And as we leave Minnesota for the last time this year, may we pause again for a moment, as we do every year, in silent reflection. To reflect upon the reason why Calvin Griffith, who owned the Washington Senators in 1961, where they had been for 60 years, decided to move the team to Minneapolis/St.Paul. His reason was simple, there were just too many Negroes living in Washington. Way too many. And so he sought out the whitest large city in the United States that did not yet have a major league baseball team, and found it in Minneapolis/St.Paul. And that is the eternal legacy of the Minnesota Twins, that they exist solely because of the clarity of the world view of Calvin Griffith.
Lots of people probably don't know that about the Twins by now, and don't still hate them for it. But I do.