All-Star Game Becomes a Tale of Twin Cities

MINNEAPOLIS —  The short, stocky, bearded, good-natured mayor of St. Paul, Minn., George Latimer, got together with the governor, the owner of the Minnesota Twins and the mayor of that other “Twin” city at something of a fun-raising rally last week at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, site of the upcoming baseball All-Star Game. In a show of togetherness, everybody got up and sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” looking for all the world like Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and the friends of African relief, harmonizing for a cause.

First chance he got, Latimer reminded the gathering that the Twin Cities were in this thing together. They were both hosting the All-Stars. This was not a Minneapolis sporting event. St. Paul was a sponsor, too, and even had three native sons (Dave Winfield, Jack Morris and Paul Molitor) playing in the game.

“If Minneapolis and St. Paul don’t share these things, we’re going to be nothing but a cold Omaha,” Latimer said.

The joke was an old one. Humphrey himself coined it, people say, and a businessman named Harvey Mackay hauled it out later, when he was trying to convince Minneapolis it needed a new stadium. If the town lost its sports teams, it was suggested, as a mild scare tactic, we are going to become little more than northern Nebraska.

Minneapolis had lost the Lakers and was in some danger of losing the Twins. Attendance was pitiful. Calvin Griffith preferred to sell the club to local interests, but a warning went out that if ticket sales did not reach a certain level in two years, hard telling where the team might go. Tampa, Fla., was licking its chops.

Minneapolis businessmen went into action. They started buying up tickets to Twin games themselves, in large numbers. If the general public wouldn’t save the team, they would do it themselves. Eventually, banker Carl Pohlad took the franchise off Griffth’s hands.

It did not escape notice that while all this was going on, St. Paul businessmen were not joining their Minneapolis brethren in purchasing tickets. There seemed to be a little esprit de corps missing here. Except, as St. Paul people pointed out: Did Metrodome business put money in St. Paul pockets? Did visiting teams and fans stay in St. Paul hotels? Did they visit St. Paul restaurants and shops?

And so it has gone. With the All-Star Game coming up Tuesday, the host team, the team that was called “Twins” for a reason, the team that wears “TC” on its caps, is attempting to emphasize that this is a Twin Cities affair. But St. Paul still is being neglected. Its hotels are empty, compared to those in Minneapolis. “The economic impact of this game in St. Paul should be as much as $200,” columnist Patrick Reusse of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch said.

As for the St. Paul mayor, a fellow so amiable that he is listed in the phone book, agreed when he was called at home Sunday that his city deserved more attention. On the other hand, Latimer said: “I think a couple of people are little feverish with their parochialism. I grew up in upstate New York, not here, so maybe that’s why I’m a little more relaxed than most.”

St. Paul is a pretty, nice town--and a pretty nice town. An annual award sponsored by the Philip Morris corporation saluting the most “liveable” city in America--Seattle last year--recently went to the Minnesota capital. Latimer ticked off a long list of favored native sons: Charles Schulz, creator of “Peanuts”; Roy Wilkins of the NAACP; actor Mike Farrell of “M*A*S*H”; photographer Gordon Parks, and humorist Max Schulman, for example. “Two Supreme Court justices, Warren Burger and Harry Blackmun, went to the same elementary school,” Latimer volunteered.

Jack Morris of the Detroit Tigers, expected to be the American League’s starting pitcher Tuesday, once pitched a St. Paul playground league championship game as an 11-year-old against Paul Molitor, now the All-Star third baseman of the Milwaukee Brewers. Morris’ Edgecumbe team beat Molitor’s Oxford team, 7-6. New York Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield and his brother, Steve, once led the Attucks-Brooks American Legion club to two state titles. Morris, Molitor and Winfield grew up within three miles of one another.

“We’ve got a couple of guys from the parks and rec department, Mike Myers and Bill Peterson, who have known and coached those three guys since they were babies,” Latimer said. “St. Paul has contributed to the All-Star Game in more ways than one.”

But the neglect continues. Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth did NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning from the Metrodome. Throughout the show, Minneapolis was shown and praised for its preparation for the game. Not until Ueberroth was off the air, when he met more of the press informally, did he mention St. Paul at all, a slight not missed by the press representatives of that city.

“Any writers here from out of town?” Ueberroth asked at one point.

“Yeah,” columnist Doug Grow of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune called out, motioning to St. Paul’s Reusse. “This guy here.”

No one from Omaha spoke up.