Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History

by Stew Thornley

Overview

From the early days of town ball to the latest seasons of the Twins and Saints, Stew Thornley offers the ultimate history of the Great American Pastime in the North Star State.

Beginning with the sunny August afternoon in 1857 when Minnesota’s first baseball club was organized in Nininger, Baseball in Minnesota presents a comprehensive history of the sport at every level of play. Encompassing the rich heritage of minor league baseball, town teams, Black ball clubs of the pre-integration era, the Universityof Minnesota Gophers, the Saint Paul Saints, and the Minnesota Twins, this definitive volume delivers exceptionally detailed stories of the games, the ballparks, and the larger-than-life personalities, all woven with carefully researched statistics, eyewitness accounts, and rich photographs.

Stew Thornley, considered the "most recognizable and respected local baseball historian and writer", presents this exhaustively researched volume of critical information and obscure facts, such as team names and players, leagues and venues, dates and statistics. Thornley's eye for detail is equal to his skill in recounting stories chock-full of unusual anecdotes and player interviews that will surprise and delight both new and hardcore fans. Updated with new research and including the latest developments on the diamond, this revised edition of Thornley's classic work is a must-have for any Minnesota baseball booster.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681342122
Publisher:	Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date:	10/01/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	607,452
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Stew Thornley is the author of numerous 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. Thornley 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.

Read an Excerpt

From “Stadium Story III: Metropolitan Stadium, the Metrodome, and Target Field”
The Metrodome had been a step back from Met Stadium in terms of a fan experience. It had private suites and eventually a modest private club for season-ticket holders, but its built-on-the-cheap method made it barren and sterile. The next iteration of the Twins’ home, however, had it all.
Crowds had dwindled as the Twins dropped in the standings in the mid-1990s, prompting owner Carl Pohlad to seek a new stadium only halfway into the projected 30-year life of the Metrodome. However, the Minnesota legislature didn’t go along with the team’s proposal for a new stadium, one with a retractable roof, to the north of the Metrodome, on the Mississippi River. The next step, as usual, was to threaten to move the team. Pohlad claimed to have a buyer lined up for the Twins in North Carolina, but any possibility of the team relocating fell through for the same reason: a failed referendum for a new stadium in North Carolina.
The threats got more novel after the 2001 season, when the Twins were said to be one of two teams (the Montreal Expos the other) to be eliminated under a contraction plan by Major League Baseball. This scare for the fans also went away quickly, and the Twins, like it or not, were stuck in the Metrodome.
It didn’t mean the team quit trying, and efforts were eventually successful. A partnership with Hennepin County, with the blessing (or at least not obstruction) of state government, produced an agreement for a new ballpark on the other side of downtown Minneapolis from the Metrodome.
The site was a parking lot in between and beneath two streets three blocks to the north of Hennepin Avenue, the city’s main drag. In between the elevated roads, the area was hemmed in by the on-ramps for Interstate 394 on one side and the county’s waste-to-energy facility (lovingly known to all as the “garbage burner”) on the other.
Construction was a challenge in such a confined area, and the work was sometimes done from the inside out. Cranes within the skeleton of the structure lifted panels and other materials over the emerging grandstands to be assembled on the exterior.
Target Field, as it became known after the Target Corporation purchased the naming rights, was right on time in terms of ballpark architecture and design. It followed the retropark mold of others built in the previous two decades—an old-style look—while offering the latest amenities that went well beyond ample and more-pleasant restrooms, as important as they are.
Target Field has a preferred-club level, one deck above the main concourse, with comfortable seats and an atrium behind it with various dining and drinking options. Closer to the field, behind home plate, are the most expensive seats, ones that come with valet parking and access to an exclusive lounge and dining area under the stands. A number of sit-down restaurants are scattered throughout the ballpark, including a pair that eventually opened above the batter’s eye in center field. A large video board was installed in right field a year after the park opened, to go with an even larger scoreboard in left field.
In between the new ballpark and Target Center, which has been home to the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association since 1990, a plaza provides a welcoming atmosphere for people arriving from the downtown core. Parking is available in three large ramps flanking the stadium, and a light-rail line was extended a couple of blocks to bring people right to the ballpark. In addition, a commuter rail line offers service to the northwest, and Target Field includes a transit center for commuters to get to the trains.
Target Field opened in 2010 to sellout crowds that continued nearly through the entire season, and it remains a popular attraction for Twins fans and baseball tourists alike. Those interested in baseball history noted that Target Field was located only a block away from the site of Athletic Park, where the Minneapolis Millers played more than a century earlier, from 1889 to 1896. The heritage of baseball in the nineteenth century to the extravagance of baseball watching in the twenty-first century had come full circle.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1. Baseball Takes Hold in Minnesota
Chapter 2. Early Professional Baseball in Minnesota
Stadium Story I: Early Twin Cities Ball Parks
Chapter 3. Saints and Millers
Stadium Story II: Nicollet and Lexington (and Midway)
Chapter 4. Other Minnesota Professional Teams
Chapter 5. The Town Teams: Amateur and Semiprofessional Baseball
Chapter 6. The Rise of the Minnesota Gophers
Chapter 7. Black Ball and Base Belles
Chapter 8. The Minnesota Twins
Stadium Story III: Metropolitan Stadium, the Metrodome, and Target Field
Essay on Sources