Washington Nationals/Senators: 1901–1960 scores on his home run in the fourth inning of Game 7 of the 1924 World Series. The team was founded in
Washington, D.C., in as one of the eight original teams of the American League. It was named the
Washington Senators from 1901 to 1904, the
Washington Nationals from 1905 to 1955, and the Senators again from 1956 to 1960. But the team was commonly referred to as the Senators throughout its history (and unofficially as the "Grifs" during
Clark Griffith's tenure as manager from 1912 to 1920). The name "Nationals" appeared on uniforms for only two seasons, and then was replaced with the "W" logo. The media often shortened the nickname to "Nats" — even for the
1961 expansion team. The names "Nationals" and "Nats" were revived in 2005, when the
Montreal Expos moved to Washington to become the
Nationals. The Washington Senators spent the first decade of their existence finishing near the bottom of the American League standings. The team's long bouts of mediocrity were immortalized in the 1955 Broadway musical
Damn Yankees. Their fortunes began to improve with the arrival of 19-year-old pitcher,
Walter Johnson, in
1907. Johnson blossomed in
1911 with 25 victories, although the team still finished the season in seventh place. In
1912, the Senators improved dramatically, as their pitching staff led the league in team
earned run average and in
strikeouts. Johnson won 33 games while teammate
Bob Groom added another 24 wins to help the Senators finish the season in second place. Griffith joined the team in 1912 and became the team's owner in 1920. (The franchise remained under Griffith family ownership until 1984.) The Senators continued to perform respectably in
1913 with Johnson posting a career-high 35 victories, as the team once again finished in second place. The Senators then fell into another decline for the next decade. (left) and Washington Senators pitcher
Walter Johnson (right) shake hands following the Senators' 1924 championship. The team had a period of prolonged success in the 1920s and 1930s, led by Walter Johnson, as well as fellow Hall-of-Famers
Bucky Harris,
Goose Goslin,
Sam Rice,
Heinie Manush, and
Joe Cronin. In particular, a rejuvenated Johnson rebounded in
1924 to win 23 games with the help of his catcher,
Muddy Ruel, as the Senators won the
American League pennant for the first time in its history. The Senators then faced
John McGraw's heavily favored
New York Giants in the
1924 World Series. The two teams traded wins back and forth with three games of the first six being decided by one run. In the deciding 7th game, the Senators were trailing the Giants 3–1 in the 8th inning when Bucky Harris hit a routine ground ball to third that hit a pebble and took a bad hop over Giants third baseman
Freddie Lindstrom. Two runners scored on the play, tying the score at three. An aging Walter Johnson came in to pitch the ninth inning and held the Giants scoreless into extra innings. In the bottom of the twelfth inning, Ruel hit a high,
foul ball directly over
home plate. The Giants' catcher,
Hank Gowdy, dropped his protective mask to field the ball but, failing to toss the mask aside, stumbled over it and dropped the ball, thus giving Ruel another chance to bat. their hard luck drove the plot of the musical and film
Damn Yankees.
Cecil Travis,
Buddy Myer (1935 A.L.
batting champion),
Roy Sievers,
Mickey Vernon (batting champion in 1946 and 1953), and
Eddie Yost were notable Senators players whose careers were spent in obscurity on losing teams. In
1954, the Senators signed future Hall of Fame member
Harmon Killebrew. By
1959, he was the Senators' regular third baseman and led the league with 42 home runs, earning him a starting spot on the
American League All-Star team. After Griffith's death in 1955, his nephew and adopted son
Calvin took over the team presidency. Calvin sold
Griffith Stadium to the city of Washington and leased it back. This led to speculation that the team was planning to move, as the
Boston Braves,
St. Louis Browns, and
Philadelphia Athletics had done in recent years. By 1957, after an early flirtation with San Francisco (where the
New York Giants would move after the season), Griffith began courting Minneapolis–St. Paul, a prolonged process that resulted in his rejecting the Twin Cities' first offer before agreeing to move. Home attendance in Washington, D.C., steadily increased from 425,238 in 1955 to 475,288 in 1958, and then jumped to 615,372 in 1959. However, part of the Minnesota deal guaranteed a million fans a year for three years, plus the potential to double TV and radio money. The American League opposed the move at first, but in 1960 a deal was reached. Major League Baseball agreed to let Griffith move his team to the Minneapolis-St. Paul region and allowed a new
Senators team to be formed in Washington for the 1961 season. Asked nearly two decades later why he moved the team, Griffith replied, "I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota, it was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ball games, but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. It's unbelievable. We came here because you've got good, hard-working, white people here."
Minnesota Twins: 1961–present (1884–1960) and
St. Paul Saints (1901–1960;
team photo of 1920 pictured) of AAA played in Minnesota before the arrival of the Twins in 1961 Renamed the Minnesota Twins, the team set up shop in
Metropolitan Stadium in
Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis. Success came quickly to the team in Minnesota. Sluggers
Harmon Killebrew and
Bob Allison, who had been stars in Washington, were joined by
Tony Oliva and
Zoilo Versalles, and later
second baseman Rod Carew and pitchers
Jim Kaat and
Jim Perry, winning the
American League pennant in 1965. A second wave of success came in the late 1980s and early 1990s under manager
Tom Kelly, led by
Kent Hrbek,
Bert Blyleven,
Frank Viola, and
Kirby Puckett, winning the franchise's second and third World Series (and first and second in Minnesota). The name "Twins" was derived from "Twin Cities", a popular nickname for the two cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul and sometimes used in reference to the entire
Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan region. The
NBA's
Minneapolis Lakers had moved to
Los Angeles in 1960 due to poor attendance, blamed in part on a perceived reluctance of fans in Saint Paul to support the team. Griffith was determined not to alienate fans in either city by naming the team after one city or the other. He proposed to name the team the "Twin Cities Twins", and then was reinstated as the main cap logo in 2010. Both the "TC" and "Minnie & Paul" logos remain the team's primary insignia. in
Bloomington, Minnesota, 1964
1960s The Twins were eagerly greeted in Minnesota when they arrived in
1961. They brought a nucleus of talented players: Harmon Killebrew,
Bob Allison,
Camilo Pascual,
Zoilo Versalles,
Jim Kaat,
Earl Battey, and
Lenny Green.
Tony Oliva, who would go on to win
American League batting championships in
1964,
1965 and
1971, made his major league debut in
1962. That year, the Twins won 91 games, the most by the franchise since
1933. Behind
Mudcat Grant's 21 victories, Versalles'
A.L. MVP season and Oliva's batting title, the Twins won 102 games and the American League Pennant in
1965, but they were defeated in the
World Series by the
Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games (behind the
Series MVP,
Sandy Koufax, who compiled a 2–1 record, including winning the seventh game). In 1962, the Minnesota State Commission on Discrimination filed a complaint against the Twins, which was the only MLB team still
segregating players during
spring training and when traveling in the southern United States. Heading into the final weekend of the
1967 season, when
Rod Carew was named the
A.L. Rookie of the Year, the Twins,
Boston Red Sox,
Chicago White Sox, and
Detroit Tigers all had a shot at clinching the American League championship. The Twins and the Red Sox started the weekend tied for 1st place and played against each other in Boston for the final two games of the season. The Red Sox won both games, seizing their first pennant since 1946 with a 92–70 record. The Twins and Tigers both finished one game back, with 91–71 records, while the White Sox finished three games back, at 89–73. In 1969, the new manager of the Twins,
Billy Martin, pushed aggressive base running all-around, with Carew stealing home seven times in the season (1 short of
Ty Cobb's Major League Record) in addition to winning the first of seven A.L. batting championships. With Killebrew slugging 49 homers and winning the
AL MVP Award, these
1969 Twins won the first
American League Western Division Championship, but they lost three straight games to the
Baltimore Orioles, winners of 109 games, in the first
American League Championship Series. The Orioles would go on to be upset by the
New York Mets in the
World Series. Martin was fired after the season, in part due to an August fight in
Detroit with 20-game winner
Dave Boswell and outfielder Bob Allison, in an alley outside the Lindell A.C. bar.
Bill Rigney led the Twins to a repeat division title in
1970, behind the star pitching of Jim Perry (24–12), the A.L.
Cy Young Award winner, while the Orioles again won the Eastern Division Championship behind the star pitching of
Jim Palmer. Once again, the Orioles won the
A.L. Championship Series in a three-game sweep, and this time they would win the
World Series.
1970s After winning the division again in 1970, the team entered an eight-year dry spell, finishing around the .500 mark. Killebrew departed after 1974. Owner Calvin Griffith faced financial difficulty with the start of
free agency, costing the Twins the services of
Lyman Bostock and
Larry Hisle, who left as free agents after the 1977 season, and Carew, who was traded after the 1978 season. In 1975, Carew won his fourth consecutive AL batting title, having already joined
Ty Cobb as the only players to lead the major leagues in batting average for three consecutive seasons. In , Carew batted .388, which was the highest in baseball since
Boston's Ted Williams hit .406 in ; he won the 1977 AL
MVP Award. He won another batting title in 1978, hitting .333. It was during the 1982 season that the Twins' nickname of "Twinkies" truly solidified, a nickname that would haunt them through their World Series years and sneak back into the conversation during the 1990s and 2010s slumps. In 1984, Griffith sold the Twins to multi-billionaire banker/financier
Carl Pohlad. Pohlad beat a larger offer by New York businessman
Donald Trump by promising to keep the club in Minnesota. The Metrodome hosted the
1985 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. After several losing seasons, the
1987 team, led by Hrbek,
Gary Gaetti,
Frank Viola (
A.L. Cy Young winner in
1988),
Bert Blyleven,
Jeff Reardon,
Tom Brunansky,
Dan Gladden, and rising star
Kirby Puckett, returned to the World Series after defeating the favored
Detroit Tigers in the
ALCS, 4 games to 1.
Tom Kelly managed the Twins to World Series victories over the
St. Louis Cardinals in
1987 and the
Atlanta Braves in
1991. The 1988 Twins were the first team in American League history to draw more than 3 million fans. On July 17, 1990, the Twins became the only team in major league history to pull off two triple plays in the same game. Twins' pitcher and Minnesota native
Jack Morris was the star of the series in 1991, going 2–0 in his three starts with a 1.17 ERA.
1991 also marked the first time that any team that finished in last place in their division would advance to the World Series the following season; both the Twins and the Braves did this in 1991. Contributors to the 1991 Twins' improvement from 74 wins to 95 included
Chuck Knoblauch, the
A.L. Rookie of the Year;
Scott Erickson, 20-game winner; new closer
Rick Aguilera and new designated hitter
Chili Davis. congratulates the Twins winning the
1987 World Series The World Series in 1991 is regarded by many as one of the classics of all time. In this Series, four games were won during the teams' final at-bat, and three of these were in extra innings. The Atlanta Braves won all three of their games in Atlanta, and the Twins won all four of their games in Minnesota. Up until then, it was the second time in MLB history when a team won all its home games on their way to winning the World Series. The Twins also did it in 1987. The sixth game was a legendary one for Puckett, who tripled in a run, made a sensational leaping catch against the wall, and finally in the 11th inning hit the game-winning home run. Before Puckett's home run, the Braves brought in Charlie Leibrandt to face him. Chili Davis was on-deck. Puckett told Davis he was going to bunt, and Davis was going to win the game. Davis told him he was going to sit on Leibrandt's change-up and send everyone home. The seventh game was tied 0–0 after the regulation nine innings, and marked only the second time that the seventh game of the World Series had ever gone into extra innings. The Twins won on a walk-off RBI single by
Gene Larkin in the bottom of the 10th inning, after Morris had pitched ten shutout innings against the Braves. The seventh game of the
1991 World Series is widely regarded as one of the greatest games in the history of professional baseball. After a winning season in
1992 but falling short of
Oakland in the division, the Twins fell into a years-long stretch of mediocrity, posting a losing record each season for the next eight: 71–91 in 1993, 50–63 in 1994, 56–88 in 1995, 78–84 in 1996, 68–94 in 1997, 70–92 in 1998, 63–97 in 1999 and 69–93 in 2000. From 1994 to 1997, a long sequence of retirements and injuries hurt the team badly, and Tom Kelly spent the remainder of his managerial career attempting to rebuild the Twins. In 1997, owner Carl Pohlad almost sold the Twins to
North Carolina businessman Don Beaver, who would have moved the team to the
Piedmont Triad area. Puckett was forced to retire at age 35 due to loss of vision in one eye from a
central retinal vein occlusion. The
1989 A.L. batting champion, he retired as the Twins' all-time leader in career
hits,
runs,
doubles, and
total bases. At the time of his retirement, his .318 career
batting average was the highest by any right-handed
American League batter since
Joe DiMaggio. Puckett was the fourth baseball player during the 20th century to record 1,000 hits in his first five full calendar years in Major League Baseball, and was the second to record 2,000 hits during his first 10 full calendar years. He was elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in
2001, his first year of eligibility.
2000s , drafted in 1999 by the Twins, won the
AL MVP award in 2006 The Twins dominated the Central Division in the first decade of the new century, winning the division in six of those ten years ('02, '03, '04, '06, '09 and '10), and nearly winning it in '08 as well. From 2001 to 2006, the Twins compiled the longest streak of consecutive winning seasons since moving to Minnesota. Threatened with closure by
league contraction, the
2002 team battled back to reach the
American League Championship Series before being eliminated 4–1 by that year's World Series champion
Anaheim Angels. In 2006, the Twins won the division on the last day of the regular season (the only day all season they held sole possession of first place) but lost to the Oakland Athletics in the
ALDS.
Ozzie Guillén coined a nickname for this squad, calling the Twins "
little piranhas". The Twins players embraced the label, and in response, the Twins Front office started a "Piranha Night", with piranha finger puppets given out to the first 10,000 fans. Scoreboard operators sometimes played an animated sequence of piranhas munching under that caption in situations where the Twins were scoring runs playing "
small ball", and the stadium vendors sold T-shirts and hats advertising "The Little Piranhas". The Twins also had the AL MVP in Justin Morneau, the AL batting champion in
Joe Mauer, In 2008, the Twins finished the regular season tied with the White Sox on top of the AL Central, forcing a
one-game playoff in Chicago to determine the division champion. The Twins lost that game and missed the playoffs. The game location was determined by rule of a coin flip that was conducted in mid-September. This rule was changed for the start of the 2009 season, making the site for any
tiebreaker game to be determined by the winner of the regular season head-to-head record between the teams involved. won the
Rolaids Relief Man Award in 2009 After a year where the Twins played .500 baseball for most of the season, the team won 17 of their last 21 games to tie the
Detroit Tigers for the lead in the Central Division. The Twins were able to use the play-in game rule to their advantage when they won the
AL Central at the end of the regular season by way of a 6–5
tiebreaker game that concluded with a 12th-inning walk-off hit by
Alexi Casilla to right field, that scored
Carlos Gómez. However, they failed to advance to the
American League Championship Series as they lost the
American League Divisional Series in three straight games to the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees. That year, Joe Mauer became only the second catcher in 33 years to win the AL MVP award.
Iván Rodríguez won for the
Texas Rangers in 1999, previous to that, the last catcher to win an AL MVP was the
New York Yankees Thurman Munson in 1976. 2010 marked Minnesota's inaugural season played at
Target Field, where the Twins finished the regular season with a record of 94–68, clinching the AL Central Division title for the 6th time in 9 years under manager
Ron Gardenhire. New regular players included rookie
Danny Valencia at third base, designated hitter
Jim Thome, closer
Matt Capps, infielder
J. J. Hardy, and infielder
Orlando Hudson. In relief pitching roles were late additions
Brian Fuentes and
Randy Flores. On July 7, the team suffered a major blow when Justin Morneau sustained a concussion, which kept him out of the lineup for the rest of the season. In the
divisional series, the Twins lost to the Yankees in a three-game sweep for the second consecutive year. Following the season, Ron Gardenhire received AL
Manager of the Year honors after finishing as a runner up in several prior years.
2017–present In 2017, the Twins went 85–77, finishing 2nd In the AL Central. Following
Brian Dozier's 34
home runs,
Miguel Sanó,
Byron Buxton, and
Eddie Rosario all had breakout years, while
Joe Mauer hit .305. They ended up making the playoffs, which made them the first ever team to lose 100 games the previous year and make the playoffs the next season. They lost to the Yankees in the wild card round. The 2018 season did not go as well. The Twins went 78–84, and did not return to the post-season. Sanó and Buxton were injured most of the year and eventually both sent down to the minors, while long-time Twin Brian Dozier was traded at the deadline. One bright spot came at the end of the season, when hometown hero Joe Mauer returned to catcher (his original position) for his final game, ending his career with a signature double and standing ovation. Another highlight was the team's two-game series against the Cleveland Indians in
San Juan, Puerto Rico. After the season, manager Paul Molitor was fired. Free agent signing
Logan Morrison and long-time veteran
Ervin Santana declared free agency. , infielder (2015–2022) In 2019, the Twins clinched the AL Central Division for the first time since 2010, finishing the season with the second-most wins in franchise history with 101, one short of the 1965 season. The team combined for a total of 307 home runs, the most in MLB history for a single season. The team's slugging prowess has earned them the nickname the
Bomba Squad. In the
2019 ALDS, the Twins opponents were the New York Yankees, who finished one home run behind at 306 and the second team to break the 300 home run mark. The Twins were swept again, and extend their postseason losing streak to 16, dating back to the 2004 ALDS. On September 17, 2019, Miguel Sanó hit a 482-foot home run to make the Twins the first team in major league history to have five players with at least 30 home runs in a season. In 2023 the Minnesota Twins struggled through the first half, falling under .500 just before the All-Star break before beginning a late season surge that saw them take control of the AL Central. They finished as the third seed in the AL for the 2023 MLB Playoffs and faced the
Toronto Blue Jays in the AL Wild Card round. Behind dominant pitching they won both of the first 2 games in the 3 game series, winning their first playoff game since 2004 (breaking an 0–18 postseason streak, the longest in North American sports history) and winning their first playoff series since the 2002 ALDS against the Oakland Athletics.
Threats to move or disband the team The quirks of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, including the turf floor and the white roof, gave the Twins a
home-field advantage that helped them win the World Series in 1987 and 1991, at least in the opinion of their opponents. The Twins went 12–1 in postseason home games during those two seasons, becoming the first and second teams to sweep all four home games in a World Series. (The feat was repeated by the
Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.) Nevertheless, the Twins argued that the Metrodome was obsolete. Furthermore, they said sharing a stadium with the
NFL's Minnesota Vikings, as they had been doing since their 1961 move to Minnesota, limited the team's revenue and made it difficult to sustain a top-notch, competitive team. The team was rumored to contemplate moving to
New Jersey,
Las Vegas,
Portland, Oregon, the
Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina area, and elsewhere in search of a more financially competitive market. In 2002, the team was nearly disbanded when Major League Baseball selected the Twins and the
Montreal Expos (now the
Washington Nationals franchise) for
elimination due to their financial weakness. The impetus for league contraction diminished after a court decision forced the Twins to play out their lease on the Metrodome. However, Twins owner Carl Pohlad continued his efforts to move, pursuing litigation against the Metropolitan Stadium Commission and obtaining a state court ruling that his team was not obligated to play in the Metrodome after the 2006 season. This cleared the way for the Twins to move or disband before the 2007 season if a new deal was not reached.
Target Field in 2010. In response to the threatened loss of the Twins, the Minnesota private and public sector negotiated and approved a financing package for a replacement stadium— a baseball-only outdoor, natural turf ballpark in the
Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis— owned by a new entity known as the Minnesota Ballpark Authority.
Target Field was constructed at a cost of $544.4 million (including site acquisition and infrastructure), utilizing the proceeds of a $392 million public bond offering based on a 0.15% sales tax in Hennepin County and private financing of $185 million provided by the
Pohlad family. As part of the deal, the Twins also signed a 30-year lease of the new stadium, effectively guaranteeing the continuation of the team in Minnesota for a long time to come. Construction of the new field began in 2007, and was completed in December 2009, in time for the 2010 season. Commissioner
Bud Selig, who earlier had threatened to disband the team, observed that without the new stadium the Twins could not have committed to sign their star player, catcher
Joe Mauer, to an 8-year, $184 million contract extension. The first regular-season game in Target Field was played against the
Boston Red Sox on April 12, 2010, with Mauer driving in two runs and going 3-for-5 to help the Twins defeat the Red Sox, 5–2. On May 18, 2011, Target Field was named "The Best Place To Shop" by
Street and Smith's
SportsBusiness Journal at the magazine's 2011 Sports Business Awards Ceremony in New York City. It was also named "The Best Sports Stadium in North America" by
ESPN The Magazine in a ranking that included over 120 different stadiums, ballparks and arenas from around North America. The stadium hosted the
85th Major League Baseball All-Star Game and the
Home Run Derby in 2014. In mid 2020, following
protests over the
murder of George Floyd, a statue of former owner
Calvin Griffith was removed from
Target Plaza outside of the stadium due to his history of racist comments. In August 2025, the Pohlad family—owners of the franchise since 1984—announced they would retain majority control of the Twins, opting not to sell the team. Instead, they plan to bring in two new limited partnership groups to help strengthen the organization’s financial base, pending approval from Major League Baseball. ==Uniforms==