Article: Rejected Taglines for the 1981 Minnesota Twins

[RandBalls Stu]

As the local media test drives nicknames (Bomba Squad, SotaPop, The Strapping Young Men from Where The North Loop Meets Downtown But It’s Kind of The Warehouse District Too) for the powerful 2019 Minnesota Twins roster, Twins Daily offers an exclusive look at some of the rejected talking points for the 1981 squad.The ’81 Twins were…not good. Johnny Goryl got fired, the team was playing in a doomed Met Stadium, Calvin Griffith would sooner do racism in Waseca than spend money on free agents, and there was also a players’ strike smack dab in the middle of what would end up being a split season.

 

Still, you gotta put butts in seats, and the 1981 marketing team hoped to drum up some momentum around, um, Glenn Adams and Pete Mackanin. When it became startlingly apparent that the team didn’t have a lot of promise (Roy Smalley was your team leader in home runs with seven), those efforts were scrapped in favor of building excitement over the move to the Metrodome in 1982. The Twins Daily I-Team found a copy of proposed taglines in a haunted Mall of America basement, and we share them with you now.

• Remember When We Had Rod Carew?
• We Already Traded Ken Landreaux, Sorry About That
• There Might Be Some Minnesota Kicks Fans in the Parking Lot Who Will Let You Drink Their Beer
• Don’t Get Too Attached to Any of These Guys
• Life Is Pain Always
• Wear Closed-Toe Shoes Knothole Gang, Calvin Won’t Pay for a Grounds Crew and You Technically Have to Help Us Drag the Infield Between Innings! Mom Didn’t Read the Fine Print, This Is on Her!
• Kirby Puckett is Three Years Away Still
• Cable TV Is In Its Infancy So You Still Have to Go to a Game to See Us
• Listen to the Owner Badmouth Larry Hisle
• We’ll Call Up the Hrbek Kid in August if You Promise to Buy Tickets, Bloomington.
• You’re Not Going to Believe It Now but These Powder Blues Are Going to Look Fantastic in 2019
• Fielding Nine Players Every Night!
• The North Stars Are Across the Way If You Get Bored
• We’ll Trade Jerry Koosman for Randy Johnson This Summer. Not That One.
• Watch a Baseball Game While Dad Gets Tuned Up at Steak & Ale

 

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[Don't Feed the Greed Guy]

Wasn't "The Rusty Scupper" down on the 494 strip in Bloomington running a promotional during September? Something like:

 

*Dinner and drinks before the game!

*Ride "The Scupper Sloop" to & from Met Stadium!

*Tommy Kramer autographs cocktail napkins at the bar after the game!

[USAFChief]

"You're guaranteed to see a major league baseball team!"

[Otto von Ballpark]

"Strike while the team is (not) hot"

[terrydactyls]

The best thing that season was the MLB strike that shortened the season to only 110 games.

[Brock Beauchamp]

The Minnesota Twins: Bringing Sexy Back

 

[Doomtints]

Cable TV Is In Its Infancy So You Still Have to Go to a Game to See Us

 

Every game was on channel 9 back in those days.

[USAFChief]

 

Every game was on channel 9 back in those days.

huh?

 

[USAFChief]

"We're not in last place in the second half!"

[USAFChief]

"Good seats available!

 

Just take your seat home when you leave."  

[Doomtints]

 

huh?

 

What part of my statement confuses you?

 

Before moving to cable...

every Twins game....

was broadcast on Channel 9....

which at the time was an independent station...

which otherwise played reruns all day...

since the Fox network did not yet exist.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Doomtints

[Parker Hageman]

For a refresh on that season, please read Reusse's 1981/2016 comparison column and be sad times two. 

[luckylager]

 

What part of my statement confuses you?

 

Before moving to cable...

every Twins game....

was broadcast on Channel 9....

which at the time was an independent station...

which otherwise played reruns all day...

since the Fox network did not yet exist.

 

As I recall, home games were not broadcast on KMSP, only road games and not even all of those. 

[RandBalls Stu]

I was a baseball-addicted kid back then and I was desperate for Twins games on the teevee. I'm pretty sure they weren't consistently broadcast until '84-85, but happy to admit I'm wrong

[luckylager]

 

I was a baseball-addicted kid back then and I was desperate for Twins games on the teevee. I'm pretty sure they weren't consistently broadcast until '84-85, but happy to admit I'm wrong

 

I remember getting a Spectrum subscription in about 1983. Spectrum required a weird satellite-like rooftop antenna and a descrambler box. I think that was the first time you could get a majority of the Twins home games on TV. I'm pretty sure that Calvin was of the opinion that if you wanted to see a home game, you could buy a ticket. 

Edited May 31, 2019 by luckylager

[AlwaysinModeration]

“Dollar Dogs: Just a Dollar!”

 

That’s all I got.

[Doomtints]

 

As I recall, home games were not broadcast on KMSP, only road games and not even all of those. 

 

Maybe that was true in later years, but not for games in the 1981-1987 range. All but one or two games every year was broadcast.

[Nine of twelve]

 

Every game was on channel 9 back in those days.

I can remember when the games were on Channel 11. The Frank Buetel scoreboard show followed the game, then Harrigan reruns. (OMG! I'm nearly as old as Chief!)

[Craig Arko]

I can remember when the games were on Channel 11. The Frank Buetel scoreboard show followed the game, then Harrigan reruns. (OMG! I'm nearly as old as Chief!)

Indeed, day games would preempt Mel Jass.

[USAFChief]

 

I can remember when the games were on Channel 11. The Frank Buetel scoreboard show followed the game, then Harrigan reruns. (OMG! I'm nearly as old as Chief!)

Back in my day, we didn't have 11 channels.

[bird]

"Mark Funderburk: Get To Know Him"

[Twins_Fan_For_Life]

Lenny Faedo, Hosken Powell,etc. That would not even have been a good Triple-A team

[boomerb5]

Maybe that was true in later years, but not for games in the 1981-1987 range. All but one or two games every year was broadcast.

 

Unlike today, when exactly zero games are broadcast over the air. No cable, no Twins. Cant even use mlb atbat due to asinine blackout rules.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Unlike today, when exactly zero games are broadcast over the air. No cable, no Twins. Cant even use mlb atbat due to asinine blackout rules.

Not quite true. Thankfully, streaming packages make it pretty accessible/affordable without cable. Sling includes FSN and it's $25 per month, so $150 for the season, or roughly the same price as MLB.TV anyway ($120).

[Guest]

Can't speak for the 80s, but as a kid in the mid-to-late 60s, I can recall almost every road game being televised and only the exceptionally rare home game. It was a big deal when they began to televise in color, from most stadiums, anyway. There were a few where I think the lighting wasn't strong enough to televise in color.

 

By the early 80s, I caught up on box scores from time to time and whatever got written in The Sporting News... which, when it came to the Twins, wasn't much. Dark times. 

 

As for a slogan, maybe it was "Come out and see big league baseball while you can, because we're moving to North Carolina"

[gil4]

 

The Minnesota Twins: Bringing Sexy Back

We had Freddie Mercury on the team and marketing couldn't do something with that?

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Maybe that was true in later years, but not for games in the 1981-1987 range. All but one or two games every year was broadcast.

I've been curious about this question before, so I just looked up the scanned archives of the Minneapolis Tribune -- specifically its TV schedules. I looked at May 19 through June 11, 1981 -- the last 23 Twins games before the strike interrupted the season.

 

10 out of 13 Twins road games were broadcast on TV. (2 of the missing road games had North Stars hockey broadcasts that same night; the other was Thursday May 28th, the last of a 4 game series vs Texas. KSMP showed Gunsmoke and Hollywood Squares instead. )

 

Only 1 of 10 Twins home games during this sample was broadcast on TV (Tuesday June 9th vs Milwaukee).

 

Judging from this sample, it does appear that most Twins road games were broadcast on KMSP TV in 1981, but very few home games.

[gil4]

 

Back in my day, we didn't have 11 channels.

 

We had channels 3, 6, and 8. CBS, ABC, ABC. At some point channel 6 switched to CBS (big help). Occasionally, if the weather was right and the antenna was facing the right way, we could get channel 10 (NBC), but it was very rare and pretty snowy when we got it. I think I was a freshman in HS before we got cable (and upgraded to a 19" color tv.)

I have fond memories of visiting family in St Paul because we always got to see a Twins game (at the Met, except for 1981), the games we didn't go to were frequently on TV (and my uncle had color), and there was more in the paper about the Twins than the usual two sentence summary we got at home. 

[the_brute_squad]

For those that are unaware of the Cal Griffith and Waseca reference:

http://www.probonopress.org/calvin-griffith-in-the-den-of-the-waseca-lions-1978/

[Einheri]

 

For those that are unaware of the Cal Griffith and Waseca reference:

http://www.probonopress.org/calvin-griffith-in-the-den-of-the-waseca-lions-1978/

Thanks.  That was an… um, interesting read.