Dick Bremer Elected to Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame

[Seth Stohs]

Image courtesy of Seth Stohs

Location: A central Minnesota lake, frozen over by the cold condition. (a drone starts high, above the trees, showing an expansive, ice-covered lake. Slowly the drone flies over the lake until it reaches an ice fishing house, smoke coming out the pipe chimney.)

Time of Day: A quiet winter morning between the Christmas and New Years holidays. 

Location 2: Inside the fish house. Big winter jackets hanging up on the wall, a wood floor with four holes drilled into the ice. 

People: a man just months shy of his 70th birthday. His wife. They have a son and a daughter. Each has their own chair and is responsible for watching one the bobber in one of the holes. While not wearing the heavy jackets any longer, all four are still dressed in layers, jeans, sweatshirts, gloves and stocking caps. The son is wearing a Pensacola Blue Wahoos stocking cap. The other three have Minnesota Twins stocking caps. They are eating breakfast and drinking coffee. 

Suddenly, a cell phone ringer goes offer (yes, playing Take Me Out to the Ballgame). All four reach for their phones. The matriarch of the family picks up his phone, looks down at it, puts it up to his ear. For the first time, the camera gets a direct shot at his face. He smiles as he says in one of the most recognizable voices in the Upper Midwest, "This is Dick Bremer." 

On the other side of the phone call are Dustin Morse (Twins VP of Communications and Public Affairs), Dave St. Peter (long-time Twins President). and Hall of Famer Rod Carew. 

After a few minutes, and a lot of Thank Yous, Bremer hung up the phone. With water droplets emerging, and starting to freeze, Bremer told his family he was elected to the Twins Hall of Fame. 

Bremer noted later, "It meant a lot to me to have the whole family there. They paid quite a price to let me chase that little white ball around the country." 

After hugs, the family celebrated with a champagne toast, "...with small Dixie cups. After all, it was in the fish house!" 

End Scene. 

On Saturday, July 11th, Bremer will be inducted as the 42nd member of the Twins Hall of Fame. He has been the emcee for many of the ceremonies. 

Bremer grew up in the small, west-central Minnesota town of Dumont where he began to love playing baseball. When he was about five years old, the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota, and Bremer has been one of their biggest and most loyal fans. 

His family moved to Missouri for a couple of years, but he never allowed another team to become his favorite. The family returned to Minnesota, and Bremer graduated from Staples high school. He spent his college years at St. Cloud State. His first job was at a radio station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, (insert Duke After Dark note here) where he was a disc jockey but also called play-by-play for the University of Iowa's men's basketball team. 

In 1983, Bremer became the Twins television voice. on Spectrum Sports. He spent three years in the role but didn't work in 1986. He returned to the role in 1987 and held the role through 2023, his 40th season. After the year, he announced his retirement. On Opening Day 2024, the Twins presented him with a plague and named the home TV booth after Dick Bremer. 

Early in his career, he also called North Star games, Vikings preseason games, Gophers sports, and even some for the Minnesota State High School League. 

In his time working play-by-play, he had an impressive group of partners in the booth. The first was Harmon Killebrew. (Can you imagine how cool that would be for a kid from Minnesota?) He worked with Tommy John, Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat, Torii Hunter, LaTroy Hawkins, Glen Perkins, Justin Morneau, Trevor Plouffe, Denard Span, and others. 

In the offseasons, he remained busy, representing the Twins at various functions such as the Diamond Awards, the Twins Winter Caravan, several Hot Stove events and more. 

In 2020, Bremer wrote his memoir in the book, Game Used, a story of his lif e and times around the Twins. It is broken into 108 "stitches," each a unique story to help explain the lessons he's learned over time. 108 stitches, of course, is the number stitches on a major-league baseball. 

You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of the Twins, someone as knowledgeable in their history and who has seen so much of it from a really good view. We would be hard pressed to find someone who has been a bigger, more public ambassador for the Twins than Bremer. 

Congratulations on this well-deserved and well-earned honor! 

      

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[Parfigliano]

Congrats Mr Bremer.

[CRF]

Well deserved. Congratulations. 

[Coach Wheels]

Fabulous and well deserved honor for Mr. Bremer. He was the voice of the Twins for all those years and he truly lived and died with them every year. Dick and Burt were the best and made watching bad Twins teams and good Twins teams easy to watch.

Congrats to a real fan of the Twins.

[NYCTK]

This organization unceremoniously canned his ass and now wants to bring in fans by celebrating him. Whoopdeedoo 

[DJL44]

I thought he was already in.

[lukeduke1980]

His memoir is a must read.  Great American baseball story

[Old Crow]

We were in New York for a series in 2002 when Dick spotted our Twins hats across the hotel lobby and made a point to come over and visit with us.  I don't think the Twins will ever have a better team ambassador.

[VivaBomboRivera!]

Bremer deserves the honor. Congratulations!

 

As for the Twins, "Well, duh!"

Roy Smalley? Tom Brunansky? Sam Mele?

[Otaknam]

A well deserved honor for a terrific play by play guy and all around great guy! Too bad they didn’t let him choose his own retirement date instead of forcing him out. But Dick rose above that disappointment because he is a good guy who had a great run!

[saviking]

COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED TO A NICER GUYS!!! WELL DESERVED!

[Rufus]

Bremer deserves it, but I'll bet he'd agree with me that biggest snub is probably one of his biggest influences ...Halsey Hall! Sure he was colorful and unconventional...but it was the 60's and that is what made him fun. 

[bean5302]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

I thought he was already in.

I mean, that was my conclusion when he was unceremoniously dumped by the Twins out of the blue as a sacrifice to the altar of saving St. Peter's job for another season.

[bean5302]

Dick Bremer will remain the voice of the Twins as far as I'm concerned. It's a shame the Twins didn't have more big games and national playoff attention where Bremer could have gotten more recognition.

[Parfigliano]

2 hours ago, NYCTK said:

This organization unceremoniously canned his ass and now wants to bring in fans by celebrating him. Whoopdeedoo 

I also thought the way he was exited from the booth was classless.

[Dave Lemke]

Very well deserved. Had the privilege of meeting him and his son many years ago. A true gentleman and a great ambassador for the Twins and Minnesota!

 

[HerbieFan]

Well-deserved.  Met him on the caravan several years ago.  Nice guy.

[Pat]

A great ambassador for Twins baseball. A well deserved honor. I chaperoned his senior prom in high school.

[Teflon]

Here's a left-handed toast to Mr. Bremer! I'd forgotten Kubel's cycle! Great call - thanks for including that, Seth.

[Met Stadium Usher]

I sure do miss hearing Dick Bremer on the Twins broadcasts, with no disrespect intending to Cory Provus, who is a fine baseball announcer in his own right.  As a listener, you knew that Dick was all about the Twins, but would give you a fair and honest account of every game while also making you feel like he was a friend of the family. His book, mentioned above, is good reading for Twins fans.

So thanks Seth, for this excellent piece on Bremer going to the Twins Hall of Fame.

However, there are a couple typos/thinkos you might want to edit, just for posterity on this momentous event.

A matriarch is a highly respected woman. A patriarch is a highly respected man. 

And I bet the Twins presented him with a plaque. It would be a shame if they gave him the plague.

Not too late to do an edit or two, is it?

Also, a shoutout to Rufus for the comment above about Halsey Hall. It is astounding to me that he wasn't in the first set of inductees. I realize it is a generational thing, but truly he made listening to the 1960s Twins a joy. I would guess that Dick would agree.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

13 hours ago, NYCTK said:

This organization unceremoniously canned his ass and now wants to bring in fans by celebrating him. Whoopdeedoo 

Come on New York. No one deserves this award more than Dick Bremer.  He is a kind man with whom  I have enjoyed watching thousands of Twins games. His book is a true love story that this man has with the Twins organization. Can't you just be happy for him and say "Congratulations"? 

[USAFChief]

Congratulations Mr Bremer. Well deserved.

[NYCTK]

14 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Come on New York. No one deserves this award more than Dick Bremer.  He is a kind man with whom  I have enjoyed watching thousands of Twins games. His book is a true love story that this man has with the Twins organization. Can't you just be happy for him and say "Congratulations"? 

I'm not saying he doesn't. I love Dick...um...you know what I mean. 

I just understand the Twins don't actually give a **** about him. They threw him off the air and are now capitilizing on him. The Twins Hall of Fame is not some virtuous thing. It's an event to sell more tickets. And the Pohalds don't deserve anyone's money. 

[NYCTK]

16 hours ago, Met Stadium Usher said:

I sure do miss hearing Dick Bremer on the Twins broadcasts, with no disrespect intending to Cory Provus, who is a fine baseball announcer in his own right.  As a listener, you knew that Dick was all about the Twins, but would give you a fair and honest account of every game while also making you feel like he was a friend of the family. His book, mentioned above, is good reading for Twins fans.

So thanks Seth, for this excellent piece on Bremer going to the Twins Hall of Fame.

However, there are a couple typos/thinkos you might want to edit, just for posterity on this momentous event.

A matriarch is a highly respected woman. A patriarch is a highly respected man. 

And I bet the Twins presented him with a plaque. It would be a shame if they gave him the plague.

Not too late to do an edit or two, is it?

Also, a shoutout to Rufus for the comment above about Halsey Hall. It is astounding to me that he wasn't in the first set of inductees. I realize it is a generational thing, but truly he made listening to the 1960s Twins a joy. I would guess that Dick would agree.

Dick was a massive homer, as he should be, but he was an honest observer of the game.

Provus is just a propagandist for the organization. 

[SteveLV]

Absolute Gentleman.

Ran into him at the Cabela's parking lot about 10 years ago and he took the time to chat ball with me for about 10 minutes.  Could not have been nicer.

Congratulations, Sir.