Rally Towels Are Great, But There's Still Just One Homer Hanky

[Alex Boxwell]

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

October baseball is the best sports experience in the world. The culmination of 162 games compressed into 3-, 5-, and 7-game series is hard to beat. Every pitch bears the weight of lifelong dreams of hoisting the World Series trophy. Every October, the fans of the teams lucky enough to be playing get turned up to 11. All the stadiums are packed, and the atmosphere is unmatched. One constant in most postseason crowds is the use of a rally towel, rag... or, some may even call it: a Homer Hanky. 

On Dec. 27, 1975, for an AFC Divisional game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Colts, broadcaster Myron Cope is credited with suggesting fans bring their own yellow/gold towel to the game. The Steelers won the game and went on to win the Super Bowl. Thus, the Terrible Towel became a fixture in their organization. That idea would eventually be monetized, for a good cause. In 1996, Myron Cope gave the rights to the towel to Allegheny Valley School, an organization that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A portion of all Terrible Towel sales have gone to that school ever since.

Just over a decade after Pittsburgh got the party started, the Homer Hanky famously debuted in 1987. It was a wildly successful promotion, from the Star Tribune. As the Twins continued to win, the Homer Hanky’s popularity only grew. CBS claimed over 2.1 million were sold during the 1987 World Series. Let’s not forget that in the 1987 postseason, the Twins went undefeated at the Metrodome on their way to a World Series title, embedding the Homer Hanky in the DNA of Twins fans forever.

The Homer Hanky was naturally brought back for the 1991 postseason run, when the team and the hanky found similar success. The Twins were a perfect 2-0 at home against the Blue Jays and went 4-0 at home against the Braves in one of the greatest World Series of all time. That brought the home playoff record of the Twins in the Homer Hanky Era to a perfect 12-0. The Homer Hanky was associated with excellence and sheer joy in the Twin Cities. The sea of white in the Metrodome is as memorable as the pinstriped jerseys on the players' backs. Of course, since then, their record has gotten much worse in the playoffs. Their attempts to revive the Hanky have been a bit cheap; the red ones handed out by the Strib in 2019 were an especially bad idea.

Now, October is flooded with teams waving their rally towels, looking to capture a little home-field magic (except the Yankees, because they consider winning very serious business and no fun is allowed). Looking around in October, I certainly miss seeing the Twins in the playoffs. However, they will always have their mark in October, when you see the rally towels waving, hoping to capture a little bit of that 1987 magic.

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[Dave Borton]

$5 on eBay from the '87 series.

[doug78k]

Uhhh, Twins were 4-0 at home against the Braves in '91. WT Heck. How do you mess that up??

 

[BobAzar]

Dick Bremer had a great anecdote about the '87 hanky in his book. something along the lines of; he got one of the first hankies ever made because he was a team employee and they wanted some feedback. He thought it was dumb, and wouldnt catch on (I think he was the only one that thought that since they went ahead with it). He tied it to his car's antennae, then sometime during the WS run he came out and someone had cut it off. So somewhere out there, someone has one of the first homer hankies ever made that is missing a corner. because they stole it from Dick Bremer's car. 

[ashbury]

51 minutes ago, BobAzar said:

Dick Bremer had a great anecdote about the '87 hanky in his book. something along the lines of; he got one of the first hankies ever made because he was a team employee and they wanted some feedback. He thought it was dumb, and wouldnt catch on (I think he was the only one that thought that since they went ahead with it). He tied it to his car's antennae, then sometime during the WS run he came out and someone had cut it off. So somewhere out there, someone has one of the first homer hankies ever made that is missing a corner. because they stole it from Dick Bremer's car. 

And worth $4.75 on eBay because of the missing corner.  😄

[doug78k]

6 hours ago, doug78k said:

Uhhh, Twins were 4-0 at home against the Braves in '91. WT Heck. How do you mess that up??

 

Hey, they fixed it! Looking for editors?

[AlGoreRythm]

I've noticed since he first started writing for Twins Daily, Alex's strong suit has never been accuracy of information or punctuation when it comes to writing.

[BillyBallLives]

21 hours ago, doug78k said:

Uhhh, Twins were 4-0 at home against the Braves in '91. WT Heck. How do you mess that up??

I read the article post-edit, what did the first version say?

[BillyBallLives]

The article says: “all the stadiums are packed,”

but Cleveland didn’t quite fill Progressive Field for the Wild Card Series vs. Detroit:

Game 1: 26,186 (75% full)

Game 2: 26,669 (77% full)

Game 3: 29,891 (86% full)

With 34,820 seats, none of the games were sellouts.

Call me petty, but almost all “all” statements are rarely true.

 

 

[PatPfund]

Ah, the Homer Hanky. Classic case of something that could have retired on top, but stayed around LONG after it should have retired, washing away brief moments of glory with decades of defeat. The emblem of victory become Failure Flag of surrender. The Harold Stassen of sports paraphernalia.