In straight-away center at Target Field, with a backdrop of sky blue (RGB 135-206-250) that fits the color palate exactly, stands a 46ft sign with two plump (aka old-timer) baseball players shaking hands across the great Mississippi river. It is a shout back to the original Twins logo from 1961 featuring the little-known cartoon characters Minnie and Paul.
Knotholes in the walls along 5th street and the old Met stadium flagpole in right field are just a few additional reminders of Twins’ history prior to their 28-year run in the white bubble otherwise known as the Metrodome, now unfortunately known as Mall of America Field. We got the twins out just in time. But the collegial center field icon is perhaps more important to us “Paulers” than it is to our neighbors across the river. In the Twin Cities, Minneapolis tends to be the dominant twin. It has just a little more height, a little more hair, is a little better with the ladies, the better twin to date in your 20’s. But St. Paul is the twin that you want to settle down with. It is the stable, calm, respectful, and quaint twin. The 46ft handshake across the river is a reminder of the place this team and ballpark came from.
The Minneapolis Millers were a baseball team that first appeared in Minnesota in 1884 as a part of the Northwestern and shortly thereafter Western Leagues and eventually the American Association. The initially Millers played in many small neighborhood parks and eventually the tiny, homerun-friendly, Athletic park (below) from 1889 until 1896. It was located in Minneapolis close to where Target Field sits today.
In 1896, the Millers moved into Nicollet Park (below) where they stayed until 1956 when they moved to Metropolitan Stadium. The Millers called Met Stadium home until 1961 when the handshake occured and the Minnesota Twins arrived.
The St. Paul Saints were initially a minor league team in 1894. The Saints played in Lexington Park (below) starting in 1896. In 1900, Comiskey moved the team to the South Side of Chicago where they became the Chicago White Sox. A new St. Paul Saints minor league team arrived in 1916 at Lexington Park. Lexington Park was the main home of the Saints, but during the early 1900’s, the Saints wanted a more centrally located park for weekday games, so they constructed the Downtown Ball Park (or “The ‘pill-box,” as it was generally called) close to the state capital in 1903. This was their weekday home through 1909 with weekend games played at Lexington Park.
The Saints remained at Lexington Park until 1956 when Midway stadium was built in an effort to attract a Major League team which St. Paul made very clear. After nearly 60 years in Lexington Park and a few years at Midway Stadium, it was time in St. Paul for the handshake as well, and the Minnesota Twins were formed. Even though Metropolitan Stadium was not in Minneapolis (it was in Bloomington, a suburb), it was not acceptable to St. Paulers. As early as July 1954, the city’s mayor, Joseph Dillon, said that “under no circumstances” would St. Paul support the Bloomington site that was then under consideration and eventually chosen as the home for the Twins. In August of 1959, barely a week after the news that Minneapolis-St. Paul would get a team in the Continental League (the proposed third major league), a group of St. Paul fans began a petition stating they would not support major league baseball unless 50 percent of the games were played at Midway Stadium. No major league games were ever played at Midway Stadium. When the Twins came to Minnesota to begin the 1961 season, they played at Metropolitan Stadium. The Twins would remain at Metropolitan Stadium until 1982 when the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome was built. Soon thereafter, the Mall of America would be built on the old Met stadium site.
And so was the story of two teams in one Twin Cities. Twin Cities baseball historian Stew Thornley says some of the highlights of the season for local baseball fans occurred on summer holidays. "The St. Paul Saints and Minneapolis Millers would play a doubleheader, with a morning game in one ballpark and an afternoon game in the other," Thornley said. "The fans would get onto the streetcars, and it was probably about a seven-mile ride." Then, in 1960, that 46ft handshake across the river occurred, and two teams that had cross-town “streetcar double-headers” and hometown rivalries for almost a century, now both call Target Field their home, where after every home run Minnie and Paul remind fans of history that has long since made its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
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