Twins’ original owner Griffith was a colorful, controversial figure, the first in a line of headline-making owners.
(Editor’s note: Batter up! It’s opening day of the 2025 baseball season.)
The Minnesota Twins open the season in St. Louis on Thursday. Fans are hoping for a winning year and a deep run in the postseason.
2025 marks their 65th season in Minnesota. Let’s take a look at the man who brought them there, and the twists and turns in his story.
Twins owner Calvin Griffith was a legendary tightwad who knew baseball talent but often was his own worst enemy. Which took some doing.
Griffith’s uncle — who raised him as his adoptive father — was Clark Griffith (seen above, right, ca. 1920, in a public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons), a star pitcher in the 19th century and early 20th century. He also managed the Washington Senators before buying the team in 1920.
It was a franchise operated on a shoestring, and the Senators employed many Griffith family members who relied on their salaries.
Clark was notoriously tight with money, in large part because baseball was the family business. While other owners were rich men who bought teams as an adventure or a civic duty, the Griffiths lived on the revenue from their franchise.
The Senators were usually bad. The saying “Washington, first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League,” was an apt description of their usual fate. By 1960, attendance at old Griffith Stadium — it was a family operation in every way — was abysmal.
Calvin, who assumed control after Clark, aka “The Old Fox,” died in 1955, decided to relocate his team, following the lead of the Giants and Dodgers, who headed west. After a flirtation with San Francisco was not consummated, he chose Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
That explained the new name.
The Twins took the field on April 21, 1961, and were greeted warmly. Metropolitan Stadium was still under construction, and so was the team, and baseball fans in the Upper Midwest were thrilled to have a team of their own.
I grew up listening to the Twins on the radio and seeing a few games a year on TV. I attended my first big league game on Sunday, Sept. 12, 1976. My favorite team, the up-and-coming Kansas City Royals, clobbered the Twins 16-6.
My dad, an avid Twins fan, took the defeat in stride. He passed along his passion for the game to his kids. Growing up, I was surrounded by Twins fans at home, in school and everywhere else.
The Twins had risen to prominence in the 1960s, but by the mid-1970s, they were headed to a long run of mediocrity.
Griffith served as his own general manager, and he had a keen eye for talent. In 1967, he insisted manager Sam Mele install a youngster who had played at A ball in 1966 as the second baseman.
That kid was Rod Carew.
The Twins won the AL West in its first two seasons, 1969-70, but as slugger Harmon Killebrew — who hit more homers than any player in the 1960s — and another star, Tony Oliva grew old and frail, the Twins became a mediocre club. Attendance slumped in the 1970s, and Griffith was unwilling — or unable — to compete in baseball’s new era.
Twins fans mocked their owner, who battled players over pay hikes and traded stars or allowed them to become free agents. A once-proud franchise, an AL charter team, was in disarray.
Carew, an all-star every season as a Twin who won seven batting titles, was outraged when it was revealed Griffith had denigrated him and spewed racist hate during an alcohol-fueled speech to the Lions Club in Waseca, Minn. A Minneapolis Tribune’s reporter was, just by coincidence, present. The story hit the paper on the last day of the regular season.
Carew stripped off his uniform, refusing to play. He assailed Griffith and demanded a trade. After almost going to the powerful New York Yankees, he was sent to the California Angels.
It was another jolt to fans, who saw the great Killebrew released and forced to play his final season for the KC Royals in 1975.
I interviewed Killebrew in 2004. He was still hurt that he had not been allowed to finish his career as a Twin. But Griffith could not afford to pay the salaries of two aging, injured players who could only DH, Killebrew and Oliva.
While the team slumped and fans stayed away in droves, Griffith began assembling a new collection of stars, including the ever-smiling but secretly tortured Kirby Puckett, hometown slugger Kent “Buy a Vowel” Hrbek and others.
That team won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. But by then, Griffith had sold the team to Carl Pohlad, who was wealthy enough to compete with other tycoons.
That doesn’t mean Pohlad was not tight with a buck as well. In 2001, he considered taking a large cash payout to close the Twins down. Baseball fans were outraged, but it displayed the greed that drove him.
There is just something about owning the Twins, apparently.
Griffith was out of baseball for the first time in his life. He became a shadowy figure, no longer making deals, angering players and fans, and unable to scout players who might become stars — for a reasonable price, of course.
He died on Oct. 20, 1999, at the age of 87.
The Twins honored Griffith with a statue outside their new ballpark, but in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, it was removed. Griffith’s racist rant continued to haunt him.
His hateful and ignorant words obscured the fact that the Twins employed many star Black and Hispanic players. They had a pipeline to Latin America for years, developing stars like Oliva and 1965 AL MVP Zoilo Versalles.
Calvin Griffith was a product of his times, and he just didn’t fit into modern baseball.
I asked Carew about his cantankerous old owner during a 2004 interview in Mankato, Minn., on the Twins’ annual Winter Caravan. It was a bitterly cold night, but a huge crowd turned out.
Carew was the star attraction, and a gleefully profane Bert Blyleven, another Twins star who went to the HOF and several young players drew baseball fans out on a January night in Minnesota.
Carew had long since forgiven Griffith. He appreciated the opportunity he was given. When Carew was elected to the Hall of Fame, he wanted to call and tell one person first.
Calvin Griffith.
Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states for four decades. He has contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Do not republish without permission.
