Calvin Robertson Griffith (December 1, 1911 — October 20, 1999), born Calvin Robertson in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was a Major League Baseball team owner. As president, majority owner and de facto general manager of the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise of the American League from 1955–1984, he was famous for his devotion to the game and for his sayings.
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The son of a minor league baseball player, Calvin Robertson was the nephew of Clark Griffith, the Hall of Fame former pitcher and manager who became president of the Senators in 1920. He raised Calvin from the age of 11 and adopted the boy when Calvin's father died a year later. Calvin's widowed mother and his siblings moved to Washington as well, and at least three brothers — Sherry, Jimmy and Billy — and a brother-in-law, Joe Haynes, would eventually become Senators' executives, while brother-in-law Joe Cronin, a Hall of Fame shortstop, would serve as playing manager of the Senators and Boston Red Sox, general manager of the Red Sox, and president of the American League.
The senior Griffith owned the Senators until his death in 1955; upon his passing, the team passed into the hands of Calvin, who had worked his way up through a variety of positions with the team, starting as a batboy, minor league player and manager (serving a brief stint under Joe Engel and the Chattanooga Lookouts at Engel Stadium), and front-office executive.
Under Calvin Griffith's ownership, just a few years after his father's death, the Senators were moved to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota in 1961. 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. Speaking at a Lions Club dinner in Waseca, Minnesota, Griffith was quoted as saying:
"I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ballgames, but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here."
When his quote was reported in the Minneapolis Tribune, Griffith offered a conflicting defense: that his quotes had been taken out of context, that he had been misquoted entirely, and that he was joking, trying to get a laugh out of the crowd.[1] His best player, Rod Carew (already in a bitter contract dispute with Griffith), immediately declared he no longer desired to be "another nigger on (Griffith's) plantation." The remark from Carew seems to have been a negotiating tactic, however, as Carew later said that "Calvin and I had a very good relationship...When I got the news that I was going into the Hall of Fame, he was the first person I called. I was 3 o'clock in the morning...I called him before I called my mom because I owed him that much respect." Carew also acknowledged that Griffith surprised him with a $150,000 bonus after the 1977 season.[1]
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.
Calvin Griffith was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.[2]
| Preceded by Clark Griffith 1920–1955 |
Owner of the Washington Senators (I)/Minnesota Twins 1955–1984 |
Succeeded by Carl Pohlad 1984–2009 |
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