the new baseball economics by futilely trying to resist changes such as salary arbitration, player agents, free agency, and the increasing importance of television revenue, which gave an advantage to teams in larger markets. As time moved on, Griffith was considered a “dinosaur” or a “vestige of yesterday” relative to the new baseball owners of the late 1970s.

On the personal side, 1974 was the year Calvin separated from his wife and moved out of his Lake Minnetonka home. Calvin had married Natalie Morris of Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1940; the couple had three children: Clark, Corinne, and Claire. The two never did reconcile or divorce.

1978 – The Lions Club Talk in Waseca

On Thursday, September 28, 1978, Calvin accepted an invitation to travel south to the rural town of Waseca, Minnesota, to spend the afternoon playing golf with his friend, sportswriter Tony Sybilrud, and speak to the Waseca Lions Club that evening.

Coincidentally, Minneapolis Tribune staff writer Nick Coleman was also in attendance that night. Coleman was not there to cover the event (Coleman lived in Rochester, Minnesota, and covered southern Minnesota for the paper) but rather a guest of his father-in-law. It was later said that during the introduction of the audience Coleman identified himself by name only and not by vocation.

The meeting proceeded in a question and answer format. Griffith began to make comments about specific players and about race in general. Coleman is quoted as saying “I was wincing the whole time thinking, you don’t want to say that.” 8 He was not there with a tape recorder or anything with which to write, so when he returned from the meeting he wrote everything down from memory. The next day he called his editors to ask if they wanted him to write a story based on what he had heard. They called back and said yes, and that it would run in the Sunday paper.

In the most damaging part of the article, Coleman detailed:

At that point, Griffith interrupted himself, lowered his voice and asked if there were any blacks around. After he looked around the room and assured himself that his audience was white, Griffith resumed his answer.

“I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota,” he said. “It was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don’t go to ball games, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. It’s unbelievable. We came here because you’ve got good, hardworking, white people here.”9

A few of the comments were specifically about Griffith’s star first baseman, Rod Carew. Calvin’s comments are believed to have underlined his dislike for agents and multi-year player contracts but clearly also impugned Carew’s intelligence:

Carew was a damn fool to sign that contract. He only gets $170,000 and we all know damn well that he’s worth a lot more than that, but that’s what his agent asked for, that’s what he gets. Last year, I thought I was generous and gave him an extra 100 grand, but this year I’m not making any money so he gets 170 – that’s it.10

This, and comments that Calvin made in general about blacks led to Carew’s public response in the papers a couple of days later on the final day of the 1978 baseball season, which also happened to be his thirty-third birthday:

I will not ever sign another contract with this organization. I don’t care how much money or how many options Calvin Griffith offers me. I definitely will not be back next year.

I will not come back and play for a bigot. I’m not going to be another nigger on his plantation.

How does he expect these players to respect the thing that’s across their chest – Twins – when it’s coming right from the top that he doesn’t care about the players?

He respects nobody and expects nobody to respect him. Spit on Calvin Griffith.11

Carew never again played for the Twins. Going into the 1979 season, at the end of which Carew would be a free agent, Griffith traded him to the California Angels for four players. Time however, softened Carew’s feelings for Calvin. In Bob Shower’s book, The Twins at the Met, Carew is included as one of the narrators. He praised Calvin for sticking with him early in his career. Recalling his Hall of Fame election, Carew also said:

When I first got the news that I was going into the Hall of Fame, he was the first person I called. It was 3 o’clock in the morning for him in Helena, Montana, and I woke him up. I called him before my mom because I owed him that much respect.12

From Calvin’s perspective the comments from the meeting were blown out of proportion and misunderstood. Also from his perspective, comments made in a Lions Club meeting were meant to stay within the walls of the Lions Club meeting. It also had been reported that Calvin had had “a few” drinks over the course of the afternoon and evening.

The Waseca talk haunted Calvin the rest of his life. Personally, I have been working in Waseca the past three years, and it appears that even the most marginal baseball fan is aware of that story of that day. Few obituaries for Calvin in 1999 were run without mention of the Waseca talk being the low point in Calvin’s career, and his life.

Calvin and His Family Business

As already alluded to, the Senators/Twins franchise under Calvin (and to some extent under his uncle) was a family business. Calvin’s son, Clark II, joined the organization in 1966. Thelma’s son, Bruce Haynes, joined the team in 1974 as farm director.

In the latter years of the Griffith-owned franchise much was made of the rift that existed between Calvin and his son. Disagreements that may have germinated when Clark did not consent to an apprenticeship in the minor leagues as his father had done, led to the elder Griffith gradually losing trust in his son’s judgments.

These disagreements manifested themselves in the organization’s response to the changing nature of the business: free agency, advertising, and negotiations between the players’ union and the representatives of management, in which Clark II played a significant role. Calvin described his relationship with Clark in a curious comment: “This is a very close-knit family. I imagine you talked to Clark yesterday, and I imagine he may have told you that we don’t talk.”13 The addition of Bruce Haynes to the executive mix further complicated the question of who would eventually inherit ultimate decision-making power after Calvin finally stepped down as president.

Move to the Metrodome, More Relocation Talk, and Sale to Carl Pohlad

Beginning in the early 1970s and fueled by the Minnesota Vikings’ desire to have a stadium with more capacity and one that could shelter the team from brutal Minnesota winter weather, talks began regarding a new domed facility for Minnesota sports teams. By 1975, the year that the Twins’ and Vikings’ leases were set to expire at Metropolitan Stadium, negotiations began in earnest.

Eventually funding for the domed stadium in downtown Minneapolis’s Industry Square location on the east side of downtown made its way through the Minnesota legislature. In July of 1979 the lease agreement was worked out with the Vikings. The Twins, on the other hand, had been sending Calvin’s son, Clark Griffith II, nephew Bruce Haynes (both Clark and Bruce were executive vice presidents), and lawyer Peter Dorsey to the lease meetings with no results. Eventually Calvin entered into the lease negotiations, landing some favorable clauses for the club:

• The Twins would get 30 percent of the stadium’s gross concession receipts up to an attendance of 1.4 million. After that they would receive 20 percent. In contrast, the Viking’s lease was for 10 percent.
• The lease contained an escape clause which allowed the team to be released from the contract if attendance fell below an average of 1.4 million for three successive years or if the team experienced net operating losses in three successive years.
• If the team could produce evidence of lack of attendance due to summer heat (the architects felt that the Metrodome, being mostly underground, would make air conditioning unnecessary), then the Twins were not bound to play in the Metrodome if the commission did not install air conditioning.
• The Twins would pay no more than $700,000 of the $1.7 million needed to build the team new offices in the Metrodome.

In 1982 the Twins moved into the Metrodome after experiencing a dismal strike-shortened 1981, both at the gate and on the field. In response Griffith unloaded five high salaried veterans — a couple of whom had just been signed to large multi-year contracts by Clark — and instead relied on group of young, untested rookies to fill out the roster. The season rivaled 1981 for results: the Twins went 60-102 and drew less than a million fans–this in their first season in a new stadium. The next season the Twins’ record improved to 70-92 but attendance slipped further to 858,939. The Twins were poised to test the three-year escape clause Calvin had negotiated.

Perhaps the most serious threat of relocation was to Tampa Bay. In 1983, Earle Halstead, Jr., retired publisher of The Baseball Blue Book, took a potential ownership group from Tampa Bay to visit Calvin in Winter Park, Florida, where Calvin stayed during spring training. The group purchased the 41 percent of the Twins owned by H. Gabriel Murphy. Their plan was then to go after Calvin or Thelma’s ownership in the Twins and offer Calvin an opportunity to continue to run the team. The move to Tampa Bay was to take place for the 1986 season. Calvin denied that any deal had been struck and further added that if anyone was going to move the team to Florida, it would be him.14

As the 1984 season proceeded, it appeared obvious that the Twins would not draw the 2.4 million fans required to bind the team to the Metrodome lease (the number needed to average the three-year total needed to meet the lease requirement), and the community began to worry. Local businessman Harvey Mackay organized a ticket buyout that would eliminate the escape clause and force Calvin to sell to a local buyer. Calvin claimed that this attempt, in the end, was in vain, as he could still have claimed net operating losses over the three seasons at the Metrodome.

Griffith contended he felt a loyalty toward Minnesota and in the end wanted to sell to a Minnesota buyer and keep the team in the Twin Cities. He ended up selling the club to local businessman Carl Pohlad for a price of $32 million in payments and salaries over a period of 20 years. Calvin thought Pohlad was also buying his management team, but in the end few were held over from the Griffith ownership. After the sale he had an office in the Metrodome but was never involved in any decisions. In the end, Calvin had not only brought major league baseball to Minnesota but also allowed it to stay there.

Three years later, when the Twins won their first World Series, it was with a core of players from the 1982 team. Both 1982 and 1987 rosters included Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Tom Brunansky, Tim Laudner, Frank Viola, and Randy Bush. Twins farmhands Kirby Puckett, Greg Gagne, Gene Larkin, and Mark Davidson also played key roles on the 1987 World Champions. The new management had also reacquired former Griffith-era stars Bert Blyleven and Roy Smalley.

Griffith died October 20, 1999, at the age of 87 due to a kidney infection, 15 years after he had sold his interest in the ballclub that was his life. He is buried outside Washington, D.C.

KEVIN HENNESSY has been a member of SABR and the Halsey Hall Chapter since 1997. He lives in St. Paul.

Sources

Andelman, Bob. Stadium for Rent: Tampa Bay’s Quest for Major League Baseball. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 1993.

Anderson, David (editor). Quotations from Chairman Calvin. Stillwater, Minnesota: Brick Alley Books Press. 1984.

Brackin, Dennis and Patrick Reusse. Minnesota Twins: The Complete Illustrated History. Minneapolis, Minnesota: MVP Books, 2010.

Coleman, Nick. “Griffith Spares Few Targets in Waseca Remarks.” Minneapolis Tribune, October 1, 1978.

Goethel, Arno. “Martin Showed Foresight When Named Twins’ Pilot.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 14, 1969.

Goethel, Arno. “Why Did Cal Bounce Billy?” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 15, 1969.

Griffith, Calvin R. “Griffith Not Happy with Armory Stadium Site.” The Washington Post, January 17, 1958.

Griffith, Clark II. Interview September 6, 2011.

Grow, Doug. “We’re Gonna Win Twins!” Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Hartman, Sid with Patrick Reusse. “Sid!” Stillwater, Minnesota: Voyager Press, Inc. 1997.

Johnson, Charles. “The Story of How Minnesota Got Major League Baseball.” Greater Minneapolis, December, 1960, pgs. 11-13.

Kahan, Oscar. “Boss of Twins Bombarded by Advance Ticket Orders.” The Sporting News, January 11, 1961, pg. 9.

Kerr, Jon. Calvin, Baseball’s Last Dinosaur: An Authorized Biography. William C. Brown Publishers, 1990.

Klobuchar, Amy. Uncovering the Dome. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bolger Publications, Inc., 1982.

Leavengood, Ted. Clark Griffith: The Old Fox of Washington Baseball. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2011.

Lenehan, Michael. “The Last Pure Men of Baseball.” Atlantic Monthly, August, 1981.

Libman, Gary. “Angry Twins beat K.C. in 11.” Minneapolis Tribune, October 2, 1978.

Libman, Gary. “Angry Carew vows he will not play for Griffith’s Twins again.” Minneapolis Tribune, October 2, 1978.

McCarthy, Kevin. Baseball in Florida. Pineapple Press, Inc., 1996.

McKenna, Brian. Clark Griffith: Baseball Statesman. 2010.

Mee, Tom. Interview September 7, 2011.

Minnesota Twins Media Guides, 1961 – 1988.

Osterman, Jordan. “Griffith’s Gaffe.” Waseca County News, July 5, 2011.

Povich, Shirley. “Cal Griffith Tries to Explain.” Baseball Digest, September, 1958, pgs. 51-52.

Riley, Don. “Sports Eye Opener.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 13, 1969.

Riley, Don. “Sports Eye Opener.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 14, 1969.

Ringolsby, Tracy. “Sport Interview: Calvin Griffith.” Sport Magazine. April, 1984..

Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “Griffith Nixes Report He’ll Sell Twins to Tampa Bay Group.” July 2, 1983.

Showers, Bob. The Twins at the Met. Beaver’s Pond Press, 2009.

Sinker, Howard. “Griffith: Talk Misunderstood.” Minneapolis Tribune, October 2, 1978.

Smith, Gary. “A Lingering Vestige of Yesterday.” Sports Illustrated, April 4, 1983.

Sport. “Minneapolis: Big-League Town in Waiting.” December, 1959.

Baseball Guide and Record Book. St. Louis, Missouri: Charles Spink & Son, 1960.

Thornley, Stew. Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press. 2006.

Washington Post. “Clark Griffith Brings Home 5 More Children to Adopt.” November 24, 1925.

Notes

1 Calvin Griffith.

2 Hartman, 95-96.

3 Mee.

4 Riley, October 13, 1969.

5 Riley, October 14, 1969.

6 Mee.

7 Kerr, 88.

8 Osterman.

9 Coleman.

10 ibid.

11 Libman.

12 Showers, 64.

13 Lenehan..

14 Andelman, 34.

Rutherford “Herman” Hanforth had always loved the taste of raw, sweet onions. It was better than eating a fresh apple, the crunch was the same, but as his teeth sliced through the layers of an onion there was a feeling in his mouth of rings coming away. It reminded him of running the bases after hitting a long ball to the deepest part of the field. Circles of sweet, pungent firmness falling away from his teeth. The grass and loam of the base ball diamond felt the same way under his spiked shoes. He made the comparison at every match he played in over twenty years as a St. Paul Saint.

Over the past month or so, though, every time he smelled the onions carried by the poorest cranks, fans who were usually immigrants by their accents, sitting on the sides of the field, a sour taste would rise in his mouth.  These fans would make a day’s entertainment of the batting practice, ball match, and mingling after, he always liked to hang close to them. They added a rich dimension to the game he loved all his life. They reminded him of his own family and their struggles. “Herman” identified with their movements, first from Norway, Sweden and Germany; then across their adopted country of 45 states. He had loved everything about their clothing, their accents, their foods. Now he would have to drink down a warm beer to get the acid, metallic taste out of his mouth that gagged him.

Last week, he went behind the bleachers, and threw up half way through the match. He knew there was something seriously wrong. He didn’t know what it might be though. He hoped it would go away, and by evening it usually did. It went away to a degree, but not entirely.

Hanforth began to dread the time at the ball field. It was something he had never experienced before, and it dismayed him. The dread made the time surrounded by the rancid onions worse.

The trip to the ball field had started to remind him of the one time, out west, he had seen a hanging, when he was a wild veteran fleeing echoes of the Rebel Yell. He had heard the condemned man had been a hardened criminal. The man had taken horses from a wagon train. He had robbed a small bank, hardly getting enough cash to make the effort worth while. He had killed a cavalry soldier who had been part of a pursuit party. It was for this last offense that he had been condemned to hang. Hanforth thought that such a desperado would continue to thumb his nose at social rules and Christian conviction. But, as the three armed guards pushed him through the crowd of curious onlookers and unchristian thrill seekers, the man kept pushing back against his sentries, forming a human wall between the death walker and the watchers. He cried. He cringed. He pled desperately for clemency. He fell. When he reached the first steps, he went limp and they had to carry him trembling to the platform. As they placed the noose around his neck, the man became hysterical, and could only mouth words. His desperado eyes darted from side to side, looking to be extricated, his soul salvaged. Then in tears, he simply gave up the present and focused on a distant mountain top, he had already died. 

His body simply did not know what his brain had done. That was Kansas, 1871.

Over the years, Hanforth’s mental toughness had become his guards. But now, what had protected him previously ushered him back and forth from the field for each match. They had become his death sentinel.  He could feel himself wrestling emotionally. The ballist felt he knew the battle that the death walker must have struggled with a score and eight years earlier.  

He had gotten through this match, so far, by putting bear grease under his nose so that he wouldn’t be touched by the smell of fertile onions in the heat and humidity. He spent the whole match in pain. Pain had now become a way of life to him. There was a visible loneliness about him, and he wrapped the pain about him like a blanket. Lately, the blanket had begun to grow tight and cruel.

There were a couple times, once in the fourth frame, after legging out a double; then again in the eighth, after running back, and catching a foul for the third out; Hanforth had been unable to stand the pain, couldn’t get his breath, and stood wavering like an oak about to be cut down by the final blow of an ax. He was drunk dizzy.

Outside of the warm beer before the match, he had nothing to drink but tepid water. Even that had the faint taste of onion. He found he could not imagine what he had ever enjoyed about the noxious plant.

Now, in the bottom of the ninth, his last appearance at the bat, Hanforth focused on a spot on the plate just in front of his feet. Catcher Robert Morressey was in his peripheral vision. Hanforth had long ago learned to hate this man. It was far more than hating a Minneapolis Miller player. He had blotted out the fact that they had actually grown up seeing each other across Lexington Avenue in St. Paul and had played together. Outside of Hanforth’s view Morressey flashed his signal to the hurler. The catcher used a variation of line commands he had been taught in the Confederate army. They were simple directional cues.

Instantly, Hanforth looked out to second where the runner, Andre LeJure was peering in. The giant runner blinked twice and then licked the left side of his mouth. Years of playing together had brought a sense of unspoken communication. The striker and the runner were not what you would call friends, but they had spent enough time together to know the mind of the other. They had discovered and exploited their own language in signals. 

The pitch would be inside and chest high. It would be a brush back pitch. If Hanforth swung, he would be jammed and pop up. If he wasted it, the pitch might brush the inside corner and be a called strike. He could try to let the pitch hit him, but not in the chest or shoulder, those two body parts hurt too much already. 

Hanforth’s chest had been tight and sore for almost two days, he had played with pain before. It was a near constant companion after twenty-six years of ball. He even had a name for it, Camille. He held conversations with it, and referenced it when talking to other players. While they thought it was odd, they understood. Each of the veterans had referred to their hurt in some manner. 

To some the pain was simply “It.” Others referenced “The Companion.” One even claimed it as “My Lover.” There was almost a sense of dignity to the discussion, it was a badge of honor. It never really left them, and while the pain may have been dull at times, almost unnoticeable for moments at a time, it would wake them in the night and sit at their side in the day. 

This was different. Camille was warm and familiar. Camille was almost a friend. 

This pain was new, cold, indifferent, and clung onto him like a wet shirt. There was almost a “need” about it, but not an emotional need. That’s why it was cold and indifferent.

 Hanforth was scared of it. He did not wish to talk to it, or about it. There was a sense of cheating on Camille. There was betrayal this pain. This pain grew with every passing hour. It was tight, controlling. His night thoughts focused on it. His daily actions were centered on it, keeping his left side and chest away from anything that could bump against him. 

Hanforth’s team mates had already made a few cracks about “the old man being tenderized,” and “Hanforth’s last season.”

Morressey had chided him his previous at bat. “Ya looked like a plowhorse out there, tryin’ ta dig a furrow to second. I coulda cut ya down by ten feet, ’cept I almost felt a pity for ya.” This insult from the adversary Hanforth swore at regularly. The two had gone from competitors, to adversaries, to enemies, to opposite sides of a stereoview photo card. Two halves molded to the point where each had minute differences, but viewed side by side, they would appear as one fully developed, complex and whole. 

Hanforth, without taking his gaze off the pitcher, nor moving a muscle, replied; “If you’d a tried, I woulda kept plowin’ round the bags and sheered ya’ plum in half as a two share blade would weedy soil. You’d a been turned upside down, an’ inside out.”

Another in a long series of fights was being instigated. Both men knew it. There was at least one fight with Morressey every match. There had been no brush ups yet in this match.

Hanforth didn’t want Morressey’s pity. He didn’t want the fight to stop. The two men hated one another with childish dedication. It wasn’t just that they played for rival teams, there was personal history. Hanforth lost his wife to be to the better looking, wealthier catcher. 

In turn, Morressey had lost money when Hanforth had bought out the catcher’s share of the Millers team. It didn’t matter that he had bought into a rival team. He did it through a front man, and he had been able to watch Morressey’s agony without the catcher ever knowing who had bested him, financially. In Morressey’s eyes, on a balance scale, money outweighed love. In Hanforth’s eyes, love trumped everything else.

Hanforth played for the love of it. Morressey played for the cheers, because it meant a large gate. Hanforth lived to find love. Morressey lived to find a mark he could take advantage of. Hanforth used money to counter anything that would obstruct him from finding love. Morressey spent his whole life creating what he loved—wealth. 

“Strike one!”

Hanforth hadn’t even seen the ball leave the pitcher’s hand because of the pain. But he heard the deep rumbling laugh that came from behind him. The cranks watching the match had started to make light of him. His own personal demon was calling his name.

“Ya like lookin’ at first pitches, but ya never seem ta’ see ‘em delivered, just like the one I gave your wife. Ya’ see ‘em only as they go past.” Morressey tensed for a blow deflected off his hat. None came. Morressey looked up at the batter for the first time. He got great pleasure from the fact that this man seemed old. It bothered him for a second, too. For the first time, he heard the labored breathing. He took satisfaction from the fact, but it also made him reflect back to his childhood for an instant. That labored breathing used to be his, and Hanforth was his protector from bullies trying to take…what, something, anything they wanted from “Baby Bobbie Morressey.” The catcher suddenly realized that for all the insults, dust-ups, down and dirty sucker punch fights they had over the years, Hanforth had never stooped to calling him that, out loud, or under his breath. Why had he never thought of that before? Morressey snuck a look at the batter’s face in front of him and saw him, for an instant, in a way he hadn’t seen him for decades.

The blow never came. In that split second glance Morressey was also shaken—just a bit—because he also only seemed to catch a glance of a shadow. Hanforth seemed hollow for an instant. Morressey focused anew, and the shadow appeared solid again.

 Hanforth seemed to wobble momentarily. Then he steadied himself and looked out to the pitcher, then his runner. Morressey called for low and outside, a slow pitch that Hanforth would find irresistible. 

Hanforth looked out to second. Right thumb jammed into the pants pocket of the uniform. 

Hanforth felt momentarily helpless. The pain he would feel if he turned on it, but it would be a beautiful pitch, in his wheelhouse. A pitch he could drive a mile. Or he could take it and hope that the pitcher’s precision would be just off the mark. A precious ball, just outside. Hanforth had never tended to be a gambler. Everything he did was by design, to attain an objective. He knew there was no such thing as a sure bet. Trusting a pitcher, either way was never a sure bet, so he focused on Lucus Grider’s face. 

The pitcher’s nickname was “The Grinder” because he was so good at grinding off the edges of the strike zone. Umpires talked about how every call was an emotional decision. No matter how consistently an umpire might try to call a game, there would be a debate within the crew later about the issue that what looked like “painting the edges of the zone” behind the plate, looked foul from first or third base. 

Hanforth had heard of these debates all too often. He decided that he would swing, at whatever cost.

“Strike two!”

“Your swing. Looks like ya got lessons from a newborn, there, loverman.” Morressey stopped short because he could hear the rattled breathing and when he looked up, the batsman’s face was white, there was sweat coming off him. His hands trembled. Morressey caught himself thinking his enemy looked like a drunk, trying to hold onto a bar rail for support. In this case, the rail was a bat unattached from any support, and suddenly without the power to slice the air sword-like or protect the holder from a final fate.

“You ok, there, Herman,” barked the umpire.

No answer.

“Boy’o! You need a replacement?” The umpire barked again, but this time there was some real concern in his voice.

Still no answer, but Hanforth managed to wag his head with some vigor. 

Morressey growled out, “Hold yer mouth, ump, this’un’s held his own with the best, an’ thas’ me. I ’spect he’s just settin’ us all up for his big attempt to be the winnin’ hero, an I don’t plan to have anyone spoil that joy, ’ceptin’ me!” He pounded his fist into his glove so that it sounded like a base drum. Somewhere, deep inside, Morressey wished that he had never split from his childhood friend over “Mr. Lincoln’s War.”

It was stupid. Somehow, two competitive spirits turned ugly and defined the rest of their two lives. It bound them together by forcing them onto opposite sides of every event. Fate chose an event at Fort Snelling six years before Herman was born that, in a myriad of ways defined life for both Hanforth and Morressey. Hanforth’s father was an abolitionist preacher. Morressey’s father, Winston, was an army surgeon who knew slave holder Doctor John Emerson. Winston Morressey believed Emerson to be a good, fair and just man. He was a man simply seeking to maintain control of his property. 

Even in a free Minnesota, there was a legal question about what Dred Scott was: Property, or a Free Man with a soul.

Each boy was a benefactor of his father’s philosophy. Emerson was often asked to see veterans living away from Fort Snelling, Morressey and his father would accompany the surgeon to the clinic/home of a doctor who lived across the street from the Hanforth home. Young Morressey spent afternoons there, playing with neighborhood boys, Hanforth among them. Herman sometimes went to the fort and played base ball with Morressey and the men. As time passed, the street became a barrier, then a wall between the two boys. In early 1864 each stole away and rode the same train, unknown to one another, to opposing camps. Morressey fought for the rebel cause in Missouri. Hanforth took up arms in Kentucky for “Father Abraham”. Both left as boys with adventure-lust in their eyes, both returned as angry men, much older than their 16 years would allow the world to see.

After Lincoln’s death, Morressey returned to St. Paul, wore bitterness like a shield and played Base Ball at every chance, charging every base with a Rebel yell that either got him booted, fined, or both. He was so antagonistic about it, that long after fining players went by the way, Morressey still generated fines every match. He would show his disdain by throwing coins at either the umpire or manager. Occasionally, other players would imitate Morressey’s coin tossing to irritate him, but this only served to fuel his passion.

Hanforth simply came home after following the length of Lincoln’s funeral train from Washington to New York, and then west to Illinois. It was as if he were searching for the sign that everything was as it had been. To this day in 1899, Hanforth sought signs. Off the field, he saw signs where none existed. But on the field, he was uncanny about catching movements, repetitive looks, anything that might be a tip-off to a pitcher’s next pitch or a runner’s intention to go. Some catchers said Hanforth had eyes in the back of his head because he always seemed to know what would be thrown next. But not Morressey.

This time Hanforth didn’t make the effort to see the sign off the catcher, he just stared out to second. There LeJure, with a mix of concern and anger in his eyes threw out the same sign as for the second pitch. Hanforth, gazed at his baseman for a very long second and then stood very tall and straight in the box. He smiled at the runner. LeJure found himself thinking, “he looks so small in there,” and then shook it off. 

He had seen that smile, mixed with that tall comportment from this batter before. It was a totally unconscious signal between the two that LeJure had best be ready to run. Run like shot from a high powered weapon. Run like there was no tomorrow. Run for the cheers of the fans, his mates, for the tie score. Run to get out of the way, because a lightning bolt was going to be trying to charge up his leg.

Run as if unchained by gravity.

The pitcher went into his wind-up. Hanforth was tracking the movement of every muscle of the pitch, by the time “The Grinder” had reached his release point, fifteen years had slid off, Camille, and the new pain, were lost for the instant. Hanforth knew where the pitch would cross the plate, and he could tear the cow hide off of it. 

Ball met sword. The missile launched without devastating speed, but with an arc that would carry. The pain came back, stronger. Hanforth could only stand and watch as the ball became light itself, traveling far enough to drive in the tying run, before landing just inches foul.

Panting now, and bent over in pain, Hanforth understood that Morressey would call the same pitch again. The pitcher wouldn’t want to put it over in the same place. He wouldn’t want do the same thing. Hanforth knew what was Morressey had in mind. Seeing the intensity in Morressey’s deep set eyes, the Grinder was hypnotized. He was all but compelled to do Morressey’s bidding. 

All of a sudden there was a hand on his shoulder, the field captain was standing over Hanforth’s bent frame. “Boy, you need to leave now. Go sit it out.”

Almost crying, Hanforth struggled and whispered, “This is mine. It’s what I have, I’m gonna’ give it.”

Morressey stood and defiantly stuck a finger in the Saint’s field captain’s chest, “He’s a big boy, it’s his decision. I want him to do this. Him and me got history. This ain’t between you and him, this is between him and me, you can’t fine me, I ain’t on your roster, but I’ll beat ya’ ta’ death if ya’ take ’im out.”

Hanforth, without waiting for the signal, stood so straight and tall that he once again looked like the oak tree people had compared him to when he first came up. He smiled a triumphant smile at LeJure.

LeJure took four steps of the bag. He took another two steps and roared out so that the pitcher and the crowd had to hear, “My man! I’m comin’ home, an’ there ain’t one damn thing you’ll do about it, ’cept wish ta hell you never delivered that pitch.” With that, he pulled a dollar, a gold eagle, out of his pocket and threw it in the direction of the umpire and proclaimed, “here’s you bleedin’ fine! Buy four beer on me tonight! But mark my words well, sir—I am coming home on this pitch!” This time, it had Morressey’s attention. 

Sudden silence. The sun bore down on the scene creating waves of wet heat that radiated off the ground, bounced off the stationery men and created motion where there was none, yet.

LeJure dug in with his left foot, muscle sinew coiling to thrust away on contact.

Morressey cooled into a slab of oven-forged iron, ready for all blows.

Hanforth, for a second time, was lost in the moment. Everything became clear, calm, and very large. Camille was next to him, the new invader was nowhere to be felt.

The broken lace on the ball had created a whistle that the base tenders, and runner, could hear.

History repeated itself. “The Grinder” moved with the same motions. The release point was exactly the same. The path of the ball split the air in the same way. To Hanforth’s eye the ball was bigger than big, slower than slow. He could track the broken lace as the ball spun toward him. Half a generation spent swinging at pitches was stored memory in the muscles of his legs, torso, shoulders and arms. Anyone under twenty years of age had not yet been conceived when Hanforth first drove a base ball far over the fielder’s heads and he had tallied his first ace.

Then there was this. No ball had seemed larger. No ball had seemed slower. The ball was under a wizard’s spell of time, talent, practice and destiny. Even the ball knew what was about to happen, for as the hand polished ash bat cut time and space, that broken lace seemed to give an eagle’s screech as it began a head first dive toward a far distant prey. 

The shudder went up Hanforth’s arms. Ran across his shoulders, down his spine where it finally met the cold, indifferent intruder between his shoulder blades. By then it was far too late. The ball flashed up, out and away. The bat dropped from Hanforth’s hands, suddenly cold and cramped. 

LeJure let forth an exhortation as he was half way past third, “Move, move, for God’s sake move!”

Morressey never moved, just mouthed an expletive. 

Hanforth, already almost drained of energy, began plodding, pleading his legs to move faster. His heart felt like there was a hot lead rod pushing in on it.

LeJure completed his run, touching the plate with his hand and he intentionally speared the catcher. He yelled above the roar of the crowd, “Safe! Tie score! Safe! Come home!” At that, his tone changed as he watched the runner flailing toward second base. The look on Hanforth’s face was beyond agony, it was moving in the direction of rigor-mortis. Still his arms kept pumping, as if by their own volition. His fingers seemed to stretch out claw like. Still his legs thrashed, one in front of the other, as if by habit. His head was down, staring straight into the ground. 

It was as if the ball knew it had an extra mission to accomplish at the end of this war of wills. The ball seemed to hang, going deeper, just out of reach of the fielders converging on it. 

One sports writer later fell away from the straightforward prose of the day and wrote, “This ball, this damaged, beleaguered spherical orb that had no reason to do any man a favor, seemed to take pity on old Hanforth. For the pure joy of exacting revenge on those who had used it so badly over the course of nine frames, and for the complete sympathy upon he who would end the game; seemed to play a boy’s game of tag with the fielders. That spirit infused cowhide was staying up, and away, and just beyond the grasping, wishing hands of those who would put an end to old Hanforth before he would achieve his final salvation.”

Whatever the truth was, the ball seemed to hang as it went deeper and deeper, finally dropping as Hanforth was half way to third. The runner had found some inner strength, and picked up speed. Maybe that is what really occurred, maybe not.

The fielder hurled the ball with a devil’s fury that the ball had to give in to. It found the hands of the relay man as Hanforth came off third. Turning, giving a mighty yell, “Coming Home!” the relay man launched the ball. 

Morressey covered the plate, still looking dazed, one hand covering his left eye, there wasn’t a visible speck to be seen. He was almost actually sitting on the round dish. He spit out two teeth that had broken as LeJure speared him, There was blood coming out his mouth. 

And still Hanforth came.

The ball was on target.

Hanforth stumbled about eight feet away from where the plate should have been. His face transformed into a cruel puzzle, and Morressey took a moment to savor the chilling truth. Hanforth could not find the plate. Morressey cleared his head sufficiently enough to form the words silently “I’m sitting on it, it’s mine!”

Hanforth seemed to dive. Some would later claim he had merely bobbled on weak legs as he continued the stumble toward the invisible plate. Morressey continued to sit semi-dazed on the plate, the ball bounced once in front of him and to the runner’s side. With a crazed flailing Hanforth managed to get two fingers on the ball and brush it off course. 

Morressey was forced to react, leaving a piece of the plate exposed. Hanforth fell, and inertia alone carried him forward toward the final stopping point. 

Morressey screamed “No, no you don’t! Damn it, I won’t allow it!”

LeJure pounced and blocked the vision of the umpire for the briefest of moments, but long enough for him to get one hand on Morressey and tip him just away. “He’s safe, ump, he touched!” 

But, there, laying face down with one arm and hand extended in a disjointed way, as if they had left Hanforth’s body despite the best efforts of the ball, LeJure, and the runner—a two-inch gap spanned like an ocean between the plate and extended fingers.

By then, Morressey had recovered the ball. The umpire had regained perfect vision of the scene. LeJure stood between the catcher and the umpire, suddenly thrust in the role of Protestant preacher arguing for a final salvation. He implored to God and invoked country. He looked deep into Morressey’s eyes and told him he owed Hanforth this one, it would make up for the wrongs of the past. He pled, and a tear even began to form. He did something he had never done to another ballist before, he apologized for his actions.

Morressey looked at the ball he now held in his hand. He looked at the prone, motionless form covered in sweat and dirt, little cuts oozing from where he had fallen. He looked at the crowd that had gone from frenzied to funeral quiet. Morressey looked at LeJure.

“Not doin’ this for you, nor anything you said. Doin’ it for the glory o’ the game!”

He dropped the ball about six inches away from the plate, grabbed hold of Hanforth’s wet hand and pulled, just a bit. He dropped the hand on the edge of the perfectly round, mostly white iron dish, stood, turned, faced the crowd. “Damned if I didn’t try! My enemy is safe at home.” 

He walked back to the rest of his team, stopping to raise his head in one last, long “Rebel Yell” and never looked back.

A Dakota Indian watching the match turned to his companion, “It is the death chant.”

A visiting Chicagoan told his traveling companion, “There’s a crazy rumor that ‘Old Roman’ Comiskey wants the Saints in Chicago. Think it’ll happen?”

DOUG ERNST grew up in West Central Minnesota on a farm where he and his grandfather listened to Halsey Hall call Twins games on the radio evenings and weekends. As a history teacher, Doug often used baseball as a timeline to discuss the social history of the United States. Now, as a historic fiction writer and historic interpreter, Doug uses his experiences playing Vintage Base Ball as a way of helping him better understand the times he writes about, and interprets.

World’s All Nations, 1912, barnstorming club sponsored by the Hopkins Brothers sporting goods company of Des Moines, Iowa. John Donaldson, pitcher (front, third from right), was known as “The World’s Greatest Colored Pitcher” throughout his 30-plus years on the mound. After his playing career Donaldson was hired as the first Black scout in the major leagues. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”—W.E.B. DuBois.1

For sixty years, professional baseball was as segregated as the Deep South. From 1887—when the unspoken national agreement prohibited African Americans from major league baseball—to 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color line, Black ballplayers were shut out of the highest levels of the White game.2 How could Black players, in Minnesota and in other states, respond to being banned from baseball? Well, they could have just given up and accepted segregation as grim reality. Or, young Black men could resolve to integrate the sport, town by town, city by city, one baseball diamond at a time. That’s what happened in Minnesota.

Renowned author Sinclair Lewis, a native Minnesotan, once said: “To understand America, it is merely necessary to understand Minnesota.”3 Let’s look at the state’s story.

In 1858, Minnesota joined the United States and its constitution declared that there would be no slavery in the state.4 In 1868, Minnesota extended voting rights to African Americans.

The Minnesota Constitutional Rights Law of 1899 prohibited discrimination in hotels, theaters and restaurants, and other public places, but such a law did not apply to professional baseball. Still, the Black population of Minnesota yearned for full social equality because they faced a haphazard maze of discrimination against their best efforts, a denial of rights and opportunities, of narrow-mindedness at best and unreasoning hatred at worst.

Minnesota’s Black ballplayers, therefore, worked to dismantle baseball’s color line themselves.

In the 1890s, pitcher Walter Ball integrated the St. Paul city public-school baseball teams and youth teams. In 1897, Ball and the Young Cyclones ballclub won the St. Paul City Amateur Championship—he was the lone Black player on an otherwise all-White team.5

Walter Ball (1880–1946), one of St. Paul’s best amateur pitchers in 1898, became a premier hurler among Minnesota semiprofessionals by 1902. In 1903 Ball moved to Chicago where he became one of the greatest pitchers in Black baseball through 1921. (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS / AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

After the turn of the century, Minnesota towns began to import some Black players for their formerly all-White teams. In 1900 the small-town Waseca ballclub secured Black pitchers George Wilson and Billy Holland—two men who had played for the best Chicago-area African American teams of the late 1890s. Waseca’s EACO Flour team brought the first Black ballplayers to the ball-diamonds of southern Minnesota, and they won the state semi-professional championship.6

In 1902, Walter Ball became the first Black player on St. Cloud’s formerly White semipro ballclub. Similarly, Billy Williams, also from St. Paul, integrated his high school team and other area teams.7

Minnesota’s own Bobby Marshall gained entry onto the Minneapolis Central High School baseball team in the late 1890s and then broke the color line on the University of Minnesota’s baseball squad in 1904.8

Black businessman Phil “Daddy” Reid established Minnesota’s first all-Black professional ball club, the St. Paul Colored Gophers, in 1907, gathering top talent from Chicago and elsewhere. Home-grown Bobby Marshall became the “star slugger” on the Colored Gophers team in 1909, when the Colored Gophers claimed the championship of Black baseball by defeating Rube Foster’s Chicago Leland Giants three games to two. The Colored Gophers barnstormed throughout the Upper Midwest for five years, 1907–1911, bringing a fast and colorful brand of Black baseball to towns that had never before seen an African American ballplayer on their local diamonds.9

Bobby Marshall (second row, left) integrated the 1900 Minneapolis Central High School baseball team and then broke the color line on the University of Minnesota nine. Marshall (1880–1958) played first base for the St. Paul Colored Gophers and other teams, and the multi-sport star became the first Black player in the National Football League (1920). (MINNEAPOLIS PUBLIC LIBRARY / AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

The decade from 1910 to 1919 brought a new wave of Black barnstorming teams to Minnesota from other locales. Premiere among these was the All Nations ballclub, a multi-racial team founded in 1912 by James Leslie (J.L.) Wilkinson (1878–1964). Wilkinson was a genius in marketing and publicity, as well as a true baseball man. Although Wilkinson was White, he believed that baseball fans in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest would pay to see the very best and enthusiastically embrace the skills of a truly professional touring team brought in from the top ranks of Black baseball and a world that was learning to play America’s game.

The All Nations team in 1913 looked like the face of modern baseball with players coming from all over the world. It was composed of “men from all nations, including Chinese, Japanese, Cubans, Indians, Hawaiians…and the Great John Donaldson, the best colored pitcher in the United States today, also the famous [Jose] Mendez, the Cuban.”10 The All Nations squad competed against anyone who would play them—White semipro teams, regional all-star teams, and professional all-Black teams.

The key player on the team, John Donaldson (1891–1970), received top billing through 1918 and would spend many years barnstorming through Minnesota. Known as a power pitcher, Donaldson was lauded as “the “greatest colored pitcher” of the decade.11 Newspapers printed a quotation from New York Giants manager John McGraw: “If I could change the color of his skin I would give twenty thousand dollars for Donaldson and pennants would come easy.”12 When Donaldson fanned 29 batters in a 16-inning game, the St. Paul Pioneer Press judged the contest to have been “one of the best games ever played in the state.”13

Jose Mendez (1887–1928), dubbed Cuba’s “Black Diamond,” was the team’s second top star. He beat the Philadelphia Athletics in 1910, struck out Ty Cobb on three swinging strikes, and was labeled the “Black Mathewson” after subduing Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants in 1911 by throwing four innings of scoreless relief.14

Donaldson, Mendez, and the All Nations brought interracial baseball to a host of Minnesota’s cities, from International Falls in the north to Sleepy Eye and Blue Earth in the south. What began as a novelty ballclub quickly became a great team, and by 1916, the All Nations vied for supremacy among the best professional teams in America outside of major and minor league ball.15

In 1920, Rube Foster, supported by others, organized the eight-team Negro National League. John Donaldson, who had pitched so many times in Minnesota, rejoined Jose Mendez as a ballplayer on Wilkinson’s new Kansas City Monarchs team.

Minnesota had several all-Black teams in the 1920s, including the Askin and Marine Colored Red Sox and the Uptown Sanitary ballclub, but the state was not awarded a Negro League franchise. Racial attitudes seemed to harden in the Twenties as southern Blacks migrated north, Minnesotans began to fear Reds and foreigners, and the Ku Klux Klan stirred up hate in the “Jazz Age.” Donaldson again toured Minnesota in 1922–1923 because K.C. Monarchs owner Wilkinson needed barnstorming cash to prop up his franchise.

In the mid-1920s, as Rube Foster’s mental health deteriorated and disharmony between the Eastern Colored League and the Negro National League brought turmoil to Black baseball, John Donaldson jumped from the Monarchs back to Minnesota. By this time he had pitched almost everywhere in the nation, including a number of occasions on the national stage. He had battled Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants in 1916, and in 1918, Donaldson went head-to-head against the great Smokey Joe Williams of the New York Lincoln Giants.16

No longer a young man, John Donaldson accepted an offer to play semi-professional ball in Minnesota for the 1924 season, when he was 32 years old. He joined the Bertha Fishermen, a ballclub based in the small central Minnesota town of Bertha. Money was the chief reason—he was offered $325 per month, more than Negro Leaguers were making at the time. What’s more, Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, was from the Twin Cities, and the couple could visit family members easily.17 In any case, when Donaldson led the squad to the Minnesota State Semi-Professional Championship in his first season, he brought instant statewide recognition to his new club.

Nineteen-twenty-seven was a momentous year. The major league season was spectacular: Babe Ruth, the magnificent slugging Bambino, set a home-run record with 60 circuit clouts. The New York Yankees, led by its “Murderer’s Row” of superstars— Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri—earned recognition as one of the greatest first six hitters in a lineup of all time.18

It was also the year that a Minnesotan, Charles Lindbergh Jr., made world headlines when he successfully crossed the Atlantic in a solo flight. Lindbergh’s hometown was Little Falls, a thriving community located along the Mississippi River, smack-dab in the central part of Minnesota, Accordingly, Little Falls gave its favorite son a true hero’s welcome-home event on August 25, 1927. The Lindbergh Homecoming Committee arranged for a morning parade, a noon baseball game between the House of David barnstorming ballclub and Bertha, an afternoon motorcade, and an evening banquet.19 Lindbergh was scheduled to arrive at 2:00 that afternoon, so the parade and baseball game were warm-up activities for the estimated crowd of fifty-thousand adoring Lindbergh fans.

The House of David ballclub amazed spectators with its dazzling skills. The bewhiskered ballplayers of this spiritual sect from Benton Harbor, Michigan, never knew a razor or scissors for beard or hair, but they knew baseball, having practiced their skills religiously. They had been touring the countryside since the 1910s and had a dominant reputation, although none of the men were Goliaths or Samsons in power.20

The Bertha Fishermen ballclub featured a Black battery of pitcher John Donaldson and catcher Sylvester “Hooks” Foreman. Foreman had been a mainstay with the Kansas City Monarchs and had a long-standing connection with Donaldson. The pitcher had faced the House of David previously, and his Bertha team had beaten the longhaired team by a score of 2–0.

Game day featured the morning parade through the streets of Little Falls, with bands playing, kids smiling, and dignitaries waving. Six thousand fans packed the grandstands and bleachers, while thousands more watched from behind wire fencing that surrounded the ballpark.21

At high noon the mayor of Little Falls, Austin Grimes, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and then handed the ball to Donaldson. The pitcher proceeded to throw two shutout innings, allowing no hits, and then switched to center field because he had thrown too many innings in his previous start.

Wisely, the management of Bertha’s ballclub had arranged for the mysterious Lefty Wilson as a “ringer” to lend assistance to Donaldson. The two knew each other well, having been opponents in Negro League games several years earlier.

Lefty Wilson was not his real name. He was a fugitive from justice, hiding in the hinterlands of Minnesota’s semipro ball and his real name was Dave Brown. Under his real name he had become famous as one of the best left-handed pitchers in the Negro League and a key player on Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants from 1920 to 1922.

In 1923 Brown jumped ship, signing with the New York Lincoln Giants of the upstart Eastern Colored League. On May 1, 1925, Brown won a ballgame in New York, allowing just one run. After the game, however, policemen came to arrest Brown and two of his teammates for their involvement in a street brawl outside a nightclub in which one of the brawlers ended up dead. Brown fled from the ballpark that night and escaped from the city and a national manhunt.22

The authorities never found Brown. He had seemingly disappeared, slipping away into the deepest rural areas of southwestern Minnesota. There, amidst cornfields and cow pastures, Brown became “Lefty” Wilson, performing in ignominy in towns like Pipestone and Ivanhoe and Wanda. Donaldson, no doubt, assisted Bertha in securing Wilson from the Wanda team to pitch in the Lindbergh homecoming game.

In the game itself Wilson allowed only two hits to the House of David barnstormers, combining with Donaldson in a 1–0 shutout. Donaldson scored the game’s only run.23

As for Charles Lindbergh, he basked in the adulation of his fellow Minnesotans. The aviation hero landed the “Spirit of St. Louis” monoplane outside of town at about 2 p.m., and the townspeople paraded him through his old hometown.

Aviator Lindbergh had arrived after the ballgame had ended, and this perfectly symbolized a segregated America. Donaldson and Lefty Wilson were on the wrong side of the color line, toiling on the mound in relative obscurity. The international hero never saw them, and they likely caught little more than a glimpse of Lindbergh from afar. While the White Lindbergh was naturally feted for his historic flight, he clearly had opportunities unavailable to Black Americans. For Black men like Donaldson and Lefty Wilson, they could experience fame, but no matter how well they performed, their recognition would always be restricted by the limited nationwide interest in Black baseball.

After Lindbergh’s celebrated homecoming, Wilson pitched in Minnesota for several more years and then moved away, falling off the map and the historical record. Donaldson continued as he always had, pitching wherever he got the largest paycheck, a growing necessity as the twenties melted into the 1930s and the Great Depression.

The Negro Leagues crumpled into disarray after 1929 as the Depression clipped spending power, and the players scattered to cities where they could hope to earn a meager living playing ball. Barnstorming baseball teams continued to traverse Minnesota and the rest of the country, earning dimes and nickels for the players. The Chicago Defender claimed that the Black ballplayers who played for Minnesota teams in the later 1920s and into the 1930s earned the highest pay of any African American baseball stars in the nation. Donaldson stayed in the game, gathering former Negro League players in 1932 for his own team in Fairmont, Minnesota, calling it the Donaldson’s All-Stars.24

Minnesota finally got a Negro League team in 1942—the Minneapolis-St. Paul Gophers—although baseball historians don’t even bother to call it a franchise. The league they joined, the Negro Major Baseball League of America, was a flimsy patchwork that existed merely to provide opponents for the Cincinnati Clowns, which had been denied entry into the Negro American League.

After the Second World War, in 1946, Jackie Robinson broke the minor league color line in Montreal; a year later, under the tutelage of Branch Rickey, he broke the major league color barrier. Donaldson had retired from baseball in 1943 at age 52. With the integration of the sport, Donaldson finally joined major league ball in one of few capacities then open, becoming the first Black major league scout for the Chicago White Sox.25

Donaldson had begun his career in Missouri in 1908 and pitched just about everywhere over the next 35 years. Despite the many stops, Donaldson had a stellar reputation in knowledgeable baseball circles. Former Negro League ballplayers selected him as their first-team left-handed pitcher in the definitive 1952 Pittsburgh Courier newspaper poll. Modern research over the past decade has only enhanced that reputation. Intense combing of North American newspapers, both in newly-digitized and old microfilm versions, has shown that John Donaldson earned 413 wins in his career, the most by any left-handed pitcher in Black baseball history. Documented strikeout totals for Donaldson are equally impressive as he accumulated 5,081in his lifetime—again, the most strikeouts for an African American left-handed pitcher in all of baseball history.26 We consider John Donaldson the best left-handed barnstorming pitcher in Black baseball history.

It might be argued that the Black ballplayers from 1887 to 1947 sought to rectify social injustice by developing their individual talent, so that they would be a credit to the “Negro race.” This was the accomplishment of the “talented tenth” of Black Americans, as called forth by early civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois—to rise and pull others up with them “to their vantage ground.” While the talent level was wildly uneven and the organization often chaotic, there can be little doubt that blackball hosted some of the finest individuals to ever play baseball.27

In 2006, Major League Baseball sought to correct some of the errors of the past when a select list of Negro League and pre-Negro League players, managers, and owners gained posthumous entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Included in this group were two who had barnstormed through Minnesota: J.L. Wilkinson, the White owner of the All Nations (1912–1918) and the Kansas City Monarchs, who guided the Monarchs to become among the most successful franchises in Black baseball history, and Jose Mendez, whose early career in Cuba and his accomplishments with the Monarchs, including leading the team to three consecutive Negro League pennants (1923–25) as player-manager, gave him a reputation as a premier Black pitcher of his generation.28 Regrettably, John Donaldson was bypassed despite the support of Fay Vincent, the former baseball commissioner and chairman of the special election committee, who believed Donaldson would make the final list. Vincent had become well-versed regarding Donaldson’s reputation and statistics.29

The contributions of Black ballplayers in Minnesota are better known now because SABR researchers have worked together to document and preserve the history of Black baseball in the state since the 1970s. What is significant about this story is that Black baseball players in Minnesota, such as John Donaldson, Jose Mendez, Bobby Marshall, and Walter Ball, as a microcosm of baseball in America, played the national game in order to integrate baseball, and they succeeded, ultimately, in breaking the color line—one diamond at a time, team by team, town by town.

STEVE HOFFBECK is a Professor of History at Minnesota State University Moorhead and general editor/author of “Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota,” which won a Sporting News/SABR Baseball Research Award in 2005. Hoffbeck, his wife and his family reside in Barnesville, Minnesota.

PETE GORTON is the Presentation Services Coordinator for Faegre, Baker & Daniels, an international law firm based in Minneapolis. He is a former broadcast journalist who has written dozens of articles about John Donaldson, including a chapter in “Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota” (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005). He is the founder of “The Donaldson Network,” a group of over 450 researchers, authors, and historians dedicated to the rediscovery of Donaldson’s baseball career. Gorton is the co-founder of johndonaldson.bravehost.com, a website detailing the career of “The Greatest Colored Pitcher in the World.” His efforts on behalf of Donaldson have been honored by SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee with the 2011 Tweed Webb Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing long-term contributions to the field of Negro League and black baseball research. He resides in Northeast Minneapolis with his wife and two children.

Notes

1 “Worlds of Color,” Foreign Affairs 20, (April, 1925): 423, in Herbert Aptheker, Writings by W.E.B. DuBois in Periodicals Edited by Others (Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1982), Vol. 2, 1910–1934, 241.

2 The color line was not fully entrenched in minor league baseball until 1895.

3 Sinclair Lewis, The Minnesota Stories of Sinclair Lewis (St. Paul: Borealis Books, 2005), 15.

4 “150 Years of Human Rights in Minnesota,” Minnesota Department of Human Rights, http://www.humanrights.state.mn.us/education/video/sesq.html, accessed on August 26, 2011.

5 St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 12, 1897, 7; Jim Karn, “Drawing the Color Line on Walter Ball, 1890–1908,” in Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005), 34–36.

6 Jim Karn, “Drawing the Color Line on Walter Ball, 1890–1908,” in Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005), 44–45.

7 Todd Peterson, Early Black Baseball In Minnesota (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010), 10–13.

8 “Opening of the Baseball Season,” Minneapolis Tribune, April 7, 1900, 9; “Baseball at Varsity,” Minneapolis Tribune, April 3, 1904, 30; Steven R. Hoffbeck, “Bobby Marshall: Pioneering African-American Athlete,” Minnesota History (Winter 2004–2005), 159, 163.

9 Steven R. Hoffbeck, “Bobby Marshall, the Legendary First Baseman,” in Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota (St. Paul: MHS Press, 2005), 62–73.

10 Advertisement for All Nations in Blue Earth [MN] Post, September 2, 1913, 4.

11 Advertisement in LeMars [IA] Globe Post, May 22, 1913, n.p.; ad in Rock County [Luverne, MN] Herald, May 23, 1913, 11, col. 4.

12 “Marshall After Championship,” Marshall News Messenger, August 1, 1913, 1.

13 “Play a 16-Inning Game,”St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 25, 1913, 7.

14 “Cuban Nine Defeats Athletics,” New York Times, December 14, 1910, 14; “Joy In Cuba When Cobb Strikes Out,” New York Times, December 18, 1910, C6; “Bliss in Cuba,” Washington Post, December 23, 1910, 11.

15 Minneapolis Tribune, July 29, 1914, p. 12; Blue Earth Post, September 2, 1913, 4; Sleepy Eye Herald Dispatch, August 8, 1913, 4.

16 “All Nations Tackle the American Giants,” Chicago Defender, September 23, 1916, 25: “World’s Champions Break Even, Chicago Defender, October 7, 1916, 7; “Donaldson Again Bows,” Chicago Defender, July 13, 1918, 9.

17 Peter Gorton, “John Donaldson, a Great Mound Artist,” in Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota, 2005.

18 “New York Yankees,” BaseballLibrary.com, http://www.baseballlibrary.com/teams/team.php?team=new_york_yankees, accessed on August 25, 2011.

19 “Colonel Lindbergh Home Thursday,” Little Falls Herald, August 19, 1927, 1.

20 “Bertha To Play House of David Team This Noon,” Little Falls Daily Transcript, August 25, 1927, 5; “Ball Team Keeps Beard Monopoly,” New York Times, May 24, 1934, 25.

21 “Bertha Wins, 1–0, From House of David Team,” Little Falls Daily Transcript, August 26, 1927, 5.

22 “Local Baseball Players Alleged to be Mixed in Shooting of Benj. Adair,” New York Age, May 2, 1925, 1.

23 “Bertha Wins, 1–0, From House of David Team,” Little Falls Daily Transcript, August 26, 1927, 5.

24 Highest pay extrapolated from “Webster McDonald Will Quit Baseball In 1936,” Chicago Defender, April 20, 1935, p. 17; from 1928 to 1932, McDonald was “the highest paid Race player in the country” when he played for the Little Falls, MN, White team.

25 “Chi Sox Sign Donaldson As Talent Scout,” Chicago Defender, July 9, 1949, p. 16; “Majors In New Search For Negro Ball Players,” Chicago Defender, July 9, 1949, 1.

26 John Donaldson statistics from http://johndonaldson.bravehost.com, accessed on August 29, 2011; Spahn and Johnson stats, Baseball Library.com, and BaseballReference.com.

27 Tim Marchman, “Squeeze Play,” Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2011, A13; W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” from The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Negroes of To-day (New York, 1903), http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1148.htm, accessed on August 30, 2011.

28 “J. Leslie Wilkinson,” Hall of Fame plaque, National Baseball Hall of Fame, http://www.mlb.com/mlb/photogallery/hof_2006/year_2006/month_07/day_27/c…, accessed on August 25, 2006; “Jose Mendez,” Hall of Fame plaque, http://baseballhall.org/hof/mendez-jose, accessed on August 29, 2011.

29 Murray Chass, “A Special Election for Rediscovered Players,” New York Times, February 26, 2006, 8, 12.

The State of Minnesota has had its share of highlights and lowlights on the baseball diamonds throughout the state. They range from the ecstasy of the World Series victories in 1987 and 1991 to the nadir of the Twins agonizing 99-loss season last year, its second-worst ever since moving from Washington.

Baseball has also been a recurring subject in the courtrooms of this state. For more than a century, Minnesota jurisprudence has addressed issues relating to the national pastime with cases ranging from injuries to Little Leaguers and spectators to the travails of major league owners, stadiums, teams, and players. 

Many of the cases concern topics that are unique to baseball while others raise issues that cut a broad contemporary swath. Here’s look at some of the more notable cases that have contributed to the litigation lore of baseball in Minnesota.

MANAGERIAL MATTER

Minnesota’s earliest baseball-related litigation was fought over an issue that is as contemporary as today’s troubled economy: job security. In Egan v. Winnipeg Baseball Club, baseball manager Ned Egan sued his team for unpaid salary after he was fired in mid-season.[fn]96 Minn. 345, 104 N.W. 947 (1905).[/fn] 

The case was unusual because the ball club he sued was centered some 60 miles north of the border in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The manager, who also doubled as a player, was ousted with 2 1?2 months to go in the season, ostensibly because he was too ill to continue managing.

In 1905 the State Supreme Court affirmed a jury verdict for the manager, noting that the contract was “something more than the ordinary contract for personal services.” The early twentieth century jurists exhibited familiarity with baseball terminology in reaching this conclusion, observing that a term in the contract proscribing the team from giving the manager a “release” was equivalent “in baseball circles” to barring a “discharge.”

SPECTATOR INJURY RISKS

Fast forward nearly a century to Midway Stadium, home of the minor league St. Paul Saints of the independent American Association, where in 2010 a spectator was hit by a foul ball while returning to the stands from the restroom. The Minnesota Court of Appeals applied an age-old doctrine of assumption of risk to bar the fan from pursuing a claim for his injuries. The ruling in Alwin v. St. Paul Saints Baseball Club, Inc.[fn]2003 WL 22952707 (Minn. Ct. App. December, 16, 2003).[/fn] is instructive not only about baseball, but offers some lessons about tort law in general. In affirming the Ramsey County trial judge’s decision, the court held that the claimant’s claim was precluded by the “well established” principle of assumption of risk. 

Returning from a bathroom break late in the game, the claimant was walking near a concession stand, which blocked his view of the field. He was struck in the mouth by a foul ball, knocking out a tooth and requiring extensive dental procedures. He sued the Saints, claiming negligence for failing to provide some type of protective netting around the concession area. 

The Court of Appeals first pondered whether the team owed the spectator a “duty,” concluding that the ballpark has only a “limited duty to offer the spectator the choice between screened in seats and seats without protective netting” and refused to extend this obligation to non-seating areas of the ballpark. The spectator’s claim that the restroom and concession areas should be protected because “he could not see the batter or game from that area” raised the issue whether he “assumed a risk inherent to the game of baseball,” even though he was not seated in the bleachers when he was struck by the foul ball. 

The court reasoned that the doctrine of primary assumption of risk barred that claim, although it recognized the “difficulty at times” in applying the principle in tort cases. Because sporting events necessarily “present inherent risks that are well known to the public,” anyone who attends those events assumes the risk of injury. Citing numerous cases from Minnesota and elsewhere involving injuries to spectators at baseball games, as well as those attending other sporting events, the court refused to follow the rationale of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Jones v. Three Rivers Mgmt. Corp., which permitted a spectator to sue after he was hit by a batted ball during batting practice while standing in an interior walkway rather than seated in the stadium.[fn]394 A.2d. 546 (Pa. 1978).[/fn] The Pennsylvania case was distinguishable because the ballpark’s duty was premised on the “specific architectural feature of the stadium.” Midway Stadium, where the Saints play, does not have such a “distinctive architectural feature.” The Court feared that following the Jones case would lead to a “slippery slope of drawing a line between risk and protected areas” of a stadium. 

“CONTRACTION” CASES

The most significant baseball related litigation in Minnesota was unquestionably the Metrodome lease case which guaranteed the Twins’ existence after the club was tottering on the brink of extinction at the beginning of this millennium. In late 2001, to bolster its financial condition and leverage with the players union, Major League Baseball was considering eliminating at least two teams under the rubric of “contraction.” Litigation brought by the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which owns and operates the Metrodome, however, prevented the Twins from this fate. The Commission sued the Twins and Major League Baseball for an injunction to require the team to honor the remaining year of its lease. Hennepin County District Court Judge Harry Crump granted the injunction because of the “irreparable harm” which would have resulted if the Twins exited early and the “public interest” in assuring that the team play out the final year of its lease. The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, in Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission v. the Twins Partnership.[fn]638 N.W.2d 214 (Minn. App. 2002), rev. denied (Minn. February. 4, 2002).[/fn] It held that Judge Crump properly applied the “five-factors” test under Dahlberg Bros. v. Ford Motor Company.[fn]272 Minn. 264.137 N.W.2d 314 (1965).[/fn]

In its decision, the Appellate tribunal held that the trial judge correctly found that there was a “substantial likelihood that the Commission would prevail on the merits.” Specific performance, requiring the Twins to play at the Metrodome, was supported by the “plain language” of the lease, which authorized “any remedy allowed by law or equity.” The contention by the Twins that the law does not favor “a government mandate for continued operation of a private enterprise” was outweighed by the public financing that went into the Metrodome, which is “operated for the benefit of the public.” The Supreme Court declined to reverse the ruling, leaving the injunction intact indefinitely. As a result, Major League Baseball agreed not to eliminate the Twins for three years. This delay, along with increased profitability in baseball coming out of the 2001 recession, effectively ended the contraction scheme. The club played in the Metrodome for the rest of the decade, giving its ownership enough time to work out the necessary arrangements for a new baseball stadium. The ruling by the Appellate Court, upholding the lower court injunction, however, did not end all the litigation. An ancillary case brought by the Star Tribune newspaper and other media seeking to intervene and modify a protective order seeking access to various documents produced in the case was rejected in Star Tribune v. Minnesota Twins Partnership.[fn]659 N.W. 2d 287 (Minn. App. 2003).[/fn] 

The effort to obtain access to discovery documents exchanged by the parties in the litigation was rebuffed under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, common law, and the First Amendment. Affirming another ruling of Judge Crump, the Appellate Court held that because the media “did not have an interest” relating to the discovery materials in the case or the financial information filed under seal, they were not allowed to intervene in the underlying proceeding.

The contraction calumny followed short-lived litigation brought by the Minnesota Attorney General, looking into potential antitrust implications of the Twins’ arrangement with Major League Baseball. The Attorney General’s inquiry into antitrust issues was squelched by the state Supreme Court in Minnesota Twins Partnership v. State of Minnesota.[fn]592 N.W.2d 847 (Minn. 1999).[/fn] The court, with one recusal, unanimously ruled that the Twins did not have to respond to the investigation because the sport is not subject to federal and state antitrust laws. It relied upon the oft-criticized, but never repudiated, rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court holding the game to be exempt from antitrust litigation.

STADIUM SUITS

Long before the Metrodome was ever conceived, a big league ballpark was envisioned, but never constructed, a few miles outside of downtown Minneapolis at the intersection of then US Highway 12 (now Highway I-394) and Minnesota Highway 100 in St. Louis Park in the mid-1950s in an attempt to lure the then New York Giants to relocate to the Twin Cities. The land was set aside for a proposed stadium and contained a covenant restricting the sale of food or liquor on the property except in connection with baseball games or other recreational events. 

Two decades later, long after the Giants had bypassed Minnesota and moved to San Francisco, a successor owner of the property sought to remove the restriction on the sale of food and liquor in order to construct restaurants and bars in the area, where they now proliferate. In Matter of Turners Crossroad Development Co., the Minnesota Supreme Court struck the restraints on grounds that the “covenant has no further value and cannot be enforced” by the original purpose.[fn]E.g. Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972); Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 U.S. 200 (1922).[/fn] It noted that the original restaurant which imposed the restriction as a noncompete clause was no longer in business. Thus, the covenant is of no further value to and cannot be enforced by the original vendor. Further, the limitation was invalid under Minn. Stat. §500.020, subd. 2, which renders restrictive covenants inoperative after 30 years.

The Metrodome itself, which the Twins left after 2009, was the source of its share of litigation. Prior to its construction in 1981, in Lifteau v. Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission,[fn]277 N.W.2d 364 (Minn. 1979).[/fn] a Washington County bar and restaurant owner challenged the statute creating the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which was empowered to select, design, and construct a new or remodeled sports facility in the Twin Cities. The authorizing legislation provided that the stadium was to be funded by bonds issued by the Metropolitan Council. The bonds would be paid off, in part, by a 2% on-sale liquor tax throughout most of the seven-county metropolitan area. The Ramsey County District Court deemed the legislation invalid, but the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, rejecting the plaintiffs various claims: that the title of the law did not properly express its subject; that the anticipated stadium was not a “public purpose;” that the statute improperly singled out the Twin Cities metropolitan area for imposition of the liquor tax, while impermissibly exempting three municipalities; and that the law was not adopted by the requisite three-fifths vote of the Legislature required for public debt.

The Court rejected the challenge to the law’s title because the “broad coverage” the news media gave to the law was sufficient “to alert legislators and the public” to its contents. Construction of a sports stadium was regarded as a “public purpose,” even though a 1923 Minnesota case held to the contrary. Observing that the overwhelming weight of modern authority in other jurisdictions regard athletic facilities as proper subjects of public financing, the Court took judicial notice of “the important part that professional sports plays in our social life.” The Court also upheld the Legislatures’ determination that the tax should be imposed on the metropolitan area because “the benefits [of the stadium] would be primarily metropolitan” and sustained the exclusion of three small communities as “a reasonable exercise of legislative discretion.” Finally, the Court approved the issuance of bonds by less than a three-fifths vote of the Legislature because they were “more closely related to revenue bonds” than to general obligation bonds, which trigger the 60 percent requirement. 

Another attempt to doom the Dome failed the following year. In Eakman v. Brutger, the Court affirmed a decision of the Hennepin County District Court denying an injunction against constructing the Dome.[fn]285 N.W.2d 95 (Minn. 1979).[/fn] 

Raising issues concerning the legality of nearly every aspect of the stadium project, two subsequent actions were brought regarding construction of the Dome. One was a declaratory judgment action by the Minnesota Vikings in Hennepin County and the other was a challenge in Ramsey County to the determination to build the stadium in downtown Minneapolis. The two cases were consolidated for trial and eventually reached the Supreme Court in Minnesota Vikings Football Club v. Metropolitan Council.[fn]289 N.W.2d 426 (1979).[/fn] The trial court, in an extensive ruling, upheld the validity of the project, including the Stadium Commission’s lease with the Minnesota Twins which included an escape clause permitting the baseball club to move the franchise if the Twins did not have an average attendance of 1.4 million for three consecutive years. None of these substantive issues came before the Supreme Court. Instead, it upheld the lower court’s decision on the grounds that the challengers failed to file a timely appeal after their counsel stipulated that an appeal would be brought within three days of the trial court’s ruling. 

Having withstood challenges to its construction and leasing, on the eve of its opening the Dome next had to confront yet another challenge to its financing mechanism by a group of Minneapolis taxpayers seeking a referendum on a proposed amendment to the Minneapolis City Charter. The amendment, if approved by the voters, would have repealed a hotel-motel liquor tax passed by the city in 1979 to finance construction of the stadium. 

The Hennepin County District Court ruled against the taxpayers. The Supreme Court affirmed in early 1982, declaring in Davies v. City of Minneapolis the proposal a “manifestly unconstitutional” impairment of the contract rights of those who in 1979 had purchased the $55 million in revenue bonds used to finance the stadium. [fn]316 N.W.2d 498 (Minn. 1982).[/fn] These bonds were issued after the Court’s decision in the Lifteau case. The Court in Davies reasoned that the liquor tax was “an important security provision in the bondholder’s contracts,” and elimination of it, as envisioned by the proposed charter amendment, would infringe the prohibition against impairment of contracts of the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, 10. 

ADVERTISING AND RIGHTS ISSUES

Even the scoreboard had to overcome a financial challenge. To finance its construction, the Stadium Com­mission permitted the scoreboard manufacturer to negotiate the exclusive right to advertise on it in exchange for providing the scoreboard at no cost. As part of the deal, the Commission also excluded any competitor of scoreboard advertisers from advertising in the stadium. WCCO obtained the exclusive arrangement; rival television station KSTP then challenged the procedure and advertising ban on several grounds, including violation of the Minnesota public bidding laws and infringement of its constitutional rights of freedom of speech and equal protection. 

The issues were decided in to separate proceedings, with KSTP losing both ends of the judicial doubleheader. The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals certified the public bidding issue to the Minnesota Supreme Court under Minn. Stat. § 480.061, which ruled that the scoreboard arrangement was not subject to public bidding requirements, nor was it an unlawful delegation of the Commission’s powers. A few months later, the Eight Circuit rejected KSTP’s constitutional claims in Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. v. Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission.[fn]797 F.2d 552 (8th Cir. 1986).[/fn] The Court determined the exclusivity provisions to be “reasonable and content-neutral” and that the policy did not “discriminate against either” WCCO or KSTP.

More significant than the amount of advertising in the Metrodome was the advertising on television and radio broadcasts. Watching baseball on television is probably the most prevalent way in which Minnesotans become involved with the professional game. In Midwest Communications, Inc. v. Minnesota Twins, Inc., the corporate owner of WCCO television challenged an arrangement between the Twins and the NHL’s Minnesota North Stars to market their telecast rights jointly.[fn]779 F.2d 444 (8th Cir. 1985).[/fn] WCCO alleged a number of federal and state antitrust claims as well as breach of contract and tortious interference with contract assertions. The jury ruled in favor of WCCO on the antitrust issues, but notwithstanding the verdict, Judge Robert Renner granted a judgment for the Twins, and the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. The Eighth Circuit held that WCCO lacked standing to assert antitrust claims because “WCCO has not identified any threatened injury to itself, much less an antitrust injury.” It also upheld the lower court’s determination that a right of first refusal claimed by WCCO as assignee was invalid because the contract creating the right was not assignable. The moguls are not the only ones who litigate over the finances of baseball. 

DOME DEFECTS

The collapse of the Metrodome in the fall of 2010 (after the Twins had moved out but when the stadium was still used by the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League) following two prior deflations did not precipitate major litigation. But the earlier deflations did, spurring claims by the Commission and its insurers against parties involved in constructing the Dome, including the company that provided management services. The Hennepin County District Court ruled in favor of the construction management company regarding the two roof collapses and ordered the Commission to reimburse the legal expenses incurred in litigation, pursuant to a contractual indemnification provision. With respect to reimbursement of the legal fees, The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed in Century Indemnity Co. v. Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, ruling that the trial court erred in finding the indemnification agreement to be unambiguous. The provision of the contract requiring the Commission to reimburse the construction manager “for legal expenses and suits relating to the Project” did not constitute a “sweeping indemnity clause.”[fn]1993 WL 35930 (Minn. App. 1993) rev. denied (Minn. April 7, 1993).[/fn] 

Another defect, leading to the death of a utility repair worker at the Dome, ended unfavorably for the decedent’s widow. In Graves v. McConnell, the widow of an employee of the company that supplied steam for heating buildings in downtown Minneapolis brought suit after high-pressure steam, released into a connecting facility where employees were working near the Dome, burned and killed two crew members, one of them her husband.[fn]2000 WL 719753 (Minn. App. 2000) (unpublished).[/fn] The widow sued the plant operator on grounds that he was grossly negligent in checking the whereabouts of the crew after they had serviced a steam outage at the Metrodome. The plant operator had authorized the release of steam into an interconnection because he had thought the crew had left the area after completing repairs on the Metrodome when, in fact, they were still in the vicinity. 

Affirming the ruling of the Hennepin County District Court, the appellate court upheld dismissal of the lawsuit. The claimant had recovered benefits under the worker’s compensation law and was now suing a co-employee. Co-employees are generally “immune from liability” unless the co-employee had a “personal duty toward the employee and acted with gross negligence.” The plant operator was engaged in “general administrative responsibility,” which did not “translate into a personal duty” owed to the deceased member of the repair crew. 

TAX TOPICS

Tax topics also have been litigated in baseball-related lawsuits in Minnesota. In Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission v. County of Hennepin, the State Supreme Court held that a state statute exempting the space in the Metrodome leased by the Commission to the Twins and Vikings from property taxes did not violate Equal Protection or the “single subject” clause of the Minnesota State constitution.[fn]478 N.W.2d 487 (Minn. 1991).[/fn] The court deemed the use of the facility “inherently and functionally limited to two major occupants,” the Twins and Vikings. 

In 1993, the Twins failed to convince the tax court that its novelty items should be exempt from the Minnesota sales and use tax. In Minnesota Twins Partnership v. Commissioner of Revenue, the Tax Court rejected the Twins’ contention that novelty items that are distributed to fans who pay taxable admission charges (a cost included in the standard ticket price) constituted “purchase for resale.” The Twins argued they were not taxable to the club because they were given without charge to fans who bought tickets for the games.[fn]1993 WL 359300 (Minn. App. 1993) (unpublished) rev. denied (Minn. April 17, 1993).[/fn] The court held that the items were subject to the sales and use tax because the Twins “did not resell [items] to game attendees, but instead gave the items away.”

CRIMINAL CAPERS 

The Twins ballparks and their surroundings have also been the source of criminal wrongdoing. In Schreiber v. Commissioner of Revenue, the tax court upheld a ruling of the Commissioner of revenue assessing a controlled substance tax and penalty of $440,000 against a man found in possession of 1,100 grams of cocaine.[fn]1991 WL 198966 (T.C. 1991).[/fn]

Initially, the man and his wife had planned to fly to Las Vegas to pick up the cocaine. After making telephone calls from the Metrodome prior to leaving, however, the man indicated to a friend that his wife could not accompany him and asked the friend to do so. The two men picked up the drugs in Las Vegas and brought them back to the Twin Cities where they were apprehended, with the cocaine found in a man’s suitcase. The taxpayer—who was the drug dealer and was incarcerated for the offense—was subject to the tax, notwithstanding his claims that it was his companion who was carrying them. Both parties pointed fingers at the other and disclaimed knowledge of the drugs. But most of the items in the suitcase belonged to the taxpayer, who alone had keys to it. Because he was “either in actual or in constructive possession of the drugs,” he was liable for the controlled substance tax stemming from the arrangements initially made at the Metrodome. 

In another case, the imposition of two concurrent sentences for aggravated robbery and assault stemming from an attack near the Metrodome was disallowed in State v. Norregaard. Initially, the defendant was convicted of aggravated robbery and third degree assault.[fn]384 N.W.2d 449 (Minn. 1986).[/fn] But the State Supreme Court cut back on the sentence, holding that the assailant could not be sentenced for both third degree assault and robbery because they occurred as part of a “single behavioral incident.” Therefore, his sentence of 70 months was reduced to 49. 

BALLPLAYERS’ BROUHAHAS

Twins players have had their share of legal disputes, ranging from manager Billy Martin punching out pitcher Dave Boswell at a hotel bar in Detroit in 1969 to Martin getting into a fight with a marshmallow salesman at a bar along the Bloomington I-494 strip a few years later while managing an opponent of the Twins. But the pugnacious Martin isn’t the only Twin personality involved in legal brouhaha’s.

In Uhlaender v. Hendricksen, the Federal Court in Minneapolis upheld the “proprietary interest” of Major League Baseball players in their identities and sporting accomplishments.[fn]316 F.Supp. 1277 (D. Minn. 1970).[/fn] The case, brought by Twins center fielder Ted Uhlaender, sought to enjoin a manufacturer of a “scientific” baseball board game from using players’ names and statistical records without payment of royalty or licensing fees to the players. 

A federal judge agreed with the players, holding that a player’s “name, likeness, statistics, and other personal characteristics, is the fruit of his labors and is a type of property” entitled to protection from unauthorized commercial use by others. The Court rejected the claim of an unlawful antitrust conspiracy by the ballplayers’ trade association in demanding royalty fees for use of the players’ names and likenesses. Once a ballplayer, always a ballplayer, in the eyes of the law. The case fueled the development of the now-established “right of publicity” for celebrities, entertainers and other well-known personages.[fn]1991 WL 13728 (D. Minn. 1991); See also M.B. Nimmer, “The Right of Publicity,” 19 Law & Contemp. Probs. 203 (1954).[/fn] 

In Marshall v. Marshall, former ace relief pitcher Mike Marshall—whose career included a stint in Minnesota in the 1970s and 1980s—and his wife disputed whether his deferred compensation plan from Major League Baseball constituted marital property for purposes of their marital dissolution.[fn]350 N.W.2d 463 (Minn. App. 1984).[/fn] The wife had agreed to waive any rights to the ballplayer’s income after their separation early in 1981, and the ex-Twin claimed that this post-separation deferred compensation constituted “income,” and thus was covered by the waiver.

The State Court of Appeals agreed with the former reliever’s spouse, viewing the deferred compensation as “more analogous to a pension plan than to income,” and it affirmed the lower court’s equal distribution of the proceeds to the former pitcher and his wife.

LITTLE LEAGUE ISSUES

Little League and sandlot experiences often provide lasting legacies and, occasionally memorable litigation, such as United States Jaycees v. McClure, a case that made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.[fn]305 N.W.2d 764 (Minn. 1981).[/fn] In 1981, the Minnesota Supreme Court relied heavily upon a Little League baseball case in deciding whether the Jaycees is a “public accommodation” which must allow women to join. The Court found an “instructive analogy” in a ruling by a New Jersey appellate court that Little League baseball was a public accommodation under that state’s civil rights statute, and thus girls must be allowed to play. 

The Minnesota Supreme Court viewed the Little League case as properly focusing upon whether an organization “engages in activities in places to which an unselected public is given an open invitation.” Relying on the Little League analogy, the Minnesota Supreme Court concluded that the Jaycees fell within this description and, thus, were subject to suit under the Human Rights Act by women excluded from its chapters in the Twin Cities. In Roberts v. United States Jaycees[fn]468 U.S. 609 (1984).[/fn] the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently agreed, brushing aside constitutional claims of associational rights and privacy concerns advanced by the Jaycees. 

LASTING LEGACY

As the Minnesota Twins club embarks on its sixth decade, its members likely hope that their victories—and even losses—in the national pastime take place on the field, not in the courtroom. But it’s probably inevitable that Minnesota’s baseball litigation legacy will be long lasting and extended by new cases and controversies. 

Lawsuits are a pastime that, like baseball, is not past its time.

MARSHALL H. TANICK is an attorney with the law firm of Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen, P.A. in Minneapolis, St. Paul and St. Louis Park. He has lectured and written extensively on baseball law subjects and has represented amateur and professional baseball players, coaches, managers, executives, and umpires.

NORTHERN SUN INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE (NSIC)

The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) was formed when the men’s Northern Intercollegiate Conference (NIC) and the women’s Northern Sun Conference (NSC) merged in 1992. The NIC, incorporated in 1932, was a highly competitive small college conference that competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). In 1995, the NSIC transitioned to NCAA Division II play, and now includes 14 members, with two more on the way.

Minnesota State University, Mankato, was known as the Mankato State Teachers College when the NIC was formed in 1932, as Minnesota State College when it jumped to the North Central Conference (NCC) in 1968, as Mankato State University when Dean Bowyer became head baseball coach in 1977, and as Minnesota State University, Mankato 31 years later, when Bowyer retired with a 990–487–7 record. The Mavericks, who joined the NSIC after the NCC disbanded in 2008, won 28 conference championships and made 29 NCAA tournament appearances between 1960 and 2011. Four former Mavericks have played in the major leagues: Bob Will, Jerry Terrell, Gary Mielke, and Todd Revenig. 

St. Cloud State University was called the St. Cloud State Teachers College when it began baseball play in 1924 in the Minnesota State League. The Huskies joined the NIC as one of six charter members in 1932, moved to the NCC in 1942, and entered the NSIC in 2008. By 2011, the Huskies had won 17 conference championships, made three NAIA World Series appearances, finishing third twice, and more recently, made three NCAA Division II playoff appearances. Head Coach Denny Lorsung posted more than 500 career wins between 1979 and 2007 and seven former Huskies have played in the major leagues: Eldon “Rip” Repulski, Greg Thayer, Jim Eisenrich, Dana Kiecker, Gary Serum, Bob Hegman and Mike Poepping. 

Bemidji (MN) State University, a NIC charter member, was known in 1932 as Bemidji State Teachers College. The Beavers played in the NAIA World Series in 1982, and have made five NCAA playoff appearances.

Minnesota State University, Moorhead was known as Moorhead State Teachers College in 1932 when the Dragons joined the NIC for its initial year, and later became Moorhead State College before becoming a Minnesota State University. 

University of Minnesota–Duluth was the Duluth State Teachers College in 1932, one of the six NIC charter members. The Bulldogs left the NIC, then returned in 1972, moved to the NCC in 2004, and joined the NSIC when the NCC disbanded in 2008. 

Winona (MN) State University began baseball play in 1919 and joined the NIC at its inception. The Warriors made six NAIA World Series appearances and had won 31 conference championships prior to the 2012 season. Legendary coach Gary Grob won 1,020 games in 35 seasons, and current coach Kyle Poock led his team to the 2011 Central Region championship and second place in the NCAA Division II finals.

Southwest Minnesota State (Marshall) University joined the NSIC in 1969. Jim Denevan coached the Mustangs for 21 years, and Paul Blanchard led the Mustangs to an NCAA tourney appearance in 2009. Blanchard is the son of Johnny Blanchard, a schoolboy legend at Minneapolis Central High School, who went on to play for the New York Yankees.

Two other Minnesota schools joined the Northern Sun in 1999: the University of Minnesota Crookston Golden Eagles, and the Concordia University (St. Paul) Golden Bears. Three former Concordia players have made it to the major leagues, including Dick Siebert, an All-Star first baseman in 1943 who later coached the University of Minnesota to three College World Series titles.

The conference has also expanded beyond Minnesota. The Northern State University (Aberdeen, SD) Wolves joined the NSIC in 1978 and the Wayne (NE) State College Wildcats entered in 1998. The University of Mary (Bismarck, ND) joined the NSIC in 2006. The Marauders had won one Dakota Athletic Conference championship and had made three NAIA playoff regional appearances. The Upper Iowa (Fayetteville, IA) Peacocks also joined the NSIC in 2006, and the Augustana College (Sioux Falls, SD) Vikings were a longtime North Central Conference member before entering the NSIC in 2008. 

Two teams joined the NSIC in 2012, the University of Sioux Falls (SD) Cougars from the South Dakota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, and the Minot (ND) State Beavers, who were North Dakota Athletic Conference champions five times. 

THE MINNESOTA INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) consists of 13 private colleges from around the state, including 11 that play a highly competitive level of Division III baseball. One of the oldest and most stable conferences in the country, the MIAC was formed in 1920. All seven original members of the conference are members today: the Carleton College (Northfield) Knights, The Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter) Gusties, the Hamline University (St. Paul) Pipers, the Macalester College (St. Paul) Scots, the St. John’s University (Collegeville) Johnnies, the St. Olaf College (Northfield) Oles, and the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul) Tommies. The Concordia College (Moorhead) Cobbers have been members since 1921, the Augsburg College (Minneapolis) Auggies since 1924, and the St. Mary’s University (Winona) Cardinals since 1926. 

There has little turnover among the league’s members. Both Carleton and St. Olaf left, but rejoined, Minnesota–Duluth was a member for 25 years, and the Bethel University (St. Paul) Royals are relative newcomers, having joined the conference in 1978. Two women’s colleges also are MIAC members, St. Catherine University (St. Paul) and the College of St. Benedict (St. Joseph).

The league has boasted its share of outstanding players and coaches. Dennis Denning led St. Thomas to seven straight MIAC titles and 11 in 15 seasons. (He also coached 17 seasons at St. Paul’s Cretin–Derham High.) He compiled a 522–157 record, and led the Tommies to 14 NCAA playoff appearances. His teams made four Division III World Series appearances, finished second twice and won national championships in 2001 and 2009. He ranks first among Division III coaches with a .769 winning percentage. In earlier years Angelo Giuliani of St. Paul, Francis “Red” Hardy, a Marmath, North Dakota native, Larry Miggins, Johnny Rigney, Rip Conway, and Chuck Hiller went on to play in the major leagues. Hamline’s Howie “The Steeple” Schultz also played in the majors and enjoyed a career in the National Basketball Association. Lew Drill, another former Piper, also was a major leaguer, back in the first decade of the twentieth century. Three-time MIAC Most Valuable Player Chris Coste, a former Concordia Cobber, played in the 2008 World Series with the Phillies before returning to his alma mater as an assistant to head coach Bucky Burgau. Burgau has more than 600 wins to his credit and four MIAC Coach of the Year Awards. Former major leaguer Brian Raabe coaches Bethel. Jim Dimick served as head coach at St. Olaf for 26 seasons between 1967 and 1994, and Matt McDonald posted 428 wins in 17 seasons for the Oles through 2011. Augsburg’s Mike Davison, Concordia’s Arlo Brunsberg, and St. Mary’s Lefty Bertrand and Dave Thies all played in the major leagues.

THE UPPER MIDWEST ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

Known as the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) since 1983, the league was founded in 1972 as the Twin Rivers Conference, and consists of eight Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin schools that play NCAA Division III baseball. The Northwestern College (Roseville, MN) Eagles are the league’s lone remaining charter member, but have been joined by the Bethany Lutheran College (Mankato) Vikings, the Crown College (St. Bonifacius) Storm, the Martin Luther College (New Ulm) Knights, the University of Minnesota, Morris Cougars, the Northland College (Ashland, WI) Lumberjacks, the Presentation College (Aberdeen, SD) Saints, and the College of St. Scholastica (Duluth, MN) Saints. Kerry Ligtenberg played at UM Morris before moving on to the University of Minnesota and later the major leagues.

JUNIOR COLLEGES

There are also 17 Minnesota colleges that play National Junior College Athletic Association Baseball. 

DOUG SKIPPER is a marketing research, customer satisfaction, and public opinion consultant from Apple Valley, Minnesota, who reads and writes about baseball and engages in father-daughter dancing. A Colorado product who has resided in Wyoming and North Dakota, he has been a SABR member since 1982. He researched and wrote four biographies for “Deadball Stars of the American League,” and has contributed to several SABR biographical publications. Doug and his wife, Kathy, have two daughters, MacKenzie and Shannon.

Sources

Johnson, Scot. “Jim Eisenreich.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Hamman, Rex. “Angelo Giuliani.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Peterson, Armand and Tom Tomashek, Town Ball, The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006

Rekela, George. “Rip Repulski.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Thornley, Stew, ed, Minnesotans in Baseball. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Thornley, Stew, Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2006.

One or more of the media guides, yearbooks, and websites for each of the colleges mentioned in this article were consulted. 

More than 30 former Golden Gophers have played major league baseball, including Hall of Famers Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor. The Gophers have also boasted first-team All-Americas 27 times. 

Three coaching legends, Frank McCormick, Dick Siebert, and current manager John Anderson, all members of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Hall of Fame, have driven the program forward, primarily with home-grown talent. McCormick built the foundation in the 1930s, Siebert made Minnesota a national power for three decades, and Anderson implemented creative measures to maintain the quality of play and to carry on the tradition of a nationally competitive Minnesota baseball program.

Two other coaching legends launched their careers after playing baseball for the Golden Gophers: National Football League Hall of Famer Bud Grant, and Jerry Kindall, elected to the ABCA Hall of Fame after winning three CWS titles at the University of Arizona. 

Among the other notable Maroon and Gold alumni are Heisman Trophy runner-up Paul Giel, who served as the University of Minnesota’s athletic director after a stint in the major leagues, and Bobby Marshall, one of the first two African Americans to play in the NFL. 

THE PIONEER YEARS (1876-1905)

While citizens of the United States were preparing to celebrate the nation’s Centennial in the spring of 1876, a baseball team represented the University of Minnesota for the first time. The overmatched college team suffered a 91–39 setback at the hands of the St. Paul Saxons, a club that had successfully represented the Lowertown area of St. Paul for a decade. Two years later, the University nine won two of three games from the Minneapolis Millers, a squad made up of men who worked in the nearby flour mills along the Mississippi River (the city’s minor league team would later appropriate the nickname). Minnesota played at least one game a year through the 1880s against local colleges, high schools, and town teams, and hosted a nine from Omaha, Nebraska. In 1891, the Minnesota baseball team traveled out of the state for the first time to play at Beloit, Wisconsin, and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Minnesota fielded a team on a regular basis through the 1890s, and by the end of the 1899 season, had posted a 51–42–2 record in games where the outcome is known. Minnesota posted three straight winning seasons between 1900 and 1902, but then failed to field varsity teams in two of the next three seasons.

THE BIG NINE YEARS (1905-1921)

The squad returned in 1906 and competed in the Big Nine, the forerunner of the Big Ten, for the first time (though a charter member of the conference, Minnesota did not compete in baseball the first 10 seasons). For two seasons, the Gophers were led by first baseman Bobby Marshall, a talented athlete who also who also boxed, played ice hockey, and competed in track, but was best known for his feats on the gridiron. 

A Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, Marshall was the first African American to play football in the Big Nine. In Marshall’s three football seasons, the Gophers posted a 27–2 record and shared two conference titles under legendary head coach Henry L. Williams. Marshall starred at end, and in his senior season, drop-kicked a 60-yard field goal to beat a powerhouse University of Chicago team. He earned all-conference and All-America honors, and in 1971, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

After he graduated, Marshall played professional baseball and football. Blocked from Organized Baseball by the color barrier, Marshall starred for regional teams, and in 1909, played a key role when the St. Paul Colored Gophers knocked off Rube Foster’s Chicago Leland Giants in a matchup of the nation’s top African American teams. Marshall also played for several regional football teams, and when the league now known as the National Football League was formed (for two seasons it was known as the American Professional Football Association) in 1920, he and Fritz Pollard became the league’s first two African American players. Marshall played for the Rock Island (Illinois) Independents that year, the Minneapolis Marines for three seasons, and the Duluth (Minnesota) Kelleys for a year, before he left the NFL after the 1925 season. 

Meanwhile, in 1908, a year after Marshall played his final season at Minnesota, Walter Wilmot became the program’s first official baseball coach, the first of five men to hold the position over the next seven seasons. Two members of the 1911 freshman squad, Ralph Capron and Henry “Heinie” Elder, were the first Gophers to make it to the major leagues, but there was no team in 1912, and the program shut down after the 1915 season

RESURRECTION (1922-30)

After a six-year hiatus, University of Minnesota baseball was reborn in 1922, and the Gophers resumed play in the conference that had become the Big Ten. Lee Watrous Jr. served as the program’s first full-time coach in 1923, but managed just a 32–39 record over the next four seasons. In 1924, the Gophers embarked on their first early spring southern road trip, playing in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. The Minnesota nine played in Texas the next two springs, but when Watrous was replaced by George “Potsy” Clark in 1927, the Gophers started three straight seasons with swings to Ohio and Kentucky. In 1929, Minnesota hosted its first international competition and defeated the Meiji team from Japan. Arthur Bergman coached the squad through the 1930 season, when the Gophers made an early season trip to Mississippi and New Orleans before they returned home to register wins over Minneapolis Shoe Service and Bohn Refrigeration, in a schedule sprinkled with games against local amateur teams. 

THE McCORMICK YEARS (1931-41) 

After more than a half century of a coaching carousel and sporadic play, the University of Minnesota finally achieved prominence in college baseball with the arrival of its first baseball coaching legend, Frank McCormick. A South Dakota native who had played pro football, McCormick served as head coach of the baseball program and as assistant coach for the Gopher football team from 1930 to 1941. McCormick, who was elected to the ABCA Hall of Fame in 1967, built up the program and guided the Gophers to a 140–89 overall record and their first two Big Ten conference titles. 

McCormick’s first squad started the season with games at Mississippi and Louisiana State, then returned to take on an assortment of squads sponsored by area merchants, a team from Japan, and then a tough Big Ten and regional schedule. Minnesota finished with as many losses as wins that year and again in 1932, but in 1933, playing a schedule that included only college teams, the Gophers posted a 12–2 record and won their first Big Ten title with a 6–1 mark. McCormick’s charges captured the conference flag again two years later, and posted a winning record each year for the rest of his reign, with the exception of the 1938 campaign, when the squad posted an 11–11 mark. The Gophers opened each season between 1936 and 1941 with a swing through Mississippi and Louisiana.

THE MacMILLAN YEARS (1942-47)

Named full-time athletic director after the 1941 season, McCormick picked David MacMillan as his successor. MacMillan had coached Minnesota’s basketball team from 1927 to 1942 and won the 1937 Big Ten championship behind All-America Martin Rolek and John Kundla, who would later coach the Minneapolis Lakers to six titles. MacMillan managed the Gopher baseball program for six seasons, posting a 66–36 record, and topping out with a second-place Big Ten finish in 1943.

THE SIEBERT YEARS (1948-78)

In the summer of 1947, McCormick launched a legendary coaching career when he hired former major league All-Star Dick Siebert to take over the program, still considered a “minor” sport at Minnesota. Later known as “The Chief,” Siebert had played first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1932, 1936), St. Louis Cardinals (1937–1938), and Philadelphia Athletics (1938–1945). Siebert coached the Gophers for the next three decades, posted a 753–361–7 record (a winning percentage of .676), captured 11 Big Ten titles, and led Minnesota to five College World Series and three national titles.

The Gophers opened Siebert’s first season in Texas, their first southern road trip since the outbreak of World War II. They would make the early season journey to the Lone Star State in each of Siebert’s 31 seasons. Outfielder Harry Elliott, a junior from Watertown, and center fielder Bud Grant from Superior, Wisconsin, led the team to a 14–12 mark, but Minnesota finished with a losing record the next two years.1 Grant went on to play pro basketball with the Minneapolis Lakers, and pro football with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and played and coached the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers before embarking on a legendary coaching career with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

Siebert began a string of 11 straight winning seasons in 1951, and the following year coached his first All-America, second baseman Gene Elder. That same year he welcomed Paul Giel, a great all-around athlete from Winona, Minnesota. Giel earned All-America honors in 1953 and 1954. He was also spectacular as the quarterback of the Golden Gopher football team. He was a first team All-America in 1952 and 1953, earned the Chicago Tribune Silver Football Award as the Big Ten Most Valuable Player twice, and finished second in the Heisman Trophy Award voting. Giel, who was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975, chose baseball over football, and jumped directly to the major leagues. After his playing days were over, Giel was a radio broadcaster, and then served as the University of Minnesota athletic director. 

A year after Giel’s departure, the 1955 Gophers, led by infielder Jerry Kindall from St. Paul, posted a 23–9 record, and finished second in the Big Ten. In 1956, Kindall led the Golden Gophers to a 33-9 mark, a Big Ten title with an 11–2 conference record, and Minnesota’s first appearance in the NCAA Baseball Tournament. After they dropped the first of a three-game series to Notre Dame in the opening round at home, the Gophers bounced back to win the next two games. They swept two games from Ohio University in the second round at Athens, Ohio, to earn their first College World Series berth. Fielding a roster with 16 of 18 players from Minnesota, the Golden Gophers opened with a win over Wyoming, then defeated Arizona, Mississippi, and Bradley to land in the finals of the double-elimination tournament at Omaha. Minnesota, which needed to win one of two games to earn the title, suffered a 10–4 setback in the first game with Arizona, which had come back through the loser’s bracket, but won the second game 12–1 behind New Ulm’s Jerry Thomas, who pitched a five-hitter to secure CWS Most Valuable Player honors. Thomas and Kindall earned first team All-America honors. A month later, Kindall joined the Chicago Cubs. After his major league career, he served as an assistant to Siebert, and later became the coach for the University of Arizona baseball program, where he won three CWS titles. Kindall remains the only man to have won the CWS as both a player and head coach. Like Siebert, he is enshrined in the ABCA Hall of Fame.

The Gophers posted a winning season in 1957 behind George Thomas, Jerry’s brother, and then won three straight Big Ten titles from 1958 to 1960 and advance to the NCAA Tournament each year. Fred Bruckbauer, born in New Ulm, raised in Sleepy Eye,  posted a 16–5 record for the Gophers in 1958 and 1959 and outfielder Ron Causton earned first team All-America honors.

In 1960, Siebert guided a Gopher team made up of 18 Minnesota natives to the school’s second CWS championship. Minnesota opened NCAA Tournament play at Midway Stadium in St. Paul with a win over Notre Dame in the first round, and then swept the University of Detroit to qualify for a second trip to Omaha. At the CWS, Minnesota defeated North Carolina, Arizona, rallied from an 11–2 deficit to defeat USC, 12–11, and topped Oklahoma to reach the championship round against USC, which had advanced through the loser’s bracket. Minnesota needed just one win in the final round, and again lost the opener but bounced back to win the second game and the NCAA title. Jim Rantz, who went on to become the director of the Minnesota Twins’ farm season for more than 25 seasons, tossed a four-hitter in the 2–1, 10-inning win. Two Gophers, pitcher Larry Bertelsen and pitcher-first baseman Wayne Knapp, were first team All-Americas. 

In 1964, Minnesota finished 31–12 overall, won its seventh Big Ten title with an 11–3 mark and captured the school’s third CWS. The Golden Gophers opened NCAA Tournament play with a sweep of host Kent State in the NCAA District 4 playoffs, to advance to Omaha, and then made another impressive run through the tournament field, defeating Texas A&M, Maine, and USC. Once again Minnesota met the winner of the loser’s bracket, and needed just one more win. Once again, Minnesota lost the first game of the finals, then bounced back to beat Missouri in the second contest, 5–1. Catcher Ron Wojciak was named a first team All-America, and captain Dewey Markus and first baseman Bill Davis also played key roles.

Siebert’s next three squads posted winning records behind future major leaguers Frank Brosseau, a Drayton, North Dakota, native, Bobby Fenwick, who was born in Okinawa but attended Anoka High School, and Richfield High product Mike Sadek. First baseman Dennis Zacho from White Bear Lake earned 1967 All-America honors.

Minnesota posted a 105–37 record between 1968 and 1970, won three more Big Ten titles, and played in the NCAA District 4 Tournament each year. First baseman Mike Walseth of St. Paul Park and outfielder Noel Jenke earned All-America honors. Jenke, from Owatanna, also earned letters in hockey and football, was drafted in all three sports and went on to play four years in the NFL.

Before the 1968 season, Delta Field, the Gophers’ ancient home park, was renamed Bernie Bierman Field in honor of the legendary coach who led Minnesota to five football national championships between 1934 and 1941. In 1971, the Golden Gophers moved to an adjacent new 1,500-seat facility, which was also named Bierman Field. 

All-America Dave Winfield of St. Paul, who also starred in basketball, guided Minnesota to a 31–16–2 overall record, a Big Ten title, and a third place finish at the CWS in 1973. Minnesota defeated Miami of Ohio in the opening game of the NCAA District 4 playoffs, at Carbondale, Illinois, and then swept Southern Illinois to advance to the CWS. At Omaha, Minnesota upended Oklahoma, lost to Arizona State, and defeated Georgia Southern to advance to the semifinal round. Minnesota led defending champion USC 7–0 through eight innings behind Winfield, who had allowed only an infield single and had struck out 15. But he had thrown more than 160 pitches. Winfield finally tired in the ninth, the Gophers stumbled in the field, and the Trojans rallied for eight runs to win. Winfield was selected fourth overall in the in the baseball draft and in the later rounds of the NBA, ABA and NFL drafts (though he had not played college football). Winfield signed with the San Diego Padres, jumping straight to the major leagues. In his 22-year big league career Winfield became the nineteenth player in to collect 3,000 hits (he finished with 3110), hit 465 home runs, and was enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.

The Golden Gophers captured a share of the Big Ten title and defeated Southern Illinois and Miami (Ohio) to open the double-elimination 1974 Mideast Regional in Minneapolis, and needed just one more win to eliminate SIU to earn another trip to Omaha. The Salukis won the first game of the final round to force a deciding game, which they also won. 

Minnesota returned to the playoffs in 1976, and won two games, but was eliminated by Arizona State at the NCAA Rocky Mountain Regional at Tempe, Arizona. St. Paul native Paul Molitor earned All-America honors. Led by Molitor and pitcher Dan Morgan, both of whom earned All-America honors, Minnesota won the Big Ten title outright in 1977 and finished sixth in the CWS. Minnesota defeated Central Michigan and Florida twice to win the Mideast Regional in Minneapolis, lost to Cal State Los Angeles in the first game at Omaha, then defeated Baylor before Arizona State put an end to the Gopher season. Molitor went on to play 21 years in the big leagues, became the twenty-first player to collect 3,000 hits (3,319 total), and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2004. Duluth’s Jerry Udjur and Richfield’s Brian Denman, both future major leaguers, also played key roles.

Minnesota posted its 16th straight winning record in 1978, Siebert’s final season. On December 9 The Chief passed away at the age of 66. Bierman Field was officially renamed “Siebert Field” on April 21, 1979.

THE THOMAS YEARS (1979-81)

University of Minnesota Athletic Director Paul Giel promoted assistant coach George Thomas to replace Siebert. Thomas led the Gophers to a 95–43 record over the next three years. In 1981, Minnesota won the Big Ten title, split four games in the first ever Big Ten Tournament, then lost to Miami and Florida State at the NCAA Southern Regional at Coral Gables, Florida. After the season, Thomas stepped down to re-enter private business.

THE ANDERSON YEARS (1982-PRESENT)

When Thomas resigned, Giel turned to 26-year old John Anderson. Anderson had come to Minnesota from Hibbing State Junior College (now known as Hibbing Community College) as a pitcher but did not make the Gopher squad. Instead he was named student manager by Siebert, a role in which he became so highly regarded that in his senior season in 1977, he was voted the team’s Most Valuable Player. Although Anderson himself was sheepish about the award, Molitor, the team’s best player, told biographer Stuart Broomer that the student manager deserved the honor: “John Anderson embodied what we had in mind that season. He did everything except play. He was a groundskeeper, equipment man, assistant coach, and even a confidant for many of the players. He was very exceptional, so we decided he should get the award.” 

Known as Walt, a high-school nickname, by the players, Anderson earned his degree that spring and joined Siebert’s staff as an unpaid graduate assistant. The next season he became a full-time assistant when Thomas was hired as head coach. Three years later, Thomas endorsed the 26-year-old Anderson to be his replacement. “I saw in John an ability to get along with players,” Thomas said. “He was good at the public relations end of it [coaching] and the practice part of it. One time, I just said to myself, ‘Hey, this fella keeps getting better every year.’”2

Despite his youth, Anderson earned Big Ten Coach of the Year honors his first season. The Golden Gophers posted a 33–22–1 record in 1982, finished second in the Big Ten West Division (The league was split into East and West Divisions between 1981 and 1987), won the Big Ten Tournament with four straight victories, defeated Oral Roberts, but fell to host Oklahoma State and Middle Tennessee State at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Minnesota was led by first team All-America catcher Greg Olson, an Edina High School product, and the Steinbach brothers from New Ulm, Terry, Tom, and Tim. 

Terry Steinbach was the 1983 Big Ten Player of the Year, and the Gophers won the West that year and again in 1984. In 1985, Minnesota won the Big Ten Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Midwest Regional at Stillwater, Oklahoma. The Golden Gophers captured the Big Ten West title in 1986 and again in 1987, and played in the NCAA West 1 Regional at Palo Alto. They won the conference tournament in 1988 to earn another NCAA appearance, this time at the West Regional in Fresno, California. 

In earlier years, the Golden Gophers had won with homegrown talent, but by the mid-to-late 1980s, Anderson and his staff needed to recruit nationwide to stay competitive. While players from Minnesota like Minneapolis product Tim McIntosh and Bemidji’s Bryan Hickerson, continued to form the backbone of the team, the coaching staff also brought in future major leaguers Denny Neagle from Gambrillis, Maryland, and J.T. Bruett from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. By the mid-1980s, the Gophers were using both Siebert Field and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, which had opened in 1982, for home games.

Minnesota missed out on NCAA play in 1989 and 1990, but posted 67 wins in two seasons behind two All-Americas, catcher Dan Wilson, a Chicago-area product, and second baseman Brian Raabe, from New Ulm.

After the two-year absence, the Gophers made four consecutive NCAA appearances between 1991 and 1994, led by a pair of All-America infielders, Brent Gates, a shortstop from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who was the 1991 Big Ten Player of the Year, and Mark Merila, a second baseman from Litchfield who was the 1994 Big Ten Player of the Year and later served as the San Diego Padres bullpen catcher. Several future major leaguers also contributed to the run, including Northfield’s Jeff Schmidt, Park Cottage Grove High School product Kerry Ligtenberg, and Minnetonka’s Jim Brower.

Minnesota made four straight NCAA regional appearances between 1998 and 2001, and returned again in 2003 and 2004. Among the standouts for Anderson’s teams in the late 1990s and early 2000s were Rob Quinlan, the 1999 Big Ten Player of the Year from Maplewood’s Hill-Murray School, Jack Hannahan, the 2001 Big Ten Player of the Year, from St. Paul’s Cretin-Derham Hall, Stillwater’s Glen Perkins, who was Big Ten Pitcher of the Year and earned All-America honors in 2004, and South St. Paul’s John Gaub. (Gaub went on to become the 32nd Golden Gopher to play in the major leagues late in the 2011 season).

The Golden Gophers played in the Big Ten Tournament championship game for the seventh straight year in 2007 and returned to the NCAA Tournament, where they scored a victory over the host team, fourth-ranked San Diego. 

On May 14, 2009, Anderson became the thirty-ninth Division I coach to win 1,000 games and the twentieth to do so with one program when Minnesota won at Penn State 7–6. All-America second baseman Derek McCallum from Shoreview and outfielder Eric Decker from Cold Spring led the Gophers to NCAA regional play at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where they split a pair of games with Baylor and beat Southern before eventual national champion Louisiana State ended their season. Decker went on to become a starting wide receiver for the NFL’s Denver Broncos.

Minnesota captured the 2010 conference regular season title, won the Big Ten Tournament at Columbus, Ohio, and the first two games of the NCAA Regional at Fullerton, California. The Golden Gophers downed Cal State Fullerton and New Mexico, but lost the next two to the host Titans. The NCAA appearance was their ninth in 13 years and 17th under Anderson. 

Minnesota played the first ever game at Target Field, the new home of the Minnesota Twins, on March 27, 2010. After heavy winter snows caused the Metrodome roof to collapse, the Gophers split their 2011 home games between Target Field and Siebert Field. The roof collapse also played havoc with a tradition established during Anderson’s tenure. Since 1985, Minnesota has hosted an early March tournament, generally with ranked and highly regarded teams. With the Metrodome unavailable, the 2011 tourney had to move to Tucson, Arizona. 

Minnesota’s Pro and Legends Alumni game was played at the Metrodome each year between 1992 and 2007. Over the years, the game featured a number of major leaguers, including Hall of Famers Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor, who returned to their alma mater to take on the varsity team in an exhibition game before Spring Training. The event, which benefitted the Dick Siebert Scholarship Endowment Fund, was discontinued after the 2007 season because of an NCAA rule change that mandated that the college baseball season could not start until the last Friday in February, by which time the professionals were at Spring Training. When the rules changed again, Minnesota resumed the Pros and Legends Alumni game in 2010, and though the 2011 game was cancelled because of the Metrodome roof collapse, the game returned as a Minnesota tradition in 2012. 

Both the early season tournament and the pro-alumni game were implemented under Anderson, who joined McCormick and Siebert in the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2008. Anderson entered the 2012 campaign with an overall record of 1063–699–3 over 30 seasons, and ranked first among all Big Ten coaches in conference wins with a 482–276 record in Big Ten play. The Golden Gophers had made 26 Big Ten Tournament appearances, won nine championships, and finished second 11 times under Anderson through the 2011 season. He led Minnesota to 40 wins in a season nine times, and at least 30 victories in 27 of his first 30 seasons.

DOUG SKIPPER is a marketing research, customer satisfaction, and public opinion consultant from Apple Valley, Minnesota, who reads and writes about baseball and engages in father-daughter dancing. A Colorado product who has resided in Wyoming and North Dakota, he has been a SABR member since 1982. He researched and wrote four biographies for “Deadball Stars of the American League,” and has contributed to several SABR biographical publications. Doug and his wife, Kathy, have two daughters, MacKenzie and Shannon.

Sources

Anderson, David. Before the Dome, Baseball in Minnesota When the Grass Was Real, Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 1993.

Arpi, Rich. “Dick Siebert.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Arpi, Rich. “John Anderson.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Geller, Steve, ed. The 2008 Minnesota Men’s Baseball Yearbook. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Printing Services, 2008.

Geller, Steve, ed. The 2011 Minnesota Men’s Baseball Yearbook. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Printing Services, 2011.

Johnson, Scot. “Jerry Terrell.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Levitt, Dan. “Bill Davis.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Levitt, Dan and Doug Skipper. “Paul Molitor.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Peterson, Armand and Tom Tomashek. Town Ball, The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Rippel, Joel. “Greg Olson.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Rippel, Joel. “Rob Quinlan.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Schaper, Herb. “Terry Steinbach.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Shepard, Nat. “Steve Comer.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Skipper, Doug. “Dave Winfield.” In Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. Minneapolis, MN: Nodin Press, 2008.

Websites

http://www.baseball-almanac.com

http://www.gophersports.com

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org

http://www.bigten.org

http://www.bigtensports.com

http://www.okstate.com

http://www.ballparkreviews.com/minn/siebert.htm

http://www.lowertownlanding.com/Lowertown/History.html

http://stewthornley.net/batboy.html

http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/51850/1/1967September-October-PressReleases.pdf

Notes

1 Armand Peterson and Tom Tomashek. Town Ball, The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006).

2 Rich Arpi, “John Anderson.” Minnesotans in Baseball, edited by Stew Thornley. (Minneapolis: Nodin Press, 2008).

After Bill Galloway appeared in 20 games for the Woodstock (Ontario) Bains during the summer of 1899, it would be nearly half a century before another black man was permitted to play Organized Baseball. Three years before the outfielder’s brief tenure in the Canadian League, the United States Supreme Court ruling in Plessy vs. Ferguson had essentially legalized the segregation of whites and blacks in American society.[fn]Phil Dixon with Patrick J. Hannigan, The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History (Mattituck, New York: Amereon House, 1992), 75–76.[/fn]

Jim Crow’s progress was slowed however, in the relatively progressive state of Minnesota, where African Americans were still able to participate on integrated amateur and semi-professional ball teams. Two such men, slugger Billy Williams and crack infielder Dick Brookins, figured prominently on the Midwestern diamonds of the early twentieth century, although their experiences with the color line took radically different turns.

William Frank Williams, Minnesota’s first great black slugger, was born in St. Paul in October 1877, the son of an African American father and a mother of German descent. He first gained notice as a baseball, football, and basketball star at St. Paul’s Mechanic Arts High School, while also setting the state shot put record. While still in high school in 1894, the tall, 182-pound youngster began his professional baseball career with the St. Paul Spaldings, the Twin Cities’ leading semipro squad.[fn]Twin City Star, July 22, 1911; National Advocate, December 12, 1918; United States Government World War I Registration Card, Roll 1682638, serial number 232, September 12, 1918; Minneapolis Spokesman, November 21, 1963.[/fn]

Billy, as he was commonly known, soon became one of the area’s top amateur players. Whether manning first base or roaming the outfield, the “local favorite” could be counted on for at least couple of hits and tracked down pop flies “like the wind.” Although barred from Organized Baseball, Williams gained a reputation for playing well against top flight competition. In April 1898, with Western League and future American League president Ban Johnson looking on, the 20-year-old Williams went 3-for-5 with a double and a run batted in during the Hamm’s Exports 13–3 loss to the St. Paul Saints at Lexington Park.[fn]National Advocate, December 12, 1918; St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 11, 1898, June 27, July 11, August 12, 15, 1898; Shakopee Scott Country Argus, September 1, 1898.[/fn]

Billy Williams was the only African American on the Hamm’s Exports, as he was with most of the semipro outfits for which he played. In September 1900 the young first baseman was in the lineup for Red Wing during their big game with the Chicago Unions, one of the premier African American teams in the country. The southeastern Minnesota nine dropped a hard fought 7–6 contest, but not before Billy singled and scored a run off Will Horn, compelling the future St. Paul Gophers twirler to force “Williams to take his base on balls.” The Unions were impressed enough to offer the slick-fielding Williams a contract for the following year, but he opted instead to remain in St. Paul and keep his position as assistant athletic director and gymnastic instructor at the local Y.M.C.A.[fn]Red Wing Republican, September 8, 1900; Goodhue County News, September 13, 1900; Twin City Star, July 22, 1911; Wisconsin Weekly Advocate (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), December 10, 1903.[/fn] 

As perhaps the best ballplayer in the state, Williams had little trouble finding teams to pay for his services. In April 1901 he took the field for a Twin Cities squad called the Prairie Leaguers when they met up with the St. Paul Saints in a pre-season contest. Williams collected a single in four at bats, but was overshadowed by tiny Saints second baseman Miller Huggins. The future Hall of Famer laid down a bunt single, stole two bases, and slammed a home run in the Apostles 9–5 win. In June Williams got another crack at the Saints when the Litchfield club of central Minnesota hired him before their big game with the Capital City nine. Billy rapped out two singles, one double, stole a base, scored a run, and registered ten putouts without an error during the independent squad’s improbable 4–0 whitewash of the Western League outfit.[fn]St. Paul Globe, April 29, 1901; Litchfield News Ledger, June 20, 1901.[/fn]

Two months later Litchfield took on the fabled Waseca EACOs, one of the era’s most fully integrated baseball teams, for the state championship. The EACOs, which went on to defeat the Western League champion Kansas City Blues in September, had four of the nation’s best black ballplayers on their roster: third baseman Harry Hyde, catcher Robert Footes, pitcher and outfielder Billy Holland, and legendary fireballer George Wilson. Perhaps because there was “bad blood between the rival organizations,” 9,270 fans, the largest Twin City crowd in years, crammed into Lexington Park on August 11 to witness the showdown.[fn]Waseca Radical, October 2, 1901; St. Paul Globe, August 11, 1901; St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 12, 1901; Aberdeen Daily News (South Dakota), August 21, 1901.[/fn]

With Waseca leading 2–0 in the top of the third inning, Williams drove two men home with a booming triple off of George Wilson to tie the score, but things went distinctly south for the overmatched Litchfield side thereafter, as they committed several errors and the EACOs rolled to a 9–2 victory. Wilson struck out nine Litchfield batters, and scattered eight hits to nail down the victory. The big left hander also singled, stole a base and smashed a home run to aid his cause. Billy Holland added two hits to the Waseca attack including a double, and likewise pilfered a base, while Harry Hyde singled twice, scored three runs, and stole two bases, including a swipe of home.[fn]St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 12, 1901.[/fn]

The following April Williams was again manning first base for the Prairie Leaguers when they took on the Minneapolis Millers at Lexington Park. According to the game account in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Millers were clinging to a 3–1 lead in the eighth inning when Williams, who had twice flown out to deep right field, “sorted out a bat and came in to win the game.” He did just that, sparking the busher’s three-run rally by ripping a single just inside the right field line, before eventually coming all the way around to tie the contest.[fn]St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 21, 1902.[/fn]

The Prairie Leaguers eked out a stunning 4–3 victory, and after the game a scout reportedly offered Williams a contract to play first base for Ned Hanlon, then manager of the National League’s Brooklyn Superbas. A year earlier, John McGraw, one of Hanlon’s former players, had attempted to pass off the outstanding black second baseman Charlie Grant as a Cherokee Indian in order to sneak him on his American League’s Baltimore Orioles squad—for whatever reason, Native Americans were deemed acceptable by Organized Baseball, while Africans Americans were decidedly not. Unfortunately McGraw‘s ruse was soon discovered and Grant returned in ignominy to the Chicago Columbia Giants.[fn]St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 21, 1902; National Advocate, December 12, 1918; James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002), 330; Minneapolis Tribune, August 5, 1942.[/fn] 

Hanlon assured Williams that it would easy to for him to impersonate an Indian because he was “light complexioned, has an aquiline nose, and straight hair.” Williams nevertheless declined Hanlon’s offer. In 1904 John McGraw also asked Williams to pose as a Native American in order to join the New York Giants, but again he refused, saying, “I am a Negro. I am proud of my race and wouldn’t masquerade as an Indian for all the money in the world.” Williams held on to Hanlon’s contract however, and it long remained one of his most prized possessions.[fn]National Advocate, December 12, 1918; Minnesota Messenger, June 16, 1923; Minneapolis Tribune, August 5, 1942.[/fn] 

* * *

While Billy Williams was extremely proud of his heritage, Dick Brookins spent much of his life obscuring his—over a century later it is still unclear what the talented infielder’s racial makeup actually was, although several Organized Baseball officials had a very definite opinion.

Richard Clarence Brookins was born in St. Louis in July 1879. His father, Richard Sr., was a railroad porter from Germany who later operated a coal yard. Although his mother Louisa’s heritage was listed in the 1880 Census as white, a Missouri teammate, Jack Sheridan, recalled that the infielder’s mother was a “Sioux Indian.” Curiously, when Brookins’ younger brother James applied for a marriage license in St. Louis in 1908, he was initially rejected until Louisa “swore” James was a Native American.[fn]1880 United States Census, St. Louis, Missouri; Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri), January 10, October 2, 1908.[/fn]

In 1903 Brookins was recruited to play third base for the strong semipro Moberly Signals of northern Missouri. From the onset, the “question of his race was raised,” and Captain Sheridan had to assure the local fans that Brookins was native born. Brookins won over the Moberly faithful by playing “professional ball,” earning a reputation as one of the best all-around performers the team ever had and “one of the fastest ball players in the state.”[fn]Moberly Evening Democrat (Missouri), July 7, 20, 1903, August 18, 1904; Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri), January 10, 1908.[/fn] Brookins could “run like a deer,” never failed to steal a base if he could, and even pitched a game or two. On the mound he did not depend on his “wide curves” to win games, instead preferring to “make his in and out-fields work.”[fn]Moberly Evening Democrat (Missouri), July 7, 1903; Moberly Sunday Morning Monitor (Missouri), September 23, 1906; Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri), January 10, 1908.[/fn]

After spending three seasons with Moberly, Brookins made the jump to Organized Ball in 1906 with Green Bay in the Wisconsin Association. Even though the 26-year old infielder posted only a .225 batting average for the middle of the pack Colts, he usually batted in the second, third, or fifth spot in the order. Brookins was hitting .260 for Green Bay in July 1907, when he was sold to Houghton (Michigan) Giants of the Northern Copper County League, a squad desperately in need of an infielder.[fn]Baseball-Reference.com, “Dick Brookins,” www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=brooki001ric, December 7, 2010; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern (Wisconsin), June 16, August 28, 1906; Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin), August 14, 1908; Duluth News Tribune, July 10, 1907.[/fn] 

At Houghton, the “clever third baseman,” batted .307 in 48 games and was also used as a long reliever. Brookins’ “phenomenal” hitting and fielding were said to be the best of any third sacker in the league, including recent New York Giants acquisition John Sundheim. Controversy arose late in the season, however. As Houghton started gaining ground in the standings, players from the Duluth White Sox accused Brookins of being “a member of the negro race and not an Indian.”[fn]Duluth News Tribune, September 3, 1907, August 17, 1908, March 26, 1910; La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin), October 17, 1907; Baseball-Reference.com, “Dick Brookins,” www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=brooki001ric, December 7, 2010.[/fn]

The Duluth owners started to dig into the infielder’s background, and it was reported that a man from St. Louis would soon arrive with “birth records and other data,” proving Brookins was black. The sports editor for Duluth News Tribune, who had instigated the investigation, opined: “If he is an Indian he has a perfect right to play league baseball. If he is a Negro he will be forever barred from taking part in games played under the supervision of the National Association.” The Tribune editor also observed that Brookins was perhaps the fastest man ever to play in the Northern League, adding he was “a very gentlemanly fellow and is well thought of by all the Houghton boys.” For his part, Brookins stated that, “he was not a negro, but an Indian.” After a Giants losing streak put them out of the money, the matter was dropped.[fn]Duluth News Tribune, September 3, 1907, January 4, June 10, 1908, March 26, 1910.[/fn] 

In October Brookins was drafted by Indianapolis of the American Association for the sum of $400, and that fall it was reported he played a few games for the Indians under the name of “Brooks.” Elated Indians owner W.H. Watkins announced the discovery of “a star of exceptional quality,” and that major league scouts “believed the dark skinned boy will prove a wonder.” His skin color soon became an issue, however. A few American Association veterans wintering in Chicago believed Brookins was too dark-complexioned and announced that they would not play with him.[fn]La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin), October 17, 1907; Duluth News Tribune, December 29, 1907, March 26, 1910; Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri), January 10, 1908.[/fn] 

A rumor soon surfaced that the real reason Green Bay had dumped Brookins was because of his race. In January American Association officials announced they were forming a committee to look into the matter, and shortly thereafter it was reported that Brookins’ African American heritage had been firmly established. Watkins defiantly vowed he was going to play Brookins anyway, but in the end the “swarthy skinned” infielder failed to report to the Hoosier team that spring.[fn]Duluth News Tribune, January 4, 19, 1908, March 26, 1910; Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri), January 10, 1908.[/fn]

Instead, Brookins headed back to the Northern League and signed with Fargo. Unfortunately, the infielder, described as the “real star of the team,” twisted his knee early in the season and was out of action for several games. The issue of his ethnicity again popped up in early June, when a rival club, attempting to sign the great black pitcher George Wilson, was informed by circuit officials that “negroes would not be allowed to play on Northern League teams.” The accusation was then made that Brookins was also black and that if he was allowed to play, the other squads should be able to employ African Americans as well. The Duluth News Tribune warned “the league cannot afford to stand for Negro performers and that if it does it will simply sound its own death knell.”[fn]Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri), June 4, 1908; Grand Forks Evening Times (North Dakota), May 19, 1908; Duluth News Tribune, June 10, 1908.[/fn] In any event, Brookins was still manning third base and batting cleanup for the Browns when the league broke up in mid-August.

Following the collapse of the Northern League, Brookins signed with the Hibbing Colts, the “independent champs of the Northwest,” beginning a decade-long relationship with the semipro club. Hibbing was a booming mining community of 8,000 located on northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range, and Municipal Judge Thomas Brady heavily bankrolled the city’s crack team of former professionals. After Brookins joined the squad, the Colts took five out of six games from the Northern League’s Duluth White Sox. Hibbing later traveled to St. Paul for a big showdown with the mighty St. Paul Gophers, where they were no-hit by future Hall of Fame twirler Rube Foster.[fn]Duluth News Tribune, August 14, 17, 1908; St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 26, 29,1908; Hibbing Tribune Daily, October 13, 1908; William Watts Folwell, A History Of Minnesota; Volume IV, (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society, [1929] 1969 edition), 50–53; Hibbing Chamber of Commerce, www.hibbing.org/visitor_info.html, January 1, 2006.[/fn]

During the offseason Brookins, along with fellow Hibbing teammate and future major leaguer Jack Gilligan, signed to play with the Vancouver Beavers of the Class B Northwestern League. In early April it was related that Brookins was “very ill” at his home in St. Louis and probably wouldn’t report that year, although at the same time the infielder informed Judge Brady he was in “the best of condition.” Brookins soon arrived at the Beavers camp and made the squad as a utility infielder. Despite reports that he created a “great impression,” the “full blooded Cherokee Indian,” as he was then described, failed to appear in any of Vancouver’s first 11 games. He pinch-hit unsuccessfully for the Beavers in the ninth inning of their April 29 contest with the Aberdeen Black Cats but left the squad soon thereafter when questions about his heritage were raised once more. Brookins returned to Hibbing and spent the rest of the summer with the Colts, back in the prestigious third spot in the order.[fn]St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 29,1908; The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), April 11, 30, 1909; Duluth News Tribune, April 2, 1909; Rich Necker, “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.,” Western Canada Baseball www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_ dick.html, November 30, 2010.[/fn]

The indefatigable Brookins next showed up in the spring of 1910 playing third base and batting third for the Regina Bone Pilers of the Western Canada League. Regina was managed by Louis “Roxey” Walters, whom Brookins had played with in Green Bay, and ex-Hibbing pitchers William Gilchrist and George Sage were also on the squad.[fn]Rich Necker, “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.,” Western Canada Baseball www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_dick.html, November 30, 2010; Winona Republican Herald, April 27, May 2, 1910.[/fn]

Although Brookins was initially described by his manager as being of “Puerto Rican and French ancestry,” the Regina press asserted that the slick-fielding infielder was “one of the noble red men.” By mid-May however, a few rival clubs yet again accused Brookins of being an African American. Several members of one of the protesting teams, the Calgary Bronchos, had also played in the Northwestern League during Brookins brief sojourn there in 1909.[fn]Rich Necker, “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.,” Western Canada Baseball www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_dick.html, November 30, 2010; Moberly Evening Monitor (Missouri), May 29, 1910.[/fn]

Further pressure came from the Moose Jaw club, whose fans had been particularly abusive in their treatment of the controversial third baseman, and in early June circuit president C.J. Eckstrom formally expelled Brookins from the Western Canada League. Eckstrom took this extreme action despite Brookins’ claims that he possessed a diploma from a Native American University and a report from Organized Baseball’s National Association reportedly clearing Brookins to play. To his everlasting credit, Roxey Walters pulled his team off the field before a game against Medicine Hat in protest, thereby forfeiting the contest and earning himself a $50 fine. But it was to no avail. Brookins never returned to the Regina lineup, and the dispirited Bone Pilers wound up disbanding before the end of the season—dead last and bankrupt.[fn]Rich Necker, “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.,” Western Canada Baseball www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_dick.html, November 30, 2010.[/fn]

Brookins’ Canadian stint was his last foray into Organized Ball. The 31-year-old infielder quietly drifted back to Hibbing where he capably held down the third base bag for the next nine seasons while also working as a fireman in one of the local mines. In September 1917 Brookins keyed a 3–2, 14-inning win over archrival Chisholm by singling, doubling, and scoring a run. During his final go around with the Colts the following summer, the grizzled veteran could still be found batting as high as fifth in the order. Brookins eventually moved his wife and five children to San Leandro, California where he found employment as a railroad carpenter.[fn]1930 United States Census. Alameda County, California; Duluth News Tribune, July 20, 1910, March 31, 1912, June 11, 1915, August 28, 1916, September 10, 1917, July 9, 1918; Hibbing Daily Tribune, July 14, 1911, June 22, 1912, July 29, 1913, August 10, 1914; United States Government World War I Registration Card, Roll 1675891, serial number 2510, September 12, 1918.[/fn]

* * *

During the summer of 1903 Billy Williams hooked up with the Chippewa Falls club of western Wisconsin and powered them to a 30–2 start and a state championship. That August at Lexington Park, the Badger nine beat Fargo of Organized Baseball’s Northern League 4–2. A Milwaukee reporter asserted that “more men of Mr. Williams’ stamp would bring better days for the Negro race.” In the spring of 1904 Williams was unanimously elected captain of the otherwise white St. Paul Amateur Baseball Association team because of “his knowledge of the game.”[fn]St. Paul Globe, August 7, 10, 1903, March 14, 1904; Wisconsin Weekly Advocate (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), December 10, 1903; St. Paul Appeal, March 19, 1904.[/fn] 

In 1905 Minnesota Governor John Johnson was so captivated by the big 27-year-old ballplayer that he hired him as his clerk. Williams, who had worked in a similar capacity with a previous governor, “Happy John” Lind, wowed the Governor-elect by re-designing a vault to store his important documents. According to one report, “When the contractors arrived to construct the vault it was discovered that Williams’ specifications did not vary an eighth of an inch from the true dimensions.” Billy and Johnson, a big sports fan, were often found discussing “the prospects in the leagues.” State officials looking to protect their wagers, were likewise known to approach the former gridiron star “for consul” before a big football game, after he picked the winner of the Minnesota-Wisconsin border war five years running.[fn]St.PaulAppeal,December30,1905;MinnesotaMessenger,June16,1923.[/fn] 

By using his allotted vacation time during the summer, the “Governor’s messenger” kept playing ball for several years, finally retiring after a 22-year career. When he signed with the newly organized Austin Western outfit in 1908, the team’s owner presented him with a “new bat, which is about as long as Billy is.” Before a game in May against the St. Paul Gophers, Williams, now known as “the most popular player in Minnesota,” was given a large ovation before his first plate appearance. In a June contest against Winona, Williams collected three hits, including two home runs, stole a base, and made a great one-handed catch over his head 30 feet behind first base.[fn]St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 24, 31, 1908; St. Paul Dispatch, June 27, 1908; Minnesota Messenger, June 16, 1923.[/fn] 

In 1910 “hitting as well as ever,” Williams held down first base for the Sauk Rapids, Minnesota squad and toured the Dakotas with the Twin City All-Stars. Said to “be known all over the country as a great batter and fielder,” he once so awed a touring party from Japan’s Waseda University that they asked him to “teach and coach a team in American baseball,” but Williams politely turned down their offer.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, July 31, 1910; Winona Republican Herald, June 19, 1908; National Advocate, December 12, 1918; Minnesota Messenger, June 16, 1923.[/fn] 

Billy Williams retained his executive clerk position even after Governor Johnson’s death in 1909. Both Democrat and Republican Governors reportedly “became so used to him, that they never thought of [not] reappointing him.” Originally hired at the then respectable sum of $900 a year, the “Prince of Personality” was voted $300 pay raises by the Minnesota Legislature in both 1911 and 1917, leading the Duluth News Tribune to muse that “Williams is one of the few people in public office who is next to indispensable.”[fn]win City Star, July 22, 1911; Duluth New Tribune, December 31, 1915, April 19, 1917; Minnesota Messenger, June 16, 1923.[/fn] 

The Minnesota Legislature always consulted with Billy Williams “before any actual procedure takes place,” concerning the black community, and in 1923 a local African American paper declared that his presence, “means so much in the safe guarding of our interest against possible adversaries.” In 1945 however, the Minneapolis Spokesman claimed Williams was only a glorified receptionist and griped that, “had he been white, we believe he would have long ago have been elected to important posts in the state government.”[fn]Northwestern Bulletin, April 28, 1923; Minneapolis Spokesman, January 12, 1945.[/fn] 

In November 1963 Billy Williams passed away following a long illness, and the flags on all Minnesota State buildings were flown at half-mast in his honor. He had retired in 1957 after a spending 52 years as the executive aide to 14 consecutive governors. Renowned for his ability to make “friends wherever he goes,” Williams had personally met every U.S. President from William Howard Taft to Harry S. Truman. He had truly been, as the combined houses of the Minnesota Legislature once shouted in unison, “Good Bill, good Bill, good Billy Williams.”[fn]Minneapolis Spokesman, November 21, 1963; Minneapolis Tribune, August 7, 1910; Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 23, 2000; Duluth News Tribune, April 13, 1917.[/fn] 

* * *

Neither Billy Williams nor Dick Brookins played for the St. Paul Gophers or Minneapolis Keystones, Minnesota’s two premier blackball teams of the era, but they competed against them several times. During the summer of 1907 Williams captained the Chaska White Diamonds in two matches with the Gophers. The St. Paul nine took the first contest 9–3 at a baseball tournament in Lester Prairie, as their ace, Johnny Davis, deliberately pitched around Williams all day. In their next meeting at Chaska, the “Professor of Applied Swatology,” ripped two ”sky scraping fouls over the right field fence” off of Davis before knocking in two teammates with a “grass cutting” single. Williams also stole a base and scored a run, but the professionals still prevailed, 5–4.[fn]Lester Prairie News, August 8, 1907; Chaska Weekly Valley Herald, September 12, 1907.[/fn] Dick Brookins was a particular thorn in the side of the Gophers, clubbing five home runs and five doubles while scoring 18 times against them in 25 games over a four year period (1908–1911). In one 1910 contest against the reigning black ball champions, Brookins singled off Johnny Davis, stole second, and scored on a wild pitch to tie the game at two. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Brookins was walked with the bases loaded, giving Hibbing a 3–2 triumph. A year later Brookins took to the mound and threw an 8–4 complete game victory over the St. Paul squad, striking out four batters while walking none, and hitting a double in his own behalf. The win came with a back story: a few days prior, Brookins, lauded as ”one of the most gentlemanly little ball players that stepped on the field” became so unglued that he intentionally spiked a sliding Gophers runner.[fn]Duluth News Tribune, July 18, 1910; Hibbing Daily Tribune, July 14, 19, 1911; Rich Necker, “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.,” Western Canada Baseball www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_dick.html, November 30, 2010; Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan, Canada), May 17, 1910.[/fn] 

Among the many injustices of baseball’s color line was the marginalization of African American players’ legacies. Although he made the most of his limited opportunities, Billy Williams received very few shots to compete against clubs from Organized Baseball. Dick Brookins did manage to muster over 1,000 at bats in Organized Ball, but the continued animosity he encountered along the way no doubt hindered his performance. Certainly his .250 minor league average does not reflect the high regard in which he was held. Ironically, a better gauge of the crack third baseman’s abilities might be his record against African American clubs. In 33 recorded games against the Gophers and the Keystones, Brookins batted .286 while facing major league quality pitchers such as Johnny Davis, “Big” Bill Gatewood, and Louis “Dicta” Johnson. Late in his career Brookins also got the opportunity to face the legendary John Donaldson, then on the famed All Nations team. He only managed two safeties in 11 at bats but drove in two runs and laced a triple against the great southpaw.[fn]Baseball-Reference.com, “Dick Brookins,” www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=brooki001ric, December 7, 2010; Hibbing Daily Tribune, June 22, 24, 1912, July 24, 1914.[/fn]

The Jim Crow phenomena of blacks attempting to pass as members of other ethnic groups was certainly not unique to baseball, and it was a dilemma many light-skinned African Americans faced. Unfortunately for Dick Brookins, who adamantly denied being a black man, just appearing to be an African American was enough to derail his pro career. Billy Williams was on record that he “never found his color a bar to his recognition for what he is worth.” Dick Brookins certainly did, although as the Regina Morning Leader once noted without irony, “the Indian has accepted the situation in the stoical manner natural to his race.”[fn]Wisconsin Weekly Advocate (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), December 10, 1903; Rich Necker, “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.,” Western Canada Baseball www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_dick.html, November 30, 2010; Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan, Canada), June 7, 1910.[/fn]

TODD PETERSON is a Kansas City-based visual artist, historian, and educator. The Twin Cities native has published several articles on the Negro Leagues, and is the author of “Early Black Baseball In Minnesota,” published in 2010 by McFarland and Company.

Sources

Newspapers

 Aberdeen Daily News (South Dakota)

Chaska Weekly Valley Herald

Duluth News Tribune

Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin)

Goodhue County News

Grand Forks Evening Times (North Dakota)

Hibbing Daily Tribune

La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin)

Lester Prairie News

Litchfield News Ledger

Minneapolis Spokesman

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Minneapolis Tribune

Minnesota Messenger

Moberly Evening Democrat (Missouri)

Moberly Evening Monitor (Missouri)

Moberly Sunday Morning Monitor (Missouri)

Moberly Weekly Monitor (Missouri)

National Advocate

Northwestern Bulletin

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern (Wisconsin)

Red Wing Republican

Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan, Canada)

St. Paul Appeal

St. Paul Dispatch

St. Paul Globe

St. Paul Pioneer Press

Winona Newspaper Project (www.winona.edu/library)

Note: All newspapers listed were published in Minnesota unless otherwise noted.

Books and Articles

Dixon, Phil with Hannigan, Patrick J. The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History. Mattituck, New York: Amereon House, 1992.

Folwell, William Watts. A History Of Minnesota; Volume IV. St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society (1929), 1969 edition.

Necker, Rich. “The Brookins Banishment—a stain on the reputation of the W.C.B.L.” www.attheplate.com/wcbl/profile_brookins_dick.html.

Riley, James A. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. NewYork: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002.

Websites

Websites consulted include http://www.ancestry.com, http://Baseball-Reference.com, http://GenealogyBank.com, http://Hibbing.org, http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us (Mid-Continent Public Library), and http://NewspaperArchive.com. 

Thief River Falls Ladies Baseball Team Champions of Northern Minnesota 1893. (Courtesy of Pennington County Historical Society)

Despite the fact that the great American pastime has been almost exclusively identified as a male sport, women have played baseball in Minnesota for over 100 years. In the early years, from the late nineteenth century through the 1920s, women played baseball in Minnesota on college campuses, in industrial leagues, through local church and community groups, and on barnstorming teams. In 1944, Minnesota was home to a professional women’s baseball team, the Minneapolis Millerettes, one of six teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, made famous through the film A League of Their Own. In more recent years, left-handed pitcher Ila Borders played on the St. Paul Saints and Duluth Dukes independent league baseball teams, while numerous girls across the state have played Little League and high school baseball. This article focuses on women’s baseball in Minnesota from the 1890s through World War II.

EARLY YEARS

The earliest evidence that women played baseball in Minnesota is a photo from Thief River Falls, dated 1893, of ten female players with two male player-managers. The note accompanying the photo reads, “Thief River Falls Ladies Baseball Team Champions of Northern League, 1893.”1 This note suggests that there were multiple women’s teams playing competitively at this time. Baseball historians Gai Berlage, Harold Seymour,2 and others have documented that women played baseball as early as 1865 at Vassar College. In the Thief River Falls photo, the women are wearing the same type of long dresses with long sleeves worn by women in the early pictures of Vassar baseball teams, adhering to the Victorian standard of feminine modesty. 

Women not only played hardball at elite women’s colleges on the East Coast in the early twentieth century, but also at coeducational institutions in the Midwest. The Minneapolis Journal of March 17, 1906 announced the start of the women’s baseball season at the University of Minnesota: “Girls Will Indulge in National Game.” The article highlights the fact that the women would play behind screens, typically used for secret football practices, so that the men could not see them. “If it is found impossible to play the game on Northrop field safe from masculine observation, the girls plan to introduce indoor baseball in the girls’ gymnasium.”3

Baseball was also played by women at Carleton College in Northfield, starting around 1915. In 1916, there were four baseball teams, each representing a class, from freshman through senior. By 1922, the intramural women’s baseball program was well established. A May 17, 1922 article in The Carletonia listed the lineups for the four teams as they headed into the end-of-year tournament. The teams consisted of ten players, including two shortstops. Surprisingly, the freshman team won the championship by defeating the juniors in the final game by a score of 25–24. 

Baseball at Carleton was typical of the women’s game in this time period. It was played indoors at least part of the time, although there are references to outdoor play as well. Indoor baseball, a precursor to softball, was a popular sport for girls and women in the 1920s. Women’s baseball at Carleton was also typical in that it featured intramural, not intercollegiate play. According to Jenny Ring, intercollegiate play was off limits for women because “too much competition was regarded as unhealthy for girls,” and “travel was also believed to be too strenuous and unsuitable for the health and morality of the young women.”4 Finally, by 1922, Carleton women were playing in bloomers rather than long skirts, an evolution that was typical of women’s baseball during this time period.

Women also played baseball on Minnesota soil when, starting in the late nineteenth century, barnstorming teams visited the state. These teams were called “Bloomer Girls,” and they went from town to town all over the country, challenging men’s amateur, minor league, or semi-professional teams to games. The bloomer teams usually had two or more men as members, and sometimes the men dressed as women. The term “bloomer” is derived from the name of the mid-nineteenth century advocate for women’s rights, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who argued that women should have the option of wearing less restrictive clothing. 

Bloomer Girls teams came from Chicago, Boston, Canada, and elsewhere to play games in Minnesota communities. An early appearance by a women’s barnstorming team occurred in 1895, when the Ladies Champion Baseball Club of Chicago visited Duluth. In 1909, the Chicago Bloomer Girls came to Bemidji to play a game against the town team. The article in the Bemidji Daily Pioneer previewing the game notes that a “record-breaking crowd” was expected.5 The captain and proprietor of the team was Miss Bernie Carleton. Carleton was among several women who managed and owned barnstorming teams, an unusually powerful role for women during this time period.

The Bemidji press was relatively respectful toward the women’s team, although the reporter expressed typical attitudes of the time when noting that “the members of the ladies’ team are well-behaved and conduct themselves in an unapproachable [sic] manner at all times.”6 The restrained tone of the Bemidji paper, however, was not shared by the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, which contained this July 30, 1916, headline about a visit by the Western Bloomer Girls: “Comedy for Fans When Bloomer Girls Lose to Minneapolis Athletics.” This game, with a final score of 11–8, was played in Nicollet Park before a crowd of 600 “curiosity seekers.”7 The game was unusual in that the bloomer team consisted entirely of women. One of those women, Maud Nelson, was one of the most accomplished and famous women baseball players of all time. Nelson was well known for her exceptional pitching, as well as her hitting and her fielding skills at third base. According to Barbara Gregorich, Nelson was a “world renowned Bloomer Girl pitcher, a third baseman, a scout, a manager, and an owner of the best teams of her era… For forty years she was always there.”8 

Ball Playing Nuns, c.1931 (Minnesota Historical Society)

Women’s baseball was not confined to college campuses and bloomer girl barnstorming visits. For example, on April 21, 1911, the Minneapolis Morning Tribune reports on a game between the staffs of two hotels—the Dyckman and the Radisson.9 The pitcher for the Dyckman was Alma Wyness, formerly a player on the Rochester, New York Bloomer Girls. More significantly, an industrial women’s baseball league was established in Duluth in 1919. The league consisted of eight teams from local businesses such as the Rust-Parker Grocery Company and the Marshall-Wells Hardware Company. A headline in the July 20, 1919, Duluth News Tribune announced the new league: “Duluth Has the Honor of Having ‘Something New’/City is One of Few in Country Who Have a Girls’ Baseball League.”10 Coordinated by the YWCA, the eight teams played twice a week in various parks throughout the city; the Duluth daily paper covered the games closely and with admiration for the quality of play. The women’s league in Duluth was part of a national movement to bring women’s sports to the “employed girl.” According to the 1918 Cleveland Recreation Survey, 44 percent of female employees in the city of Cleveland played baseball. The industrial clubs for women that sprung up in Duluth and elsewhere in the early twentieth century were an outgrowth of the social reform movement that sought to improve conditions for American workers.11

Several photographs from the Minnesota Historical Society suggest other venues for women’s baseball in the state. A series of photographs from 1931 taken by Father Robert E. Russell in Leavenworth, Minnesota, capture nuns in full habit playing baseball and posing for a team photo with a bat. Another photo dated 1926 features 10 young African American diamond ball players from the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House, a community center that still exists in North Minneapolis and is the oldest organization in Minnesota with continuous service to the African American community. One of the women in the photo is Ethel Ray Nance, daughter of the president of the Duluth chapter of the NAACP. Nance became the first African American policewoman in Minnesota, and later worked for civil rights activist and author W.E.B. Du Bois. She is considered an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. 

The diamond ball played by the young women at the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House in 1926 probably resembled modern day softball more than it resembled hardball. That’s because softball, sometimes called “kittenball” or “mush ball,” emerged in the 1920s as the preferred diamond sport for girls and women. The 1929 book, Baseball for Girls and Women by Gladys Palmer, professor of physical education at Ohio State University, details the transition from baseball to softball during this period. The book focuses on a sport that featured underhand pitching and smaller base paths, but it also identifies four different versions of the sport, one of which used a nine-inch ball and overhand pitching.

The Minneapolis Millerettes pitching staff in 1944. On the far left is Dorothy Wiltse, who won 20 games in each of her first four seasons with the AAGPBL. In the center is Annabelle Lee, who, as a Millerette, pitched the first perfect game in the AAGPBL on July 29, 1944. (Northern Indiana Historical Society)

THE MILLERETTES

By the 1940s, the transition from baseball to softball was complete, and the newer sport became wildly popular among both women and men across the U.S. and Canada. In 1943, Philip K. Wrigley, fearing that the manpower shortage caused by World War II would harm major league baseball and his own fortunes as owner of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, capitalized on the abundance of female softball talent by establishing the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). In this early phase of the league, the game was a hybrid of softball and baseball. It featured underhand pitching, for example, but it also allowed leading off and stealing bases, forbidden in regulation softball. League managers felt that base stealing would make the game more attractive to fans. 

The AAGPBL, made famous in the movie A League of Their Own, began with four teams, located in mid-size Midwestern cities: Kenosha, Wisconsin; Racine, Wisconsin; Rockford, Illinois; and South Bend, Indiana. In 1944, Wrigley added two more teams to the league, this time in the much larger cities of Minneapolis and Milwaukee. The Minneapolis Millerettes played their first home game at Nicollet Park on May 27, 1944, against the Rockford Peaches. In anticipation of the game, a United Press story did more to stereotype the players than report on their skills and previous athletic accomplishments: “Quick, Millie, my mask and mascara, for there’s a powder puff plot under way at 3p.m. Saturday at Nicollet park, which threatens the foundation of the national pastime, a conspiracy aimed at virtual extinction of the perspiring, swearing, tobacco-chewing baseball player.”12 After the home opener, which the Millerettes lost 5–4, sports reporter Halsey Hall reported on the game and was a bit more respectful of the women as players: “In a welter of flaring skirts, headlong and feet-first slides into base, bodily contact, good pitching and really brilliant outfielding, Jack Kloza’s Amazons won by great defensive work.”13 

The Millerettes were chock full of rookies who brought outstanding softball and other athletic credentials to the team. According to Barbara Gregorich, some of the rookies from California had played softball in front of crowds as large as 30,000.14 The Millerettes’ manager was Clarence “Bubber” Jonnard, who had been a catcher for a number of major league teams and a coach for the New York Giants and Phillies.

Not much is known about how Jonnard managed the team, although one player, Faye Dancer, did express her lack of enthusiasm for the Millerettes’ manager: “I loved the sport. I wanted to play to win. Jonnard was always negative. . . we California girls made up our own signals and played our own game.”15 

The season got off to a robust start. By the end of the second week, the Millerettes were in second place in the six-team league, with a record of nine wins and six losses. Fans were particularly interested in hometown players Lorraine Borg and Peggy Torrison, who had excelled on Twin Cities softball teams before trying out for the AAGPBL. The Millerettes were still drawing positive attention on June 16–17 when they hosted a weekend series against the Racine Belles. The June 16 game lasted 15 innings, with the Millerettes’ star pitcher, Dorothy Wiltse, tossing 10 2/3 no-hit innings. The home team ended up losing the game, 3–2, but took their revenge the next day when they faced the Belles again. With a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, Helen Callaghan and Judy Dusano were on second and third. Pep Paire stepped up to the plate and “slashed a hard one at third sacker English. Maddy came up with a good stop, but the flying Helen beat her throw to the plate in a split-hair play.”16 The Millerettes won, 7–6.

Despite some early successes, by July 5 the Millerettes were in last place, and by July 23 they had played their last game in Minnesota. Concerned about the cost of bringing teams to Minneapolis from as far away as South Bend and the low attendance at Nicollet Park, the league decided to reschedule the Millerettes home games to the road. For the remainder of the 1944 season, the team became the “Minneapolis Orphans.” The Minneapolis Tribune quoted league president Ken Sells, who said that the other teams “objected to making the trip to Minneapolis because of the heavy traveling expenses with such small crowds attending the games.”17 The Millerettes ended the year in last place, although there were some bright spots. One was the league’s first perfect game, pitched by Millerette Annabelle Lee on July 29. This shining moment, however, could not stave off the demise of the team. For the 1945 season, the team was moved to Indiana, where they remained for ten years as the much-appreciated and very successful Fort Wayne Daisies.

Why was attendance so poor at Millerette games compared to that of cities like Racine and Rockford? Some might argue that the Millerettes failed because of their poor play later in the season, but this seems unlikely because the Milwaukee Chicks, the other team that met its demise at the end of the 1944 season, won the league championship. In addition, many of the players on the Millerettes went on to become standouts on other teams. 

Merrie Fidler, the leading historian of the AAGPBL, argues that there are a number of possible reasons for the Millerettes’ struggles.18 First, the two expansion teams, the Millerettes and the Milwaukee Chicks, played on fields built for American Association minor league teams, which was not the case for the original four teams of the AAGPBL. The sharing of Nicollet Park with the Minneapolis Millers may have invited a direct comparison between the two teams, one that did not favor the Millerettes. Even ticket prices were an issue. A telephone poll in Milwaukee suggested that fans were dissatisfied with the ticket prices for the AAGPBL games compared to the prices for the American Association games. Beyond the competition with men’s minor league ball, the big cities of Minneapolis and Milwaukee offered numerous other sports and entertainment options that might have undermined the success of the Millerettes.

The other reason for the failure of the Millerettes, according to Fidler, was a lack of local support from businesses and the press. While the four original teams of the AAGPBL received financial backing from local businesses, this was not the case for the Minneapolis and Milwaukee teams. The expansion teams were likely subsidized by Wrigley himself. In addition, Fidler argues that the press in Minneapolis and Milwaukee was less supportive of the teams than the press in the smaller cities like South Bend. “A comparison of all league city newspapers, from May to July 1944, revealed that the Minneapolis and Milwaukee papers printed shorter stories, less frequently, with a more marked chauvinistic attitude than the other papers.”19 Sharon Roepke and Danielle Barber went so far as to say the press was “antagonistic” in Minneapolis compared to other cities.20

The Millerettes may have run aground at the end of the 1944 season, but they left a solid legacy through an outstanding set of players who spent their rookie years in Minneapolis. Here are a few of the most notable players on the 1944 team:

• Dorothy Wiltse Collins was one of the best pitchers in the history of the league. A New York Times obituary described her hurling prowess: “She pitched underhand, sidearm and overhand; she threw curveballs, fastballs and changeups.”21 During her rookie season with the Millerettes, she won 20 games with a 1.88 ERA. In 1945, pitching for the Fort Wayne Daisies, she pitched two games of a doubleheader and won them both. If that weren’t enough, she repeated this feat eight days later, giving up a total of two runs over all four games. Wiltse had a career record of 117–76 and an ERA of 1.83. She won 20 games or more during each of her first four seasons. 
• Faye Dancer was an exceptional athlete, an entertainer on the field, and a prankster off it. During her year on the Millerettes, she batted .274, the third highest average in the league. She also hit two grand slam home runs, knocked in 48 runs, and stole 63 bases. In 1948, she stole 102 bases. She was well known for her base running panache and her superb skills in catching fly balls. Halsey Hall referred to the “ground-covering, fly-catching genius” of Dancer in center field.22 She also made her mark through her antics on and off the field. Out in center field she would do cartwheels, splits and handstands; off the field, she played tricks on other players and especially on new chaperones—for example, replacing the cream in their Oreos with toothpaste. Given her abundance of chutzpah and personality, it is not surprising that Dancer was the inspiration for Madonna’s “All the Way Mae” character in A League of Their Own.
• Helen Callaghan St. Aubin, from Vancouver, Canada, played on the Millerettes alongside her sister, Margaret. Callaghan was a star batter and base stealer. Her .287 batting average was second in the league in 1944. In 1945, at 5-foot-1 and 115 pounds, she the paced the league in doubles and tied for the lead in home runs. One of her sons, Casey Candaele, played for nine seasons in the major leagues. While Candaele swung a bat that was 33 inches long and 32 ounces, his mother’s bat was 36 inches long and 36 ounces.23 Another of Callaghan’s sons, Kelly Candaele, made the documentary, A League of Their Own, which led to the 1992 film by the same name.
• Annabelle Lee Harmon grew up in California and was recruited for the AAGPBL in 1944 by Bill Allington, who managed teams in the AAGPBL every season from 1944 until the league folded in 1954 (except 1947). She distinguished herself as a left-handed pitcher for the Millerettes by throwing the league’s first perfect game on July 29, 1944, against the Kenosha Comets. The next year, as a member of the Fort Wayne Daisies, she threw a no-hitter. Lee’s career ERA was 2.25, and she was known for throwing a wicked knuckleball. Like Dorothy Wiltse Collins, she was one of the few pitchers who adjusted to the transition from underhand pitching in 1944, to sidearm pitching in 1946, and then to overhand pitching in 1948. Her nephew, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, pitched for the Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Albert G. Spalding, baseball player, baseball writer, and founder of the sporting goods company reflected on women and hardball in 1911:

But neither our wives, our sisters, our daughters, nor our sweethearts, may play Base Ball on the field. . . They may play Lawn Tennis, and win championships; they may play Basket Ball, and achieve laurels, they may play Golf, and receive trophies; but Base Ball is too strenuous for womankind, except as she may take part in grandstand, with applause for the brilliant play.24 

Fortunately, numerous women ignored Spalding’s declaration that baseball was off limits for women. Starting in the late nineteenth century, they grabbed bats, balls, and mitts and played the game hard throughout the state of Minnesota. Refusing to remain in the grandstand, they defied stereotypes, resisted sexism, and asserted their right to take part in the beloved American pastime.

ANNE ARONSON is a professor of writing, rhetoric, and communication at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she coordinates the professional writing program. She has written articles on women’s baseball for “Elysian Fields Quarterly,” the “Star Tribune,” and the book “Minnesotans in Baseball.” She recently started teaching a class on gender, sport and the media.

Sources

Barrouquere, Peter. “Mom Was Provider, Hero, Role Model to Candaele.” Times-Picayune, August 30, 1998.

“Baseball for ‘U’ Co-Eds,” Minneapolis Journal, March 17, 1906.

Berlage, Gai. Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.

“Bloomer Ladies Will Play Here on Sunday,” Bemidji Daily Pioneer, August 7, 1909.

“Comedy for Fans When Bloomer Girls Lose to Minneapolis Athletics.” Minneapolis Morning Tribune, July 30, 1916.

“Duluth Has the Honor of Having ‘Something New’: City is One of Few in Country Who Have a Girls’ Baseball League.” Duluth News Tribune, July 20, 1919.

Fidler, Merrie. The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006.

Galt, Margot. “The Girls of Summer.” Minnesota Monthly, May 1991.

Goldstein, Richard. “Dottie Collins, 84, Star Pitcher of Women’s Baseball League, Dies.” New York Times, Aug. 17, 2008.

Gregorich, Barbara. Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1993.

Hall, Halsey. “Millerettes ‘Uncurled’ 5–4.” Minneapolis Tribune, May 28, 1944.

“Local Baseball Team Decidedly Ungallant,” Bemidji Daily Pioneer, August 9, 1909.

Palmer, Gladys. Baseball for Girls and Women. New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1929.

Ring, Jennifer. Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The People’s Game. New York: Oxford, 1990.

Thornley, Stew. Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2006.

United Press. “It’s Powder Puff Baseball in Nicollet Opener Today.” Minneapolis Tribune, May 27, 1944. 

Notes

1 Courtesy of the Pennington County Historical Society.

2 While Harold Seymour is the author of record for The People’s Game, which includes five detailed chapters on women’s baseball, Dorothy Jane Mills, Seymour’s wife at the time, convincingly describes how she was the main researcher and writer for these chapters. See Dorothy Jane Mills, A Woman’s Work: Writing Baseball History with Harold Seymour (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004).

3 Minneapolis Journal, March 17, 1906, 2.

4 Jennifer Ring. Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009) 35.

5 Bemidji Daily Pioneer, August 7, 1909, 1.

6 Bemidji Daily Pioneer, August 9, 1909, 1.

7 Minneapolis Morning Tribune, July 30, 1916, B1.

8 Barbara Gregorich, Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1993) 6.

9 Minneapolis Morning Tribune, April 21, 1911, 4.

10 Duluth News Tribune, July 20, 1919, Section 2, 1.

11 Merrie Fidler. The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006) 21.

12 Minneapolis Tribune, May 27, 1944, 61.

13 Halsey Hall, “Millerettes ‘Uncurled’ 5–4.” Minneapolis Tribune, May 28, 1944. Sports, 1.

14 Gregorich, 108.

15 Margot Galt, “The Girls of Summer.” Minnesota Monthly, May 1991, 52.

16 Minneapolis Tribune, June 18, 1944, Sports, 1.

17 Minneapolis Tribune, July 23, 1944, Sports, 1.

18 Fidler, 46–48.

19 Fidler, 46 (2).

20 Quoted in Stew Thornley, Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2006) 169.

21 Richard Goldsteing “Dottie Collins, 84, Star Pitcher of Women’s Baseball League, Dies.” New York Times, August 17, 2008, A22.

22 Hall, Sports 1.

23 Peter Barrouquere, “Mom Was Provider, Hero, Role Model to Candaele.” Times-Picayune, August 30, 1998, C1.

24 Spalding, quoted in Gladys Palmer, Baseball for Girls and Women (New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1929) 10.

NICOLLET AND LEXINGTON

Opened and closed a year apart, Nicollet Park in Minneapolis and Lexington Park in St. Paul hosted numerous championship teams and were the hot spots during the major holidays when the Millers and Saints played twin-bills—a morning game at one park and an afternoon game at the other—on Decoration Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day.

The Minneapolis Millers played in a number of locations, but the ballpark most closely associated with the team was the one described by former Minneapolis Tribune writer Dave Mona as “soggy, foul, rotten, and thoroughly wonderful Nicollet Park.”

In 1896, Nicollet Park replaced a tiny ballpark in downtown Minneapolis, Athletic Park, and represented a move outside the core area of the city. The location was picked, in part, because of its proximity to public transit, just off the corner of Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street in south Minneapolis.

Although spacious compared to the band box that it had replaced, Nicollet Park soon became known for its modest dimensions, particularly the short distance to the right-field fence, which ran along Nicollet Avenue and was an easy target for strong left-handed hitters. Mike Kelley, who owned the Millers from 1924 to 1946, built his 1930s powerhouse around that fence, pouncing on sinewy southpaw swingers who could bombard Nicollet Avenue beyond. Joe Hauser played for the Millers from 1932 to 1936 and hit 202 home runs during those five years. In 1933, Hauser set a professional baseball record with 69 homers; 50 of them were hit at Nicollet Park. Halsey Hall remembers the right-field fence being made a little higher over the years and awnings going down in front of the plate-glass windows on Nicollet Avenue businesses as insurance rates on window breakage rose.

In 1938 Ted Williams spent his last season in the minors with the Millers. As a 19-year-old in his second season of pro ball, Williams won the American Association Triple Crown, hitting .366 with 43 home runs and 142 RBIs while also leading the league in runs, total bases, and walks. In addition to Williams, some of baseball’s greatest players performed for the Millers at Nicollet Park, including Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Rube Waddell, Ray Dandridge, Monte Irvin, and Hoyt Wilhelm.

Known as a hitters’ park, Nicollet Park witnessed “hits” of different kind in the morning game of the Fourth of July two-game set in 1929. A brawl between the Millers and Saints drew the description of veteran baseball (and boxing) reporter George Barton as “the most vicious affair ever witnessed at Nicollet.” The trouble began in the third inning when Hughie McMullen grounded to Saints first-baseman Oscar Roettger. Pitcher Huck Betts covered first and was spiked by McMullen as he crossed the bag. The St. Paul and Minneapolis newspapers differed the next day as to whether the spiking was intentional, but apparently there was no doubt in Betts’s mind as he took the ball from his glove and fired it at McMullen’s head in retaliation. The throw missed, but Sammy Bohne didn’t. Bohne, a reserve infielder who was coaching first at the time, rushed Betts with a series of punches as the dugouts emptied. McMullen recalled, “Both clubs met in the pitcher’s box and you hit anyone near you.” The headline over Halsey Hall’s story in the Minneapolis Journal the next day read, “Sammy Bohne Doesn’t Play, But Gets More Hits Than Those Who Do.” There were plenty of ejections in the game, but Hugh McMullen was not among the ejectees—ironic because in a letter written by McMullen 55 years later, Hughie admitted that he had indeed spiked Betts intentionally in retaliation for a beanball Betts had thrown a few pitches earlier.

As opposed to a delay for brawling, Sunday doubleheaders were often cut short by a law requiring games to be stopped promptly at 6:00p.m. (The ordinance was repealed in 1941, but Mike Kelley continued to honor the policy.) In 1935 the Millers saw a 3–0 lead disappear as Toledo scored five runs in the top of the ninth. But the clock at Nicollet read 5:54 as the Millers came to bat. With shrewd stalling by Fabian Gaffke, Buzz Arlett, and Joe Hauser, the clock struck six o’clock before the final out was made; as a result, the score reverted back to the last full inning, wiping out the Mud Hen runs and giving the Millers a 3–0 win.

That same season Babe Ruth made a Nicollet Park appearance in a game between the Minneapolis and St. Paul police teams. Ruth played half a game with each team, and contributed a double in five trips to the plate. Pitching for the Minneapolis Police team, Pete Guzy, former East High and Minnesota Gopher pitching sensation and later the longtime football and baseball coach at Edison High, was able to count Babe as one of his 18 strikeout victims in the game.

In 1983 a historical marker was erected in front of the Norwest (now Wells Fargo) Bank on 31st and Nicollet, on the former site of Nicollet Park. The plaque was paid for in large part by donations from ex-players and fans. With their contributions came letters and notes to indicate that memories of Nicollet Park have not faded. Hughie McMullen, who played in the late 1920s, remembers even then Nicollet as a very old, run down park. “The fences were held up only by the paint on them,” says McMullen. Eddie Popowski managed the Millers in their final year at Met Stadium. But as an infielder with Louisville in 1943, he played at Nicollet and recalls players having their gloves and shoes chewed up by rats when they left them overnight. “Nicollet Park holds the best memories in baseball for me,” said Al Worthington. The star of the 1955 playoffs recalls that he had great success at Nicollet Park (his three-year won-loss record at Nicollet was 24–5). Al also remembers the lack of heat in the clubhouse. “It was so cold in April that taking a shower was almost like being outside when the sub-zero wind blew.”

* * *

Seven miles to the east of Nicollet Park was its St. Paul counterpart, Lexington Park, which opened in 1897 as home to Charles Comiskey’s Western League team. The team had been playing in a small ballpark on Dale Street, a block south of University Avenue, six days a week, but because of neighborhood opposition was forced to find other venues for Sunday games. One of those sites, a large lot on the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and University Avenue, approximately one mile west of the Dale Street park and bounded by Dunlap Avenue on the west and Fuller Avenue on the south, became the location for Lexington Park.

Like Nicollet Park, Lexington Park was well removed from the center city when it opened, which became an issue for owner George Lennon when his Saints joined the new American Association in 1902. Because Lennon found Lexington Park too remote, he built a new park on the northern edge of downtown St. Paul. Sunday games were played at Lexington Park, but from 1903 to 1909, the downtown site served as the primary home of the Saints. Starting in 1910, the Saints moved full time at Lexington Park.

Lexington Park had a serious fire in October of 1908, and following the 1915 season an even greater fire destroyed the grandstand. When the park was rebuilt, it was reconfigured, with the diamond turned 90 degrees, moving home plate from the southwest toward the northwest corner of the lot. The ballpark set back 100 feet from University Avenue, which was on the north side of the ballpark, and 100 feet from Lexington Avenue to the east. The main entrance to the grounds was behind home plate, at the corner of University and Dunlap.

With the new configuration came familiar landmarks outside the stadium. The most prominent was the Coliseum Pavilion beyond the left-field fence, its roof being the landing site for many home runs. To the south, behind right field, was Keys Well Drilling, which erected a sign bearing the company name that, although outside the ballpark, was clearly visible to those inside.

This sign wasn’t hit by home runs with the frequency of the Coliseum roof (if the sign ever was hit). In fact, for most of the life of the rebuilt Lexington Park, few balls cleared the right-field fence. The distance down the foul line in right field was 365 feet. A 12-foot-high wooden fence sat atop an embankment that led up to the fence.

Home runs to right field at Lexington Park were so rare as to be memorable. When the New York Yankees came to St. Paul for an exhibition game in June of 1926, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that only nine home runs had been hit over the right-field fence since the park had been rebuilt. Bruno Haas was the only player to have done so twice. In 1950, in his only season with the Saints, Lou Limmer, a left-handed hitter, led the American Association in home runs, even though he hit only one at home.

Disaster struck the Twin Cities on Friday, July 20, 1951, as high winds and floods caused millions of dollars in damage. One of the casualties of the gale was the right-field fence at Lexington Park, torn apart by winds reported to have reached 100 miles per hour. The Saints were in Kansas City at the time, giving management a chance to rebuild the barrier before the team returned. By August, when the Saints were back from their road trip, Lexington Park had a new right-field fence, and this one was much closer to home plate. The distance down the line had been shortened to 330 feet. To make it a bit more challenging, a double-decked fence was erected that was 25 feet high, although the embankment that the previous fence had rested atop was gone. Limmer, though, wasn’t around to enjoy new the fences; he had been promoted to the American League.

Lexington Park closed in 1956 and was replaced by a Red Owl grocery store. In 1958 Red Owl imbedded a plaque in the floor of the store to mark the spot of home plate (although it was not exact). Red Owl eventually moved out, but the property remained a supermarket. In the course of changing management, however, the home-plate plaque disappeared. In the summer of 1994, the Halsey Hall Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research began raising money from former Saints players and fans to erect another marker. In April 1994 a new plaque was mounted on the outside of the structure. When the building was later abandoned the plaque was placed in storage and awaits an appropriate time to be remounted.

MIDWAY AND THE MET

By the middle of the 20th century, it was clear that the Twin Cities’ minor league teams needed new ballparks. Around this same time, the itch for something more was emerging. The transfer of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee in 1953 gave local civic leaders and sports boosters hope that Minnesota could land a major league team, the pursuit of which would require a new ballpark. St. Paul and Minnesota both made plans for stadiums for their existing teams that they hoped would someday house a major league team.

St. Paul settled on a site in the midway area of the city, off Snelling Avenue just south of the State Fair grounds. Midway Stadium opened in 1957 and served the St. Paul Saints for four years. A single-decked stadium, the structure was designed to provide for additional decks if needed for a major league team. When major league baseball finally came, however, the team ended up in the new stadium built for the Minneapolis Millers. The arrival of the major leagues put the Saints and Millers out of business after the 1960 season, leaving Midway Stadium without either its primary tenant or the one it hoped to get.

For the next 20 years, Midway was used for a variety of activities: high-school and other amateur sports, exhibitions such as famed softball pitcher Eddie Feigner with the King and His Court, a practice facility for the Minnesota Vikings football team, and wrestling. Midway Stadium eventually became a drain on the city’s coffers and was frequently referred to as a “white elephant.” It was demolished in 1981, and the city successfully encouraged new office and industrial development on the site.

By the time Midway Stadium opened, the Minneapolis Millers already had a new stadium. Minneapolis business interests raised the money through bond sales for what became known as Metropolitan Stadium, located in Bloomington, a southern suburb. The new ballpark had three decks, which extended only to the end of each of the dugouts. What it didn’t have were posts to support the upper decks; the cantilever construction, rare in sports structures at the time, allowed fans an unobstructed view of the field.

The Millers played at Met Stadium from 1956 through 1960. The announcement near the end of October 1960 that Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith was moving his team to Minnesota culminated the state’s quest for major league baseball. The incoming Twins would play at Met Stadium, which would be expanded. The first two decks were extended down the right-field line although the grandstand on the third-base line was never extended.

Bleachers filled the gap down the left-field line, with wooden bleachers providing seating beyond the outfield fences. Eventually, a double-decked grandstand was built in left field for the Minnesota Vikings, the National Football League team that shared the stadium. In addition to the Twins and Vikings, the Met hosted the Minnesota Kicks soccer team as well as events ranging from wrestling matches to a Beat1es concert.

The Met was primarily a baseball stadium, and it didn’t work well for football. Even with the new grandstand, which provided more seats between the goal lines, spectators on both sides of the gridiron were far removed from the game. The Vikings were the first of the stadium’s tenants to seek a new home, starting in the early 1970s.

Weather was an ongoing challenge, and games were sometimes postponed or delayed because of rain, snow, and at least once by a nearby tornado touchdown. One delay occurred for a completely different reason. In the fourth inning of a game versus the Boston Red Sox on August 25, 1970, first-base umpire Nestor Chylak ran in toward the infield, waving his arms to call time. The interruption was explained with an announcement that the Bloomington police had been told an explosion would take place at Met Stadium at 9:30. The week before, the Old Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis had been bombed, and officials were taking no chances, although they allowed the game to start and be played until 9:15, approximately 45 minutes after the threat had been called in. The players congregated on the field, away from the stadium structure itself, and the fans were directed to the parking lots. Many of the fans, however, found their way onto the field where they mingled with the players and got autographs, while vendors worked the crowd, hawking concessions. Few people even noticed the time when the scoreboard clock showed 9:30, the time set for the explosion, which never occurred. Twenty minutes later, fans re-entered the stadium and cleared the field, and the game resumed shortly before 10:00. The only blast of the night was from Boston’s Tony Conigliaro, who homered in the eighth inning to give the Red Sox a 1–0 victory.

Harmon Killebrew provided the most frequent blasts, hitting many of his 573 career home runs at the Met. Two of the longest came on the first weekend of June in 1967. On Saturday, June 3, Killebrew homered into the upper deck in left. The estimated distance of the drive was 430 feet. (Met Stadium had been one of the first stadiums to measure homers, the result of a table used to record the distance to each section and row of the outfield seats; the measurements given were to the point of impact, not the estimated distance of how far the ball would have traveled had there been no obstructions.) The next day the Twins announced that the estimated distance it would have traveled was 520 feet. This announcement had barely been made when Killebrew connected again, hitting a shot off the facing of the second deck, farther toward left-center field. The estimated distance it would have traveled was given as 550 feet although the point of impact was measured at 434 feet.

Metropolitan Stadium’s biggest year was 1965, when it hosted both the All-Star Game and the World Series. The crowd at Metropolitan Stadium for the first game of the Series included a man from Illinois, Ralph Belcore. A veteran of 21 World Series, the 60-year-old Belcore had arrived at Met Stadium at 7:30 the morning of Sunday, September 26 to stake out the first spot in the ticket line for general admission seats, even though this left him with a wait of more than 245 hours before the first game. The Twins lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, four games to three, with more than 50,000 fans present for the decisive seventh game, the only time the Twins topped 50,000 in a game at Met Stadium.

The Twins were successful during their first decade in Minnesota. Their attendance topped 1,000,000 (then considered a benchmark for success) in each of their first 10 years at the Met, and they twice led the league in attendance. In total, over this decade the Twins led the American League in attendance. As the team dropped in the standings during the 1970s, however, so did attendance. The Twins joined the Vikings in seeking either a new stadium or significant improvements to the existing one and eventually were successful.

The Twins played their last baseball game at Met Stadium on September 30, 1981, losing to the Kansas City Royals. The final event at the Met was a Vikings game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, December 20, 1981. Following the game, fans in search of souvenirs ravaged the stadium, taking what wasn’t bolted down as well as many things that were.

Met Stadium remained partially dismantled for several years before being totally demolished, and it remained a vacant site for several more years before a large shopping center, dubbed the Mall of America, was erected on the site. A plaque marking the spot of home plate was installed in an amusement-park area in the middle of the shopping center.

HUBERT H. HUMPHREY METRODOME

The Minnesota Legislature passed a non-site specific stadium bill in 1977 and empowered a newly created stadium commission to evaluate options. In late 1978 the commission voted to erect a multi-purpose covered facility on the eastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome opened in 1982 with 55,000 seats available for baseball. The capacity for football—both the Vikings and the Minnesota Gophers, who abandoned Memorial Stadium on the University campus to play in the new domed facility—was 8,000 more than for baseball.

The first event was an exhibition baseball game between the Twins and Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday night, April 3. The temperature outside was 19 degrees, made colder by northwesterly winds of 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 45. Pete Redfern threw the first pitch for the Twins and the second batter up for the Phillies, Pete Rose, got the first hit. Kent Hrbek of the Twins hit the first two home runs in the new stadium. Three nights later, the first regular-season game was played, with the Twins losing to the Seattle Mariners. With two out in the bottom of the first, Minnesota’s Dave Engle put one over the left-field fence for the first official hit and home run in the Metrodome.

The Metrodome was functional but short on amenities. The sterile nature of the stadium was not conducive to the aesthetic atmosphere desired by many fans. Other problems included the roof, which caused players to lose sight of fly balls. The first inside-the-park home run at the Metrodome came on Friday night, May 28, 1982, when Tom Brunansky hit a high fly to left. Yankees left fielder Lou Piniella stood helplessly, his arms outstretched, as he couldn’t see the ball, which dropped to the ground and stayed in play by bouncing off the fence as Brunansky circled the bases. One ball that got lost in the roof in a more literal sense was hit on May 4, 1984, by Dave Kingman of Oakland, a pop up that didn’t come down. The ball went through a vent hole in the roof, and, by the ground rules of the Metrodome, Kingman was awarded a double.

The artificial turf initially installed in the Metro-dome was extremely spongy, causing high bounces that played havoc with fielders. White Sox right fielder Harold Baines suffered a related problem on Sunday, June 24, 1984. The Twins were trailing 2–0 with two on and one out in the last of the ninth when Tim Teufel dropped a hit into right field. Baines charged in to field the ball, which hit a seam in the turf, bounced over his head, and rolled to the fence. Teufel ended up with a game-winning, three-run inside-the-park home run. Different types of artificial turf have been installed since then, generally correcting the problem.

Although the roof insulated the Twins from weather problems, one game was postponed after a storm, which began the evening of Wednesday, April 13, 1983, and dumped 131?2 inches of wet, heavy snow on the Twin Cities. The California Angels, scheduled to play the Twins on Thursday night, had taken an overnight flight from California and arrived over the Twin Cities at about 5:30 on Thursday morning. The plane, however, was unable to land and diverted to Chicago, where the Angels spent the day. The absence of the Angels, combined with concerns for the safety of players and fans trying to get to the Metrodome that night, prompted the Twins to postpone the game. That night, a chunk of ice tore a 20-foot gap in the roof of the Metrodome, causing it to deflate. The roof collapse is often given as the reason for the postponement, but in fact, the game had already been postponed nearly 12 hours earlier. On a side note, a roof collapse on the Metrodome in 2010 did cause a Minnesota Vikings game to be moved. The game, scheduled against the New York Giants for noon on Sunday, December 12, was first postponed until Monday night after the Giants’ flight on Saturday was diverted to Kansas City. When the roof collapsed and tore later in the day, it became uncertain when the stadium would be available again, and the National Football League moved the game to Detroit. The Metrodome was still out of service the following week, so the Vikings played their final home game of the season at TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota.

A roof breach that did affect a game occurred on Saturday night, April 26, 1986. In the eighth inning, a storm ripped a hole in the roof, soaking fans in the upper deck in right field as water poured through. High winds also caused the light bars to sway and the game was delayed as fans were evacuated from the seating area. The game was eventually resumed, but the Twins may have wished it wasn’t as the California Angels scored six runs in the ninth inning, capped by a two-out, two-run home run by Wally Joyner off Ron Davis, to win 7–6. In the end, despite its many complaints and flaws, the Metrodome’s tenure as the home of the Twins and Vikings exceeded that of Met Stadium.

As part of the authorizing stadium legislation, the Twins and Vikings had been required to sign 30-year leases. However, Twins owner Calvin Griffith insisted on an escape clause, which could be triggered if, among other things, the Twins did not average at lease 1.4 million fans per year over three consecutive years. It also required the installation of air conditioning if the lack of it affected attendance. Although the duct work was in place, the stadium opened without air conditioning, and the Metrodome climate was oppressive during the first summer. Air conditioning was installed and was first used in June of 1983.

Even with the cooler temperatures in the Metro-dome, drawing fans was a problem, mainly because of the poor performance by the Twins. Despite a number of players who would later become stars, in 1982 the Twins lost more than 100 games and attendance was only 921,186. In 1983, the Twins were 70–92 and it was becoming clear that attendance would probably not achieve the average of 1.4 million per season through 1984, allowing Griffith to terminate the lease.

In response the local business community began buying unused tickets to the games. The plan was to buy the least expensive tickets, which meant focusing on the weekday games when ticket prices were discounted. The first occurrence of a buyout was on Tuesday night, May 15, 1984, when the Twins played the Toronto Blue Jays. Although fewer than 10,000 fans attended the game, the paid attendance was 26,761. The next day, with discounted prices in effect, the paid attendance was 51,863, although the number of fans present was closer to 8,700 (with more than 2,300 of those being school-patrol members who got in free, leaving the turnstile count for paid ticket holders at 6,346). The Twins began announcing two attendance figures for games based on tickets sold and on the turnstile count. A legal battle loomed as to whether this artificial padding of attendance would actually stop Griffith from exercising his escape clause; instead, in June of 1984, Griffith signed a letter of intent to sell the Twins to banker and Pepsi bottling magnate Carl Pohlad.

Despite the new ownership, concerns over the lack of stadium revenues prompted the Twins to seek a new stadium in the latter part of the 1990s. The drawn out negotiations revealed that additional escape clauses in varying forms remained, and the threat for the team to leave (either by relocation or by being entirely eliminated, an issue that surfaced after the 2001 season) resurfaced.

As construction was in its final stages for a new Twins’ stadium at the other end of downtown Minneapolis, major league baseball at the Metrodome featured a set of reprieves in October 2009. The Twins’ final scheduled game of the season was at home, against Kansas City, on Sunday, October 4. Only three weeks before that, Minnesota was 51?2 games behind first-place Detroit. However, the Twins won 11 of their next 12 and were back in the race. On October 4 Minnesota beat Kansas City 13–4 to tie the Tigers for first place, meaning at least one more game in the Metrodome. Two days later, Minnesota hosted a tiebreaker game against Detroit, an exciting back-and-forth contest that ended with a 6–5 win for the Twins in 12 innings.

The Metrodome lived on but faced another possible final game on Sunday, October 11. The Twins had dropped the first two games of their best-of-five playoff series against the Yankees in New York. In Game Three at the Metrodome, Minnesota carried a 1–0 lead into the seventh, but home runs by Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada (the latter one the last ever hit in a major league game in the stadium) sent the Yankees on to a 4–1 win, eliminating the Twins and ending their 28-season tenure in the Metrodome.

TARGET FIELD

Although the Metrodome was expected to serve the Twins for at least 30 years, by the mid-1990s the Twins were pushing for a new home. In 1997 owner Carl Pohlad unsuccessfully sought public funding for a new park, one with a retractable roof on a site along the Mississippi River, a few blocks from the Metrodome. The proposal turned into a public-relations disaster when what appeared to be the offer of a significant contribution by the Twins turned out to be more along the lines of a loan; in addition, the threat of a move by the Twins to North Carolina hung over the issue and turned off some fans. The level of distrust intensified after a book, Stadium Games by Society for American Baseball Research member Jay Weiner, suggested that the proposed ownership group in North Carolina was put in place more for the purpose of giving the Twins and Minnesota stadium proponents additional leverage than it was to present a serious offer to purchase and move the team.

Pohlad’s talk of moving the Twins, combined with the illusory nature of the “contribution” to a new ballpark, turned the man once seen as the savior of the franchise when he purchased it in 1984 into a villain. Pohlad’s popularity plummeted further a few years later when it was reported that he had volunteered the Twins as one of the two teams to be contracted in exchange for a large sum of money—reported to be anywhere from $150 million to $250 million—from Major League Baseball.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig faced many obstacles in carrying out his team-trimming, and one of the first hurdles tripped him up. The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission filed suit to compel the Twins to honor their lease at the Metrodome. On November 16, 2001, only 10 days after the vote by the owners for contraction, Hennepin County District Judge Harry Crump granted an injunction that prohibited the Twins from taking any action that would prevent them from playing in the Metrodome in 2002. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in January, and the state Supreme Court the following month refused to hear the case. It is unlikely that contraction would have occurred even if the injunction had not been granted, but the court actions signaled the end of any hope Selig had for getting rid of two teams in 2002. Meanwhile the city of St. Paul had gotten into the act, making an attempt to lure the Twins from Minneapolis, but this effort died when St. Paul voters rejected a referendum to raise their sales tax to fund a new stadium.
By the time most of the controversy from these actions dissipated, another push began. In 2005 the Twins and Hennepin County, which encompasses Minneapolis, reached agreement on a package to fund a new ballpark. However, approval from the Minnesota Legislature was needed to allow the county to raise its sales tax without a county-wide referendum, and the Legislature adjourned its 2005 session without final action on a ballpark bill.

Finally in 2006, the state legislation was approved and that summer the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners authorized a .15 percent sales tax to partially fund a new ballpark. The site was on the northwestern edge of Minneapolis’s downtown, just over one mile from the Metrodome and one block beyond Target Center, the arena that houses the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. (Eventually the naming rights for the Twins’ stadium were sold to Target Corporation, which already held the rights to the name of the basketball arena, and the new ballpark is called “Target Field.”)

The plan called for an open-air stadium with no provisions for a retractable roof. Money for a roof wasn’t available, and constraints on the eight-acre site do not allow for a movable roof to be added in the future. The site for the ballpark was being used as a parking lot and is located between two elevated roads: Fifth Street North to the northeast (beyond what would be the left-field stands) and Seventh Street North to the southwest (behind first base). To the northeast, behind third base, is the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, a waste-to-energy facility commonly known as the “garbage burner.” Interstate 394, to the southeast beyond right field, separates the site from Target Center, although a parking ramp is over the freeway and eventually a plaza was built over I-394 to allow better access to the ballpark. In addition, a light-rail line was extended a few blocks to get to Target Field, where it connects with commuter rail that runs to the northern and northwest suburbs and beyond. With the new site, in a small way baseball in Minnesota returned to its past; only a block away from the center field entrance was the left-field corner of Athletic Park, home to the Minneapolis Millers from 1889 to 1896.

A ceremonial groundbreaking scheduled for early August 2007 was postponed for several weeks following the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River. Construction progressed over the next two-and-a-half years. Much of the erecting was done from the inside out with cranes on the site of the field hoisting exterior panels and other materials over the top of the emerging structure.

Target Field includes many features and amenities, including a range of dining options, that had not been present in the Twins’ previous homes. In addition, the Twins decided to use the high-profile nature of their new ballpark to highlight issues of sustainability. The ballpark includes a membrane filtration system to capture and treat rainwater for use in irrigating the field and washing the grandstand. Besides reducing municipal water usage by more than 50 percent, saving more than 2 million gallons of water each year, the arrangement brings attention to the global issue of water, raising awareness of the value of sustainability and the wise use of water. 

The first event in Target Field was a college baseball game between the Minnesota Gophers and Louisiana Tech Bulldogs on Saturday, March 27, 2010. Clint Ewing of the Bulldogs hit the first home run in the park as Louisiana Tech beat Minnesota 9–1. Approximately 35,000 people passed through on the first day with fans watching the game while also checking out the features of the new digs.

The following weekend the Twins hosted a pair of exhibition games, both in front of sellout crowds, against the St. Louis Cardinals. Denard Span of Minnesota hit the first major league home run in Target Field during a win by the Cardinals on Friday, April 2.

The Twins went on the road to open the regular season and returned for a homestand, starting against the Boston Red Sox, on Monday, April 12. Under partly-cloudy skies with a temperature of 65 degrees, Minnesota’s Carl Pavano delivered the first pitch at 3:13p.m., officially bringing outdoor major league baseball back to Minnesota. The Twins won the game 5–2 with Jason Kubel of Minnesota hitting the only home run, a drive to right leading off the last of the seventh. Two innings earlier, Boston’s Mike Cameron hit a long fly to left that disappeared in a narrow gap between the foul pole and a limestone wall. Third-base umpire Kerwin Danley ruled the ball foul, but the umpires conferred and decided to use video replay to confirm the call. Danley’s foul ruling was upheld, and Cameron struck out on the next pitch. Video replay became a relatively common occurrence at Target Field during its first year; it was used eight times (with two calls being overturned and six upheld) in 2010, setting a record for the most uses of replay in a season at one stadium.

In its first season, Target Field demonstrated itself to be a pitchers’ park as it was below average in runs scored and last in home runs. Joe Mauer, after hitting 28 home runs in 2009 (16 in the Metrodome), hit only 9 in 2010, 1 at home. On the other hand, the Twins’ Jim Thome hit 15 of his team-high 25 home runs at Target Field in 2010, including a Labor Day blast off the top of the flag pole in right that was measured at 480 feet.

In 2011 the Twins added a video board above the stands in right field so that fans in left field could see it as well as a 100-foot-high tower in right field for animation and graphics. The top of the tower displays the time.

The Twins also made some changes to help their hitters, some of whom had complained about the surface of the center-field batters’ eye as well as the spruce trees in front of the batters’ eye. The hitters said they had trouble “locking in” on pitches with the trees swaying in the wind, so the 14 trees were removed. Nevertheless, the park continued to play to the benefit of the pitchers, particularly by depressing home runs for left-handed batters. In 2010 Target Field had a run index of 96, meaning it depressed runs by 4 percent relative to a neutral park; in 2011 the run index actually declined slightly to 94. The home run index for left-handed batters was only 65 and 72 respectively for the two seasons.

The opening of Target Field began another chapter in Minnesota baseball. Metropolitan Stadium was a workable stadium for major league baseball. With its often described erector-set construction, the Met didn’t have the character of ballparks from the classic era of stadium design. However, it has become the symbol of nostalgia and happy memories for many who grew up with it. The Metrodome was functional—it could be converted to handle baseball and football, not to mention a wide range of other sports and activities—but completely without charm. It ensured games would be played as scheduled and protected fans from rain, cold, and sometimes snow, but it also shielded them from the sun and pleasant days and nights that are a common, if not constant, part of Minnesota summers. Target Field was built amid the period of retro-ballparks, facilities built for baseball only along with distinctive features for an old-feel look and modern amenities. Many fans embraced the idea of a smaller stadium for a seemingly more intimate feel and have had to face the realities of having a harder time getting tickets. Limiting supply, owners have found, has a way of creating and maintaining demand and, Target Field proved a popular destination for fans during its first season. Out of 85 games (including two exhibition and two playoff games), all but two were sold out, and the Twins had a regular-season attendance of 3,223,640. The fortunes of the Twins will no doubt influence the demand in the future, but the new ballpark clearly appears to have brought a new look and feel to the game and re-energized baseball fans in Minnesota.

STEW THORNLEY is an author of books on sports history for adults and young readers. He received the SABR-Macmillan Baseball Research Award in 1988 for his first book, “On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers.” He also enjoys visiting graves of notable people and is the author of “Six Feet Under: A Graveyard Guide to Minnesota.” Stew is an official scorer for Minnesota Twins home games and also does the datacasting of games for MLB.com Gameday. He lives in Roseville, Minnesota, with his wife, Brenda Himrich, and their cats, Jeter and Mickey.

Every day, about a quarter of a million cars race east and west along a one-block-wide corridor sunk below grade a few blocks south of downtown Minneapolis. It is here that Interstates 94 and 35W meet and briefly merge, with twelve lanes of traffic and assorted ramps filling the space between Park and Portland Avenues on the east and west sides, and Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets on the north and south. The noise and commotion at this block is significant and dramatic. 

Just over 125 years ago, this same block was the site of different noise and commotion when it contained, for one short season, the 1884 Minneapolis Northwestern League ballpark. The cacophony here was exactly what one might expect near a nineteenth-century ballpark, with fans, vendors, traffic, and brass bands crowding into the space for the team’s home games, but this place created more than just ballgame-related sounds. The usual and expected chaos attendant to professional baseball was accompanied by social tensions and legal difficulties, and the ballpark became the proxy for this conflict.

While perhaps more pronounced than similar difficulties at other ballparks, what sets this ballpark and its story apart is the remarkable amount of surviving documentation. These resources reveal not only the story of the ballpark’s construction and brief use, but they also present a lively snapshot of professional baseball in the late nineteenth century.

In the fall of 1883, Minneapolis baseball devotees set out to organize a professional team for the following season. With high expectations, public organizational meetings were announced. Attendees at the first gatherings included a range of citizens: some were established businessmen and professionals from the city’s well-to-do families, while others were young middle-manager types. This relatively diverse group reflected widespread interest in the sport, and by November 1883, they had organized themselves and incorporated the Minneapolis Base Ball Association. Early enthusiasm waned, however, and as the months passed, the most prominent citizens largely disappeared from view, leaving the organization in the hands of the less-well-heeled clerks, bookkeepers, and bartenders.[fn]Minneapolis Base Ball Association Articles of Incorporation, November 1883. Minnesota State Archives: Secretary of State, Corporate Division, Incorporations Book I, 528, Minnesota Historical Society; Minneapolis Tribune, “Base Ball: A New Northwestern League,” September 22, 1883; Minneapolis Tribune, “A Base Ball Club,” October 24, 1883; Minneapolis Tribune, “Gossip About Town: The Base Ball Association,” November 8, 1883.[/fn] 

The new association quickly embarked on the many tasks necessary to fielding a professional team. Chief among these was raising money to hire a manager and players and to build a playing space. Appealing to civic boosterism and the possibility of financial returns, the association solicited funds through public stock sales. Although a number of leading Minneapolitans bought shares of stock, the subscribers were not a small group of wealthy individuals with a clear business plan. Instead, funding came in small increments of voluntary support from a variety of individuals paying their stock assessments over time. Further, the stock offering was never fully subscribed; just under half of the shares were sold by the time the new ballpark opened in June 1884. This precarious financial model left the association and its team inadequately capitalized. They had insufficient support for their initial pre-season costs, and then insufficient revenues during the season to pay their operating expenses. Nevertheless, as the season began, organizers expected that high profile games with leading teams in the league—and especially with cross-river rival Saint Paul—would generate enough income to help them succeed.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, “Gossip About Town,” October 24, 1883; Minneapolis Tribune, “The National Game,” October 30, 1883; Minneapolis Tribune, “Base Ball Stock: An Appeal to be Made to Business Men and Others,” January 26, 1884; Saturday Evening Spectator, “Home-Hitters,” June 28, 1884.[/fn]

In addition to finding financial backers from among the city’s baseball fans, it was essential to recruit talented professional players. This was a significant challenge in 1884. A dramatic national expansion of league baseball, including the formation of the putatively major league Union Association, meant that quality players were in demand. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association sought to affiliate itself with the relatively new Northwestern League (1883), which began its 1884 season with twelve teams from five western Great Lakes states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota. The Northwestern League’s territory was geographically large and included Lake Michigan, a significant travel obstacle. The U-shaped territory created a circuit range of about 2,000 miles, and the Twin Cities were far afield from Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw. Traveling so far north and west for a single series was not feasible for the other teams and so in order for any Minnesota city to have a team in this league, more than one city and team needed to join. As a result, three closely spaced Minnesota cities—Stillwater, Saint Paul, and Minneapolis— helped form the league.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, “Base Ball: A New Northwestern League,” September 22, 1883; Minneapolis Tribune, “The Base Ball Club: Manager Tuthill Returns and Reports Everything Lovely,” January 3, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “The National Game: The Expectations for Minneapolis Next Season,” January 3, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “The Base Ball League,” January 8, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “We are a League City,” January 10, 1884; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Base Ball: Minneapolis and St. Paul Admitted to the Northwestern League, Composed of Twelve Teams,” January 11, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “Base Ball: The Question of Sunday Games,” March 22, 1884. Later, Winona would take a spot in the league as other teams folded. Saturday Evening Spectator, August 16, 1884.[/fn]

The tasks of league affiliation and player recruitment were entrusted to the team’s manager, Benjamin Tuthill (1861–1936) from Saginaw. A youthful manager who turned twenty-three as the season began, Tuthill was likely put forward for the job by Northwestern League president John Rust, also a Saginaw resident. While Tuthill’s baseball career was quite brief—a single season as Minneapolis skipper and a little bit of umpiring—his larger entertainment career was lengthy. After leaving baseball in 1884, he went immediately to the theater worlds of New York and Chicago. Tuthill spent the remainder of his long career as a theatrical agent and manager, marrying various actresses along the way and finding himself involved in the occasional lawsuit or controversy.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, “Base Ball in Minneapolis,” October 19, 1883; Minneapolis Journal, “No Sunday Games,” January 18, 1884; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Scraps of Sport,” February 1, 1888; St. Paul Daily Globe, “All is Not Lovely in the Managerial Department of the ‘Said Pasha’ Company,” January 12, 1890; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Romance to Reality,” April 10, 1891; New York Sun, “Manager Tuthill Marries,” September 19, 1892; New York Clipper Annual, 1893, 6; New York Dramatic Mirror, “A New Stock Company,” January 5, 1898.[/fn]

Selection of the playing grounds was another essential task for the Minneapolis Base Ball Association. In December 1883, the Minneapolis team announced that they would play at a site about two and a half miles south of downtown, along Nicollet Avenue at Thirty-first Street. The place had been used for baseball before; in fact, as recently as July 1883, the non-league Minneapolis Brown Stockings had built a facility there. A dozen years later, in 1896, the site would be chosen to replace the downtown Athletic Park (1889–96) and would become the location of Nicollet Park (1896–1955), home for more than half a century to the Minneapolis Millers.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, “Gossip About Town,” November 27, 1883, and December 12, 1883; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Twenty-Six to Three,” June 29, 1883.[/fn]

In 1884, these grounds were relatively remote and beyond an acceptable walking distance from the city center, but they were served by two independent transit systems. The steam trains of the Minneapolis, Lyndale & Minnetonka railroad, known as the Motor Line, ran from downtown Minneapolis to this block, and then turned west to the increasingly popular Minneapolis lakes and Lake Minnetonka. The area was also served by the Minneapolis Street Railway, a streetcar company that would soon electrify its lines and expand to encompass both Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s transit systems, operating for decades as the Twin City Rapid Transit Company.

Securing the ballpark’s location in the fall preceding the season was typical of this era, as was waiting until just weeks before the season began to actually build the facility. In this case, the common delay between fall site selection and spring construction allowed the association to change its mind about where to locate the grounds. The association criticized transit magnates Thomas Lowry of the Street Railway and William McCrory of the Motor Line for not buying baseball stock. Claiming that they should not be rewarded with ballpark-related transit business if they were not willing to invest in the project themselves, the baseball association reconsidered the grounds arrangement in late March and sought a location that was closer to the center of the city and less reliant on mass transit.[fn]Minneapolis Journal, “Sporting Gossip: The Base Ball Grounds,” March 31, 1884; Saturday Evening Spectator, “Home-Hitters,” June 28, 1884.[/fn]

They found an open area just south of the city’s grid change, where the street layout shifted from an angled alignment determined by the Mississippi River’s course to a more traditional compass-oriented plan. A full block of approximately six acres, the land sat between Park and Portland Avenues and Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets, approximately one and a half miles from St. Anthony Falls and a fifteen-minute walk from the old downtown center.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, “The City,” April 17, 1884; Saturday Evening Spectator, “Spectator About Town,” April 19, 1884; Minneapolis Tribune, “The Base Ball Grounds,” May 9, 1884.[/fn] 

The empty block was vacant in a couple of senses of the word. First, there was nothing built on it, and second, it was not subdivided. Most of the surrounding blocks had been subdivided in preparation for the construction of individual residences, but this block was visually, physically, and legally “open” space. The residents near this block, all of whom were relatively new to the neighborhood, were evidently accustomed to this open land and their views of it. They objected when it was leased for the baseball park, and they continued to protest as more than 40 trees were cleared to make room for the ballpark’s field and structures.[fn]C. M. Foote, Atlas of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1892 and 1898, plate 15. The baseball association had a three-year lease costing $1,000 a year; one resident claimed that he would have contributed one hundred dollars to help lease the land to prevent its alteration. Saturday Evening Spectator, “Spectator About Town,” May 3, 1884.[/fn]

In objecting to the site preparations, the neighbors blamed the local agent who worked for the absentee landlords, inaccurately identified as New Yorkers who had inherited the property. In fact, a group from Massachusetts owned the land, including Roger Sherman Moore, a Springfield banker, lawyer, and real estate speculator who seems never to have lived in Minneapolis. Moore and his associates were originally from Southwick and other nearby communities in Hampden County, Massachusetts, and they owned land in this part of Minneapolis as well as at a number of sites in St. Paul. Heman Laflin, Joseph M. Forward, and Edward Bates Gillett—Hampden County people all—were in and out of Moore’s ownership group over the years. That their investment property produced some rental income was an advantage for these absentee landlords. Unlike the block’s neighbors, then, Moore and his co-owners would have been pleased with the work of their local agent.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, Legal notice, August 15, 1874; Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased from June, 1890, to June, 1900 (New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1900), 209, accessed at http://books.google.com/books?id=QFgdAQAAIAAJ&pg on June 25, 2011; William Richard Cutter and William Frederick Adams, Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, vol. 3, 1815, accessed at http://books.google.com/books?id=Bc8UAAAAYAAJ&dq on August 22, 2011; When the block was finally sub-divided, the addition was named Gillett, Forward and Smith’s addition.[/fn]

Having found a new location, the baseball association hired Minneapolis’s busiest architect, Leroy S. Buffington, to design the ballpark. Buffington (1847–1931) had been at work on many high-visibility projects, including the showplace Pillsbury A-Mill in Minneapolis (1881) and the second Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul (1883), as well as various commercial blocks and residences. His fashionable West Hotel (1884) in downtown Minneapolis was under construction when the baseball grounds were built. This may have been the first time that a prominent architect was hired for a ballpark job in the Twin Cities, though it was certainly not the last.[fn]In 1888, for example, the young Cass Gilbert and his partner, James Knox Taylor, were hired to design the Athletic Park in St. Paul. Within a decade, Gilbert’s portfolio would include the design for the third (and present) Minnesota State Capitol, built to replace the relatively new but deeply disliked Buffington building. Minneapolis Tribune, “A Successful Architect,” January 13, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “Sporting,” April 15, 1884; Muriel B. Christison, “LeRoy S. Buffington and the Minneapolis Boom of the 1880’s,” Minnesota History 23:3 (September 1942), 219-232; St. Paul Daily Globe, “The Falling Capitol: Architect Buffington Trying to Hang It to Its Roof,” August 13, 1884; R. S. Fender vs. Minneapolis Base Ball Association, Hennepin County Lien Book F, 242–245.[/fn]

Preparation of the grounds began in late April and construction began in late May. Home plate and the surrounding grandstand sat at the southeast corner of the block, placing the fans in full sun during the afternoon games and necessitating a late modification of the architectural plans to include an awning. In fact, most ballpark elements emphasized fan comfort. The St. Paul Pioneer Press described such features as “dressing and retiring rooms for both gentlemen and ladies, and bath rooms for the players,” as well as “one hundred posts for horses.”[fn]R. S. Fender vs. Minneapolis Base Ball Association; Pioneer Press, “The New Minneapolis Base Ball Park,” May 19, 1884.[/fn] 

While taking great care to create a park that would please the fans inside, relatively little was done to ease the concerns of the neighbors around the park. Just three weeks into the season, the neighbors filed for an injunction to stop play at the site, basing their complaints on property damage, disorderly behavior, appearances, and noise, among other things. Acknowledging that these elements were “the natural, probable, and necessary consequences” of baseball grounds, they did not seek to alter the operations. Instead, they wanted the facility closed and removed. This direct legal action is unusual in the history of local ballparks and reveals much about the varying perceptions of life in the growing city of Minneapolis.[fn]Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association, 18870, 4th Judicial District, Hennepin County (1884); St. Paul Daily Globe, “Minneapolis Globelets,” July 2, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “The Courts,” July 7, 1884; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Enjoining Base Ballists,” July 8, 1884; Minneapolis Tribune, “They Don’t Like Base Ball, and, Therefore, Petition for an Injunction Restraining the Ball Club,” July 8, 1884.[/fn]

The neighborhood’s evolution explains much of the animosity. Both Park and Portland Avenues were emerging as important residential thoroughfares running out from the central business district.  In keeping with the image they hoped to create, the residents exchanged the avenues’ assigned numbers—Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue—for the more elegant and evocative “Portland” and “Park” Avenues.  Within six years, neighbors would organize the Park Avenue Improvement Association and mansions would fill the large lots facing these streets.[fn]See, for example, Larry Millett, Once There Were Castles: Lost Mansions and Estates of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).[/fn]

The name of lumber company owner Charles S. Bardwell appeared at the top of every legal document and press report about neighborhood objections. Bardwell’s home, one of the largest in the area, was constructed in 1882 and cost $8,000 to build, making it far more expensive than the vast majority of Minneapolis residences built that year. The house sat at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and Eighteenth Street, and Bardwell could congratulate himself on both the beautiful house and its wonderful location, situated as it was on a large lot along this developing high-class residential boulevard. Its north side and many of its windows faced the empty lot that initially provided a park-like setting—but not a ballpark-like setting, which is what it became once the block was cleared, fenced, and required a ticket for admission.[fn]Minneapolis Tribune, “An Imposing Array of Buildings Erected in Minneapolis in 1882,” January 1, 1883; Minneapolis Tribune, “The Court Records,” July 8, 1884; Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

It should be noted that not all the neighbors disliked the ballpark. Some supported the baseball association, saying that they and their families enjoyed the games. What’s more, the team asserted that some of the complainants sold viewing space on their roofs and in their windows, thereby profiting from the baseball games they claimed to dislike.[fn]Affidavits from A. C. Lanphere and H. R. Porter, in Charles S. Bardwell, et al, vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn] 

Bardwell and many of his neighbors launched a legal assault on the ballpark, weaving together several arguments about the importance of open space in an urbanizing environment, the need to segregate commerce and residence in the new industrial urban order, and the threat posed by the daily arrival of the wrong sort of people. In their complaint, they defined their neighborhood as quiet and residential, “suitable and agreeable for the purposes of the best class of family homes,” and argued that they had improved their property with trees, flowers, and shrubs. The baseball grounds were detrimental to the identity, character, and carefully tended visual surroundings they sought to create.[fn]Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

They complained about the noise: “a large and noisy crowd of several hundred men and boys has been attracted to and has collected in the streets” and then “during a great part of said times Bands of Brass instruments are playing loud and noisy tunes,” while crowds of fifteen hundred to three thousand people “continually shout, clap their hands, stamp with their feet and make loud and deafening noises and demonstrations.” The neighbors complained about the visual environment: in addition to the removal of the trees in May, they disliked the fences and stands being built on the block. They also claimed that the “defendant and other persons throw about, strew, and distribute large numbers of paper posters and advertisements of various descriptions in the streets and over plaintiffs [sic] premises.” The temporary stands and booths erected on the sidewalks for selling lemonade, cigars, pop, and peanuts were also offensive.[fn]Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn] 

The traffic, both inside and outside of the grounds, was objectionable, including not only the vehicles parked on the field but also the “horses and wagons, carriages and buggies, which are not taken within the said enclosure but are hitched, tied or left standing” about the streets in front of the residences and blocking the streets for several hours—and “many of which are driven into the plaintiffs door yards and over and upon plaintiffs lawns and flowers, and are tied and fastened to plaintiffs trees, fences and posts.” Not only were the animals and vehicles a problem, so too were the “large noisy and promiscuous crowds” of men and boys who “swarm over the lawns and flowers, and climb onto porches, roofs, sheds, barns and residences” and into the trees to see the games. Property damage and danger were among the concerns, including a broken window in the Bardwell house, which stood closest to the grandstand. “Balls used in said games are very hard and dangerous instruments and are frequently batted or forced with great violence . . . endangering the lives and bodily safety of the plaintiffs families” and when the balls left the grounds, men and boys “rush upon the plaintiffs premises to recover said balls, trampling upon plaintiffs ornamental lawns, flower beds and shrubbery and brushing against, shaking and injuring the plaintiffs trees and otherwise injuring said premises.”[fn]Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

Any residential community might reasonably object to circumstances such as these. In the complaints, however, we can read of issues deeper than disliking big crowds and noisy brass bands. In general, the legal battle between neighborhood and ballpark revealed several community tensions. One dealt with understandings of open space. Minneapolis had just formed a park board in the previous year, something that had been a matter of significant public discussion. Talk of parks and their benefits was also an important part of recent national dialogue. Although not a public park, the ballpark’s block had functioned like one, creating “open, ample breathing space” for Minneapolitans, “essential to the health, as well as the happiness, of thickly settled communities.” Beauty and nature were commonly understood as an antidote to urban life, something increasingly essential as Minneapolis grew to face challenges already seen in the older and larger cities to the east, and the neighbors drew on the language of order, beauty, peace, and quiet in discussing the ball grounds’ problems. They described their neighborhood as “fitted up,” “improved,” “beautiful,” and “carefully kept,” making it “quiet” and “agreeable,” an exclusively residential area for a fine class of people. In contrast to the orderliness and beauty of their property, they emphasized the disorder, chaos, and damage created by the ballpark. They described the block’s baseball use as an “appropriation” of the open space, rather than characterizing it as the result of a legal and orderly real estate transaction, and they failed to acknowledge the “improvement” of the grounds by the baseball association. Seeing the ballpark and its use as an assault on nature, the neighbors regularly spoke of—or on behalf of—the landscape features great and small, from the trees to the grass.[fn]John Rea, letter to the editor, Minneapolis Tribune, May 23, 1880, quoted in Theodore Wirth, Retrospective Glimpses into the History of the Board of Park Commissioners of Minneapolis, Minnesota and the City’s Park, Parkway, and Playground System: Minneapolis Park System 1883–1944 (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Parks Legacy Society, 2006), 17–18; Charles S. Bardwell, et al, vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

A second area of tension arose from the proximity of residences and businesses. The area was described as being distant from the “crowded and noisy” portions of the city, which were associated with economic activity, not residential life. There were strong objections to the perceived intrusion of commercial activities into the neighborhood: ticket offices and gates for the collection of admittance fees, money-making “devices” like concession stands, and the extensive advertising, signs, and posters. Further, complaints about the appearance of the structures—with a “grand stand,” “raised seats” and “high board fences”— were frequently associated with height, itself a characteristic of the buildings found in the central business district.[fn]Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

In responding to this array of charges, the baseball association noted that it had made numerous concessions to the neighbors. For example, they had built lower fences than originally planned, and with higher quality lumber, in an attempt to make the facility less objectionable and more attractive. The purchase of surfaced lumber made the project more expensive, and an agreement not to post advertising on the fences cost the team expected income. Further, lower fences made it easier for people to see into the park without paying for tickets—another potential blow to the revenue. It was also noted that baseball would be played for only a few months out of the year, and then for only an hour or two a day. The brass bands played but for ten or fifteen minutes at the start of the game, and with an average attendance of only 800 respectable fans, the amount of disruption would be minimal. Streets would never be blocked and police would be present in the unlikely event that order needed to be restored. For most of the year and for most hours during the baseball season, the ballpark would be a quiet place fully compatible with its neighbors. The baseball association also deployed the discourse of nature as an antidote to urban and commercial disorder as they defended the ballpark. Most revealing was the association’s response to the claim that baseballs represented a danger. Rather than describing them as propelled by the swing of a bat, the defendants noted that the baseballs were the size of apples, and argued that they “fell” into the street, much like fruit falling from a tree. In this, of course, the baseball club was turning the language of nature back against its opponents.[fn]J. H. Murch and F. W. Partridge deposition, in Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

Their arguments made, the association and the neighbors then awaited the district court’s decision while the games continued. In the end, the residents around Park and Portland Avenues prevailed in their attempt to remove the baseball grounds from their neighborhood. In late August 1884, the court granted their request, and the baseball association was enjoined from playing at those grounds past October 15, 1884. They were also prohibited from scheduling additional events or games, and the structures on the property were to be removed within ten days of the October 15 deadline. These fall deadlines proved to be irrelevant, however, as the team folded in early September.[fn]Saturday Evening Spectator, “Spectator About Town,” July 26, 1884, and August 23, 1884; Minneapolis Journal, “Sporting: Base Ball,” August 21, 1884; Minneapolis Tribune, “The City,” August 21, 1884; Judgment Rule, Charles S. Bardwell, et al., vs. The Minneapolis Base Ball Association.[/fn]

The abrupt and early end to the Minneapolis season was not the end of the story, however, as problems with the 1884 ballpark’s construction shifted into the courts. The project’s contractor, Robert Fender, first put a lien on the property and later filed a lawsuit to receive full payment for his services. He had been paid about two-thirds of what was owed to him, probably in weekly wages to the construction workers, but had not received the remainder of his $600.63 payment within thirty days of the project’s completion. His complaint, like those of the neighbors, provides some insight into the details of the project and the facility. The itemized bill hints at some of the details of the structure, including the installation of a bathtub (a $6.00 item) and the digging and making of two privy vaults (at $1.50 each). We learn that the facility included twelve gates, secured with Yale locks, and was fitted out with 21 dozen coat hooks.[fn]R. S. Fender vs. Minneapolis Base Ball Association; St. Paul Daily Globe, “The Courts,” December 28, 1884.[/fn]

Even more extensive was the legal dispute with the lumber company, Farnham & Lovejoy. They had delivered approximately 107,000 board feet of lumber to the ball grounds in early June, running up a bill totaling $1,613.81. After unsuccessful attempts to collect payment, they followed the contractor’s lead and put a lien on the property in October, shortly before the scheduled demolition. Unable to collect from the association, Farnham & Lovejoy filed suit against one of the group’s directors, bartender Joseph H. Murch. Murch had been present when the lumber was ordered, and Farnham & Lovejoy claimed that he had agreed to be personally responsible for the billing. Murch denied this and refused to pay. The dispute resulted in two trials held in November and December 1885, more than a year after the facility was removed. In the first trial, the jury failed to agree, but in the December trial, the second jury decided against Murch. He asked for a new trial, but was rejected by the state Supreme Court in January 1887. Farnham & Lovejoy then sued for both the original claim and for interest and legal costs, but Murch prevailed in a January 1888 decision.[fn]Farnham & Lovejoy vs. Minneapolis Base Ball Association, Hennepin County Lien Book F, 204–207; St. Paul Daily Globe, “The Close of the Term,” November 26, 1885; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Left on Third Base,” December 24, 1885; Minneapolis Tribune, “Court Notes,” December 25, 1885; Farnham & Lovejoy v. Murch, 36 Minn. 328; 31 N. W. 453 (1887); St. Paul Daily Globe, “A Relic of Base Ball,” January 5, 1888; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Joe Wins It,” January 6, 1888.[/fn]

The sad story of this short-lived ballpark, replete with conflict and difficulty, might indicate that nothing but high-end homes would ever be welcome in the Park Avenue neighborhood. Remarkably, after the professional baseball team and its facilities were gone, the block continued to be used for sports—for lacrosse matches, University of Minnesota football games, tennis clubs, and the like—but without the structures, crowds, and commercialism associated with the 1884 league team. It was not until the turn of the twentieth century that any permanent structures were built there. By that time, professional baseball teams in Minneapolis had built (and twice rebuilt) three new ballparks in other parts of the city, and in the last of these, Nicollet Park, the team finally found a long-term home. The Park/Portland neighborhood would remain quiet and largely residential until the interstate highway bisected the community. Compared to a multi-lane concrete trench filled with traffic, the sights and sounds of a small baseball park might not seem so unpleasant.[fn]St. Paul Daily Globe, “Field Sports,” October 15, 1884; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Scraps of Sport,” May 30, 1885; St. Paul Daily Globe, “Division Drill,” June 30, 1885; “Football at Minnesota: The Story of Thirty Years’ Contests on the Gridiron,” The Minnesota Alumni Weekly 14/9 (1914), 12. Minneapolis Tribune, “A Season of Tennis,” May 7, 1894; Minneapolis Journal, “The Park Av. Tennis Courts,” June 6, 1896.[/fn]

CHRIS KIMBALL is the president of California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California, where he is also a professor of history. Dr. Kimball and his co-author, Kristin Anderson, are writing a book on the ballparks of the Twin Cities. Although a long-term resident of Chicago, the Twin Cities, and now Los Angeles, he remains a steadfast Red Sox fan.

KRISTIN ANDERSON is a professor of art at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, where she teaches courses in art history and architectural history. Together with co-author Chris Kimball, she is writing a book on the urban and architectural history of Twin Cities ballparks. In what passes for free time, Dr. Anderson leads tours at Target Field, including special focus tours on architecture, engineering, and sustainability.