Calvin Griffith says goodbye to
Metropolitan Stadium
October 1, 1981
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- The license plates on the Pontiac Bonneville outside
the Metropolitan Stadium offices read CALVIN. The sign on the post in front of
the shiny blue car has been changed from "reserved" to
"revered."
When Calvin Griffith moved the Washington Senators to Minnesota in
1961, that's how the people of the Twin Cities metropolitan area felt about
him. He was featrured in newspapers, gave speeches and was chair of the state
Christmas Seals campaign. Recent years have changed that, and he's been accused
of being a miser incapable of changing with the times.
| "The fifty days of the strike, that was a good
judge of what it'd be like if you weren't in baseball. What the hell do you
do?" -- Calvin Griffith
|
Wednesday, Griffith sat in his private box at the Met, shrouded in a rain
coat, a soft drink before him, and watched the wind, the rain and the Kansas
City Royals pelt the Minnesota Twins in the American League club's final game
at Metropolitan Stadium. After 20 years of viewing games in this cozy, suburban
yard, Griffith will move his team downtown to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
next April.
"I tell you," his voice booms off the glass between Griffith and
the playing field, "there's been a lot of feeling of grandeur here. We won
more than we lost, that's something to be proud of. We had great parking
facilities, a good place to watch a ball game, and we gave the fans a lot of
wins. That's a lot better than a lot of major league ball clubs can say."
After failing to finish first in the past 10 seasons and losing Larry
Hisle, Lyman Bostock, Bill Campbell and Dave Goltz to free agency --
and Rod Carew in a trade -- there are those who might question the
franchise's success. But Calvin Griffith seems to revel in the controversy and
criticism as much as he basked in the glory of the 1960s.
Answers his mail
He receives plenty of letters, and he personally answers them.
"I don't care if it's good or bad, but I think you should give them an
answer. I appreciate it when I go around and have someone come up to me and
say, 'I got a letter from you once.' Everybody who calls my office I speak to
personally, unless they call up and are obnoxious and use profanity. I think
it's best to talk it out, or tell them why you made a decision. I don't shove
those people off on someone else in the office. If they're sensible, I'll talk
to them."
As some of the day's 16,000 fans walk past Griffith's box and peer through
the glass, many of them wave, or point. Griffith waves back.
I've been criticized for losing ballplayers," he goes on. "What
have they done? Not a damned thing. Hisle, Goltz, Campbell. Hisle went to
Milwaukee and hasn't played two full seasons. Campbell hasn't done anything.
Goltz went out to the National League West champions and was seven and
eleven."
Why have they failed?
A Kansas City batter interrupts the response by puffing a single into
shallow center field. Griffith turns his attention to this. "I tell ya.
Look at that, will ya? Engle hits one to the fence that should have been a hit,
and that line drive Funderburk hit. I tell ya, we're just hitting the ball too
hard. We hit the ball hard, and they get these damned bloop singles."
He takes a sip of his soft drink. He glances once more to the field, then
turns his side to the game and pushes back into the conversation about his lost
free agents.
"I don't know. Easy living, I guess. They get rich over night."
Calvin Griffith didn't get rich over night, and he seems unable to
comprehend much of the behavior of the younger generations. He does not agree
with his son, Clark, who adheres to the checkbook policies of today's other
baseball men. What about his son? Will he follow in his dad's role as head of
the team?
"I don't want to talk about my son."
The pair are in a strained era of their relationship. Clark is formally
educated, with an upbringing different from that of his father.
Fell into the game
Aerial veiw of Metropolitan Stadium: from country
roads to the Mall of America. Visit
here and click
the small arrows to proceed through the images.
|
Calvin and Thelma Robinson were just children in 1922 when uncle
Clark Griffith and his wife Addie took in the two. The Griffiths were
unable to have children, and the seven Robinson children lived in poverty in
Montreal. When Calvin's father died later, Griffith brought the rest of the
family to Washington.
Calvin knew very little baseball, but as the Senators' bat boy he was in the
thick of the game, and he listened to his uncle when he talked baseball. Calvin
graduated to catcher, then minor-league secretary, treasurer, field manager and
club president. When Clark Griffith died, Calvin and Thelma inherited majority
interest in the team.
Now, pharmaceutical companies and blue jeans manufacturers own baseball
teams, but the clock hasn't moved much on Griffith's wall. The Twins are still
a family affair who earn their living from baseball.
How has the last of the true baseball men survived?
"When Clark Griffith died in 1955, people thought they had seen the
last of the Griffith clan," Griffith says, "but we've surrounded
ourselves with class people in this organizaton, people who have stayed with
us. We have a good scouting system and minor league sytem. It's not a one-man
show, but it still comes down to one person who has to make the
decisions."
He talks about how owners once were in it for the sport. "Now, of
course, it's not exactly that way. There are a certain few who just buy, buy,
buy. But even then, guys like (George) Steinbrenner don't get in the
Series every year. Other clubs, like Baltimore, they get into contention
without that money. Some years a club like that is just more motivated."
There seems to be a thought balloon hanging above Griffith's head that
implies motivation has been lacking in Minnesota lately. He thinks a new
stadium might motivate both the players and the fans.
"It's one of the greatest things to happen in Minnesota," he says
of the Metrodome. "We can not play night baseball in this state until the
end of May because of the weather, and we have to play day games, like today,
at this time of year. People a hundred miles away, when they see 40 percent
chance of rain, 30 percent chance of rain, they don't show up. Now those people
in the Dakotas and Iowa don't have to worry about whether or not they're going
to be able to see a ball game."
The Griffith organization supposedly entered the 1981 season with a cash
surplus of about $2 million. Attendance of 468,590 during this strike-shortened
season hasn't boosted that total. If this pattern should continue, can Griffith
see himself without baseball?
"No, I can't. The fifty days of the strike, that was a good judge of
what it'd be like if you weren't in baseball. What the hell do you do?"
Well, what the hell would he do?
"Grow old, I guess. I'd grow old in a hurry."
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