Calvin Griffith

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Calvin Robertson Griffith (December 1, 1911 - October 20, 1999), born Calvin Robertson in Montreal, Canada, was a Major League Baseball team owner (1955 - 1984). He was famous for his devotion to the game and for his sayings.

He was the nephew of Clark Griffith, who raised Calvin from the age of 11. After Calvin's father died a year later, Clark adopted the boy. The senior Griffith owned the Washington Senators from 1920 until his death in 1955; upon his death, the team passed into the hands of Calvin, who had worked up through a variety of positions with the team, starting as a batboy, and serving a brief stint under Joe Engel and the Chattanooga Lookouts at Engel Stadium.

Under Calvin Griffith's ownership, just a few years after his father's death, Calvin moved the Senators to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota in 1961, wanting to find a city that would provide a larger fan-base for his club. They were renamed the Minnesota Twins. Famous for his sayings ("He'll either be the best manager in baseball - or the worst," he said when he gave a young Billy Martin his first manager job), one of his most infamous landed him in trouble in 1978, drawing charges of racism. His best player, Rod Carew, immediately declared he no longer desired to play on Griffith's "plantation." He was traded the next year to the California Angels. In 1984, buffeted by the changes in baseball brought about by free agency, Griffith sold the Twins to Minneapolis banker Carl Pohlad; Griffith wept at the signing ceremony.

Griffith died on October 20, 1999 at the age of 87. Ironically, he was buried back in Washington, D.C., a city he rarely visited after he moved the Senators to Minnesota, and as a result made him one of most disliked figures in Washington sports.

Preceded by Clark Griffith 1920–1955

Owner of the Washington Senators (I)/Minnesota Twins 1955–1984

Succeeded by Carl Pohlad 1984–present

[edit] External links

• "The Last of the Pure Baseball Men," Atlantic Monthly profile by Michael Lenehan, 1981
• BaseballLibrary - career highlights
• Minnesota Public Radio - Calvin Griffith Dead at 87
• Washington Post - Leaving for the Last Time
• ESPN - Griffith dies after developing kidney infection
• Calvin Griffith brought color to baseball

[edit] Further reading

• John Kerr, Calvin: Baseball’s Last Dinosaur (Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, 1990)
• David Anderson, Quotations From Chairman Calvin (Brick Alley Books Press, Stillwater, 1984)