by Jimmy Patrick

Created on: July 16, 2008   Last Updated: July 30, 2009

The Minnesota Twins started out as the Washington Senators in 1901; they moved to Minneapolis in 1961 and became the first team in baseball ever to be named for a state instead of a city. The reason behind this was the idea that they were a team to represent the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul which is where the TC logo that is worn on the jersey came from.

They began their Minnesota days in winning style with players like Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Camilo Pascual, Zoilo Versalles, Jim Kaat, Earl Battey, and Lenny Green all coming over from Washington. In 1965 the Twins finished 102-60, still the best record they have ever finished with, and they went to the World Series that season. Though they lost the Series to the Dodgers and got shut out twice by Sandy Koufax, including the seventh game in Minnesota, they established themselves in the hearts of Minnesota baseball fans.

Killebrew's power at the plate seemed to disappear with the sixties and the seventies gave way to new stars like Rod Carew. Carew was the Rookie of The Year in 1967. By 1972, he won a batting title for the Twins with an average of .318 and not a singe home run hit. He went on to win the batting title seven times with his highest average at an amazing .388 in 1977.

With Carew as the lead star through the seventies, the Twins were able to keep their record around .500 every season, but never legitimately contend for the title. Eventually, Carew would leave to play in California and when other star players began leaving in the late seventies, it gave way to some miserable play for the Twins in the early eighties. In 1982, they finished with their worst ever record of 60-102.

Things turned around throughout the rest of the decade as players like Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunansky, Gary Gaetti, Frank Viola and Kirby Puckett became Twins. They would return to the World Series and win it in 1987. At the time they had the worst regular season record of an eventual champion at just 85-77. The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won the Series with only 83 wins in the regular season.

The Twins moved into the Metrodome in 1982 and still play there today. Though the organization continually complains about the stadium being an insufficient profit producer, it does provide a distinct home field advantage for the players. With a white ceiling that players often lose fly balls in and a hard infield turf that provides hard bounces for ground balls, visiting teams are known for making costly mistakes in big ball games. The twins won all their home games played in the two World Series that they won (1987, 1991).

In 2002, the Twins were mentioned in talks of league contraction in which the Twins and the Expos (now the Washington Nationals) would have been disbanded from the league completely. Due to a court decision, contraction did not happen and the Twins have continued to be a very competitive team ever since.

With Star players like Joe Mauer who won the AL batting title in 2006 and Justin Morneau who was MVP of the league in the same year, and a new stadium on the way and set to open in 2010, the Twins appear to be on the road to success here in the early part of the 21st century.

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