Minnesota Twins - Special Pennant Edition

Recently I bought a vintage Minnesota Twins pennant at a flea market.  Oh, I paid more than I should have and it is not in perfect shape, but I do like a bit of detective work.  And besides, it brought back memories.  Here it is.

Perhaps you recall our old friends "Minnie and Paul" from a few weeks back.  Here they are rendered in a very crude style.  Almost like cubist art.  Their legs are particularly weird looking.

If you take a quick glance at ebay you will see lots, and I do mean lots, of pennants for sale.  They come in a bewildering variety of styles and almost all claim to be "60's vintage".  So what can we figure out from this one?  Well, first of all that wide font on the TWINS name screams 1970's.  Close your eyes for a moment.....can you still hear that faint sound of disco?  And then there's this:

MLB, the logo of Major League Baseball.  It was created in 1969.  Among other things it was a copyright that indicated the creators of something had purchased a license for their work.  This wiped out many small time operations and in a sense was the end of a classic era of sports memorabilia.  But a few companies soldiered on, and some of the savvy ones that figured the new system out early actually prospered.  Here is a small but revealing clue.

This is the logo of ASCO Inc, a company in Winona Minnesota that specialized in making felt pennants.  A blog called Pennant Fever had a very nice write up on them. In short they were one of the companies that figured out the importance of licensing early and enjoyed considerable success.  In true American can do spirit they were founded by a high school coach and started out in his garage.  Actually, no, the first products were made in his kitchen.  Only with growth of the company did they move out to the garage!

It's worth a read.  But if you are in a hurry, I'll just say that this logo was in use from 1970 to 1979.

This was an interesting time both for the Minnesota Twins and for Your Humble Correspondent. 

The Twins won their division in 1970 but then entered the doldrums.  It would be 17 years until they reached the playoffs again.  The most beloved, iconic player in the team's history, Harmon Killebrew, was traded away after the '74 season.  The owner, Calvin Griffith, was felt at the time to be heartlessly cheap but in reality he was barely hanging on financially.  Free agency and the disproportionate flow of money to big market teams was pushing him to the brink.  It was a time of at best .500 baseball and of much reduced expectations.

I spent the decade still in Minneapolis, moving along in four year hops.  70 - 74 High School.  74 - 78 College.  78 - 82 Med School.  In the mid to late 70's I went to Twins games on occasion.  They played in the somewhat run down Metropolitan Stadium.  I went with my brother, or less often with my high school girl friend.  Drawing inspiration from Calvin Griffith we were too cheap to pay for parking and had a secret free spot a little ways off.  It was next to a commercial development that had gone bankrupt and there was nobody there to post no-parking signs. 

Back then a Major League ballgame was still a cheap evening.  Bleacher seats, maybe a hot dog.  We'd wait until later for a beer usually ending up at Culla's Tavern on the West Bank.

The move to a new stadium - the much reviled Metrodome - came in 1982.  In the mid 70's when this pennant was likely made and sold there was a tired feel to the old ballpark.  Metropolitan stadium was eventually demolished and on its site a gigantic mall was built.  There is a marker for home plate near a first floor amusement park.  520 feet away and on the second level there is a lone seat attached to a wall.  Harmon Killebrew once hit a home run to that spot.

While far more expensive the new Target field is an enjoyable place to watch a ball game.  As it is near my old neighborhood I'm sure I could still find free parking if I worked at it but it would necessitate a walk through now dodgy parts of town and so should not be undertaken for night games.

(posted on a day when the Twins are on the brink of the A.L. Central title.  The Magic Number of combined Twins wins and Cleveland losses stands at 7 with ten games left in the regular season.  Playoff baseball here we come!)