Touring Target Field With Clark Griffith, II

The picture below shows the statue of Calvin Griffith that sits just outside the main gate of Target Field in Minneapolis and next to him is his son, Clark Griffith, II who was named in honor of family scion, Clark Griffith who took over the old Washington Nationals. 

“I was a consultant on the statue,” remarked the younger Griffith as we joined the crowds going into the park. “And I shaved a good forty pounds from him,” he said with a measure of pride.

While waiting for Griffith, I talked to another fan who asked me if I knew anything about the man depicted in the statue. I asked him if he wanted the long story or the short one. I tried to cram six decades of betrayal into a pithy thirty word recounting of how Calvin pulled his train out of Union Station in DC under the cover of darkness and spirited away the proud franchise of the original Clark Griffith and detrained the whole shebang in Minneapolis.

“How many folks here is Minnesota even know that history?” I asked the Griffith not set in bronze. “Maybe a third at most,” he offered. “There’s far fewer than that know anything about it in DC,” I admitted.

Looking around Target Field I could not help thinking about the low ebb of Bud Selig’s tenure as Commissioner when he wanted to contract the Twins franchise.  “Believe me, it’s not going anywhere,” said Griffith. Everything about Target Field suggests permanence. The stadium rises from a limestone foundation: Kasoda Stone mined in Northern Minnesota, and in that sense it is evocative of Prairie architecture, but it draws on the Cesar Pelli designed Minneapolis public library as well. It is a fine edifice.

The ambiance of the modern baseball game has none of those clean lines and we sat watching the first inning of action, Clark Griffith caught the mood of the modern game remarkably well.

“It’s like a sitcom,” Griffith pronounced as the crowd around us seemed lost in everything except the action on the field.

But then, early in the game there was a close play at first base and the umpire called the Twin’s runner out. The Twins’ crusty manager, Ron Gardenhire, came out to dispute the call and it suddenly appeared on the Jumbotron for all to see. It appeared not once but half a dozen times. Each time it became more clear that the foot of the Twins’ runner touched the first bast bag just an eyelash ahead of the pitcher’s foot who was late covering.  The noise of the crowd grew with each look at the two feet coming down and then the crew in New York—so far from our Midwestern outpost—announced their agreement and the crowd roared its approval.

“Maybe with enough replays we could cut through the sitcom atmosphere and get the fans more involved in the game,” I suggested.

The kerfluffle hardly mattered to Felix Hernandez who allowed the local fans just enough to cheer about in the early innings before shutting the door for good. The sellout crowd began to thin after the Twins were down by a score of 5-2 and Clark Griffith took me on a tour of the stadium.

“The best food is out here in center field,” he said commenting on the irony that the good eats were so far from the action. But the food attracted its own loyal following who watched from a wall high above the bullpen. The bitterly cold climate demands a certain efficiency from the Midwestern demographic, but there is a warmth to the people that the winters belie.

While I was waiting for my Walleye fish and chips a man got his fried cheese curds delivered to him next to me. What could be more uniquely Midwestern than cheese curds and Walleye.  As I eyed the steaming fried cheese, he offered me a taste.  Grabbing one from his ample basket of cheese, I explained the delicacy is missing from the Washington gastronomy. “Probably for the best,” he said.

Maybe so, but it is even better that the Twins are in Minnesota. It is for the best that baseball arrived here those many years ago at some cost to the fans back in DC. Baseball is rooted here in the northern plains as secure as the limestone that roots Target Field to the surrounding streets. And that is a good thing. Calvin Griffith can be remembered as just that burly man who handed baseball to Minnesota. Just like the statue so warmly suggests.