In addition to the suspense of the outcome of many of its games, the Series had other highlights. They put together a bond program worth $4.5 million to provide the initial funding, though in the end the facility as built would require double this amount. The Twins drew more than 3 million fans the first two years at Target Field, and only in 2016, when the Twins lost 103 games — a Twins franchise record — did attendance fall below 2 million. Only about 8,000 seats were in the lower deck between first base and third base, not ideal for the sale of baseball tickets. Pohlad was interested in owning a major-league team, and had explored options for a variety of other teams before purchasing the Twins.82 He liked the publicity associated with team ownership. Griffith, therefore, named the team the Minnesota Twins. What would it take to confirm the deal? 1901 – 1999 / American League, Team History Twins!” bumper stickers of the 1960s were replaced with “Bring Billy Back.”50. It was designed primarily for the Vikings. (COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA TWINS). Unlike the Metrodome, the Twins controlled all the revenue at Target Field, and the lusty attendance figures gave them some operating room. While the Twins would continue to be upbeat about the possibility of Martin becoming manager, it at the very least colored his relationship with a key staff person. The 1966 season did start out well. And the roof collapsed several times due to weather. One major miss by the Twins was when Billy advocated the signing of a young pitcher named James Palmer, but Griffith balked. Investigations into the possibility of a new ballpark started in 1970 with the Metropolitan Sports Area Commission. Even as he purchased the team from Griffith, he pushed for a better deal at the Metrodome. After Ermer took over, the Twins started playing much better, and going into the last weekend needed just one win in a two-game set in Boston to win the pennant. In 2018, after completing the last year of his contract, Mauer retired. As with so many longer-term contracts with a somewhat older player, Mauer’s performance leveled off and declined slightly during the period of the contact, in part due to injuries. By the summer of 1958 Griffith was seriously interested in moving, and the Twin Cities were his primary target. In doing so the team became the first franchise to follow a season with at least 100 losses with a berth in the playoffs. In the wake of those meetings, things moved quickly. The 1962 Twins were even more exciting, finishing in second place with a 91-71 record, the best record in the franchise since 1945, and drawing an American League high attendance of 1,433,116. The citizens of Minnesota were in a foul mood concerning public support of professional teams. The following year the Twins completed one of the greatest major-league turnarounds of all time, winning 85 games to qualify for a spot in the AL Wild Card Game. They drew more than a million fans only twice, in 1977 and 1979. They never became a major player in the free-agent market, and as has so often happened, some of those signings worked, and others didn’t. In 1948 Stoneham had purchased 40 acres of land in St. Louis Park, west of Minneapolis, as a site for a potential new ballpark for the Millers, an act that no one knew about during subsequent ballpark discussions.14 Though no ballpark was built on that site, if one had been there, it might have put the Twin Cities in the running for the relocation of the Browns and A’s.15 Stoneham’s interest persisted. Stoneham and the Giants were eyeing the Twin Cities quite apart from the Bloomington ballpark effort. And while the Metrodome was originally built for the Vikings, the football team now had a much less favorable deal than the Twins, leading to ongoing enmity between the two franchises. The Twins also hosted the 1965 All-Star Game. These included catcher Fermín (“Mike”) Guerra, Roberto Estalella, who played both the infield and outfield, and pitcher René Monteagudo. 1 Jay Weiner, Ballpark Games: Fifty Years of Big League Greed and Bush League Boondoggles (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 3. A group led by businessman Don Beaver was eager to bring major-league baseball to the Greensboro area. A series of downtown locations were put forward as possible ballpark sites. Even though he signed a contract as a sales rep with Grain Belt Brewery, he never got in trouble. We take a look back at what could have been for the Minnesota Twins had Phil Cuzzi not blown the foul ball call in 2009. Such managerial instability continued into the mid-’80s. As Jerry Bell, who oversaw the team’s new-ballpark effort, said, “It was the biggest mistake in all of the 13 years.”92 (The 13-year time noted by Bell was the total time from Pohlad’s 1994 announcement to the breaking of ground for Target Field in 2007. amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; The Twins again had a record attendance, 1,463,258. However, Griffith continued his overtures to the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities were one of the original sites for a new AFL franchise. In many ways, these circles were not ideal for either sport, since many fans were now farther away from the action. By midseason the Twins had fallen to seventh place, 19 games out of first. (COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA TWINS), Target Field opened for business in March of 2010, with a college baseball game between the University of Minnesota and Louisiana Tech, and 37,757 fans attended. Calvin Griffith was welcomed to the Twin Cities with open arms. The Twins also controlled concessions for other events at the Met, including Vikings games. The bill was “site neutral,” and a new agency, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, was set up to find a location for the dual-purpose facility.67 Perpich filled the new commission with a slate of seven Minnesotans who broadly represented the state.68.