Minnesota Twins

See also Category:Minnesota Twins players.
Award nominations:. Although Minneapolis appears at first glance to be a "small market" city (3 million residents of the associated metropolitan area), the team routinely draws fans from as far away as Montana and Wyoming.
In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The impact of the Twins on the Upper Midwest should not be underestimated. Award wins:. In fact, in addition to the Twins, the Vikings and Gophers both have new stadium proposals in various stages of development. [1] (http://www.cyberpat.com/essays/coppola.html).

The Dome is thought to be an increasingly poor fit for all three of its major tenants (the Twins, the Vikings and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team). The fact that Coppola substituted European colonization with American interventionism does not change the universal message of the book. However, attempts to spur interest and push legislative efforts towards a new stadium have repeatedly failed. In spite of this, Coppola has maintained many episodes (the spear and arrow attack on the boat, for example) that have respected the spirit of the novel and in particular its critique of the concept of civilization and progress. In particular, the Twins receive no revenue from luxury suite leasing (as those are owned by co-tenant Minnesota Vikings) and only a small percentage of concessions sales; also, the percentage of season-ticket-quality seats in the Metrodome is said to be very low compared to other stadiums. Captain Willard is not sent to bring Kurtz back, as in ‘’Heart of Darkness’’, where he dies of natural death (most likely a peaceful heart attack while on Marlow's boat), but to kill him instead. The Twins wish to replace the Metrodome with a new ballpark within the next half decade, claiming that the Metrodome generates too little revenue for the Twins to be competitive. There is no Kilgore character either, a major player in the film.

Their streak of three straight division titles, along with some bitterly fought games, have helped to create an intense rivalry with the Chicago White Sox during the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Subsequently Willard (Marlow, in the book) and Kurtz are not commercial agents of a Belgian ivory company thats seeks fortune by brutally exploiting African native workers, but soldiers of the American Army in a war. Threatened with closure by league contraction in 2002, the team battled back to reach the American League Championship Series before being eliminated 4-1 by that year's eventual World Series Champion Anaheim Angels. Time and location are changed: from the Congo Free State (colony of King Leopold II of Belgium) at the end of the 19th century to Vietnam in the middle of the 20th century. From <! daterange+ ->2002 to 2004<!- daterange- ->, the Twins compiled their longest streak of consecutive league/division championships ever (previous were the 1924 World Champion-1925 AL Champion Senators and the 1969–70 Twins). Although inspired by Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness the film deviates from it extensively. Things turned around, and in <! daterange+ ->2001 to 2004<!- daterange- ->, the Twins compiled the longest streak of consecutive winning seasons since moving to Minnesota, going 85-77 in 2001, 94-67 in 2002, 90-72 in 2003 and 92-70 in 2004. However, there are multiple slightly varying versions of the ending credits.

After 1992, the Twins again fell into an extended slump, posting a losing record each year through 2000. They did consider using the explosion footage made during their destruction of the Kurtz compound, but he later decided that implying that the air strike had been called in was contrary to his wish to offer some slight hope that we could overcome the horrors of war. 1991 was also the first time any team finishing last in its division the previous year advanced to the World Series, with both the Twins and Braves accomplishing this unprecedented feat. In the DVD commentary, he states that they simply had a massive amount of footage to edit with and thus had some choices to make. Paul native) Jack Morris. Coppola denied having any actual alternative endings. All three Series were decided in seven games, with the latter series ending in a dramatic 10-inning, 1-0 shutout by Series MVP (and St. Also in this version Willard steals Kilgore's surfboard, which can still be seen briefly onboard the PBR in the original cut.

In both of these World Series, the home team won each game, which had never occurred prior to 1987. In Apocalypse Now: Redux Coppola restored several scenes that were cut from the original film, including stopovers at a French garrison and another chaotic American base. Louis Cardinals to win the 1987 World Series, then later defeated the Atlanta Braves to win the 1991 World Series. The natives imitate him and he and Lance slowly leave the temple area and depart downriver in the patrol boat. The Twins defeated the St. Willard looks back at them and puts down his weapon, he wants all this violence to end. After several losing seasons in the Dome, the arrival of 1980s superstars Kent Hrbek and Kirby Puckett electrified the team and sent them to two World Series in five years. The natives and soldiers do not try and stop Willard, instead, they look up at him as a God, replacing the recently deceased Colonel Kurtz.

The 1982 season brought the team indoors, into the Metrodome, which is in downtown Minneapolis near the Mississippi River. Lying bloody and dying on the ground, Kurtz whispers "The horror...the horror," in reference to the war and man's potential for great power and violence. The Mall of America now occupies the spot where the "Old Met" stood. Juxtaposed with a ceremonial slaughtering of a cow, Willard enters Kurtz's chamber during one of his message recordings, and kills him with a machete. Through 1981, the team played its games at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, a suburb south of the Twin Cities. Coppola makes little explicit, but we come to believe that Willard and Kurtz develop an understanding nonetheless: Kurtz wishes to die at Willard's hands, and that Willard, having subsequently granted Kurtz his wish, is offered the chance to succeed him in his warlord-demigod role. The team continued to post winning records through 1971, but then entered a decade-long slump. When bound outside in the pouring rain, Kurtz places the head of Chef in Willard's lap.

They were defeated in the World Series by the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the championship drive cemented the team's relationship with the people of Minnesota. While brought before Kurtz and held in captivity in a darkened temple, Willard’s constitution appears to weaken as Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, humanity, and civilization. The Twins were eagerly greeted in Minnesota when they arrived in 1961, and they advanced to the World Series in 1965, driven by the exciting play of superstar first baseman Harmon Killebrew. They are met by a rather eccentric freelance photographer (played by Dennis Hopper) that explains the greatness and philosophic skills of Kurtz to provoke his people into following him. At this point, the narrative becomes increasingly nonlinear and abstract, and slows to an excruciating pace. This fact is reinforced by the stylized TC logo worn on road caps, and by their mascot, TC Bear. Once arrived at Kurtz's palatial compound, Willard leaves Chef behind with orders to call in an air strike on the village if he does not return. Paul (and, presumably, the entire state). Episodes on the journey include a run-in with a tiger while Willard and Chef search for mangos, an impromptu inspection of a Vietnamese boat that leads to accidental slaughter, a surreal stop at the last American outpost during a Vietnamese attack against a wood bridge under construction there, and the shocking deaths of both "Clean" and Chief Phillips during a gunfire ambush with hidden Vietnamese soldiers and a spear thrown by a native on the shore, respectively.

The "Minnesota" designation, instead of "Minneapolis", comes from the fact that the team is intended to represent the "Twin" Cities of Minneapolis-St. The lighting and mood darken as the boat navigates upstream and Willard's silent obsession with Kurtz deepens. Team nickname: Nats, short for Nationals. Also sometimes called Griffs by inventive headline writers, in reference to the club owner. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" Kilgore remarks to Willard and the boat crew, explaining that it "smells like...victory.". One of the songs from the musical, You Gotta Have Heart, is frequently played at baseball games. After helicopters swoop over the village and demolish all visible signs of resistance, a giant napalm strike in the nearby jungle dramatically marks the climax of the battle. The plot features a middle-aged man named Joe Hardy who sells his soul to the Devil so the Washington Senators can win the pennant. The scene, famous for its use of Richard Wagner's epic "Ride of the Valkyries", ends with the soldiers surfing the barely claimed beach amidst skirmishes with infantry and VC.

The longtime competitive struggles of the team were fictionalized in the book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, which became the Broadway musical and movie Damn Yankees. Riding high above the coast in a fleet of Hueys, Kilgore launches an attack on the beach. The team played its games at Griffith Stadium, sharing it with the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues (who played some of their games there). Dismissing these gripes, Kilgore orders his men to saddle up in the morning so that the AirCav can take town and the beach. [1] (http://www.snopes.com/sports/baseball/castro.asp). The problem is, his troops say, it's "Charlie's point" and heavily fortified. It is falsely claimed that prior to the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro tried out for the Senators as a pitcher during the early 1950s. Kilgore, a keen surfer, befriends Johnson and announces that down the coast there is a beach with perfect surf that also marks the opening to the river, which he is more than happy to capture.

During one portion of its history, the team was so notoriously inept that it inspired San Francisco Chronicle columnist Charley Dryden to joke: "Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." This was a play on Light Horse Harry Lee's remembrance of George Washington: "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." The team's difficulties on the field also inspired the book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant (see below). The PBR arrives at an Landing Zone where Willard and the crew meet up with Colonel Bill Kilgore, the merciless commander of the AirCav in the region, following a massive and hectic mopping-up operation of a conquered enemy town. That, along with its poor early years, resulted in the team being remembered mostly for its failures rather than its successes. Johnson, a tanned all-American California surfer; GM3 Tyrone, AKA "Clean", a black 17-year-old from the Bronx; and the Cajun Engineman, Jay "Chef" Hicks. After that, the team fell into mediocrity quickly. Willard will begin his trip up the Nung river on a PBR ("patrol boat, rigid"), with an eclectic crew composed of by-the-book and formal Chief Phillips, a black Navy boat commander; GM3 Lance B. During the period <! daterange+ ->1907 to 1927<!- daterange- ->, the team's line up boasted the presence of Walter "The Big Train" Johnson and they won the 1924 World Series. They also appeared in the 1925 and 1933 Series and came very close in 1945. Willard studies the intelligence files during the boat ride to the river entrance and learns that Kurtz, isolated in his compound and in a strange mental state, has assumed the role of a warlord and is worshipped by the natives and his own loyal men. Another officer, sent earlier to kill Kurtz, has apparently become one of his lieutenants.

They and their expansion-replacement in 1961 would remain officially the "Senators" for good, although space-saving headline writers continued to refer to them as "Nats" frequently. Willard is asked to undertake a mission to find Kurtz and dispose of him 'with extreme prejudice'. In 1959 the word "Senators" finally appeared on their shirts. Their claims are supported by very disturbing radio broadcasts and/or recordings made by Kurtz himself. By the 1950s, "Nationals" was pretty much passe. They state that Kurtz, once considered a model officer and future general, has apparently gone insane and is commanding a legion of his own troops deep in neutral Cambodia. Baseball guides even said "Nationals or Senators" when listing the nickname. Kurtz, a member of the Green Berets.

Newspaper articles for decades used the names "Senators" and "Nationals" (or "Nats") interchangeably, often within the same article. A group of intelligence officers approaches him with a special mission up-river into the remote Cambodian jungle to find Colonel Walter E. Otherwise, the jerseys either read "Washington" or carried a plain block "W". Willard is stationed in Saigon; a seasoned veteran, he is deeply troubled and apparently no longer fit for civilian life. During <! daterange+ ->1905 to 1906<!- daterange- -> the team actually wore "Nationals" on their jerseys. Special Forces Captain Benjamin L. The Washington ballclub was known by two nicknames, the Nationals and the Senators, for most of its history prior to moving to Minnesota. U.S.

The Blues were champions of the Western League in 1898, taking the league by a game-and-a-half from the Indianapolis Hoosiers. (Coppola re-released the film in 2001 under the title Apocalypse Now Redux, restoring footage and sequences and lifting the running time to 200 minutes.) For background information on the film, see Eleanor Coppola's documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, released in 1991. Byron "Ban" Johnson, president of the Western League, changed the name to the American League in 1900 and major league status was awarded a year later. After the first edit, the film was six hours long and had to be severely edited; the original released version was just over two and a half hours long. The Kansas City Blues were a charter member of a the Western League, a minor league at the time. Filmed in the Philippines (most notably the Pagsanjan River and Hidden Valley Springs), the film went far over budget and schedule: a typhoon destroyed many of the sets, the Philippine Army helicopters used for shooting were constantly called back by Ferdinand Marcos to be used in actual combat, the lead role was recast (Martin Sheen replaced Harvey Keitel after shooting had begun), Sheen then had a near-fatal heart attack, Brando was intractable and out of shape, and Coppola himself was mentally fragile. in 1901 when the American League was formed, and played there through the 1960 season.
.

The franchise originated in Kansas City, Missouri in 1894, moved to Washington, D.C. Lee Ermey and Laurence Fishburne (who, only fourteen years old during filming, was credited as 'Larry Fishburne') . Bear is the Twins' mascot, introduced in 2001. Several other actors who were (or later became) prominent stars had minor or supporting roles in the movie including Harrison Ford, R. T.C. Colonel Kilgore. The club has several well-known, harmless hazing rituals, such as requiring the most junior relief pitcher on the team to carry water and snacks to the bullpen in a bright pink Barbie backpack and many of its players, both past and present, are notorious pranksters. The film features performances by Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Marlow in Conrad's novel), Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Dennis Hopper as a fast-talking hallucinogenic photojournalist and Robert Duvall in an Oscar-nominated turn as the borderline-psychotic Lt.

The party atmosphere of the Twins clubhouse after a win is well-known, the team's players unwinding with loud rock music (usually the choice of the winning pitcher) and video games. Coppola's agenda clearly includes larger themes of life and war. Former manager Tom Kelly and current manager Ron Gardenhire run and encourage a hard-nosed, fundamentals-first attitude toward playing and winning baseball games. The soldier's journey becomes increasingly nonlinear and hallucinatory. The Twins are affectionately known among their fans as the "Twinkies." Despite the cream-puff sound of that nickname, the Twins have a reputation as a hard-working, hard-playing club. The narrative of his journey and its culmination is studded with events which, while bizarre, partake of real Vietnam stories. The team and its famous (or infamous) domed ballpark, the Metrodome, were featured in the 1994 motion picture Little Big League. Set in the Vietnam War, a taciturn American soldier is sent to "terminate with extreme prejudice" a rogue Green Beret colonel.

The team is owned by Minneapolis businessman Carl Pohlad, the third owner of the club (following Clark Griffith and his son Calvin). Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American film by Francis Ford Coppola, inspired by Joseph Conrad's classic novella Heart of Darkness. They are in the Central Division of the American League. Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture (Carmine Coppola & Francis Ford Coppola). The Minnesota Twins is a Major League Baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. WGA Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen (John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola). Elizabethton Twins
Gulf Coast League Twins. Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Francis Ford Coppola & John Milius).

Fort Myers Miracle
Beloit Snappers. Greenberg, Richard Marks and Walter Murch). New Britain Rock Cats. Academy Award for Film Editing (Lisa Fruchtman, Gerald B. Rochester Red Wings. Academy Award for Directing (Francis Ford Coppola). American League
. Nelson and Dean Tavoularis).

Pitching saves: Eddie Guardado, 45 (2002). Graham, George R. Pitching ERA: Walter Johnson, 1.14 (1.14). Academy Award for Best Art Direction - Set Decoration (Angelo P. Pitching strikeouts: Walter Johnson, 313 (1910). Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - (Robert Duvall). Pitching wins: Walter Johnson, 36 (1913). Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama.

Strikeouts: Bobby Darwin, 145 (1972). Academy Award for Best Picture. Walks: Eddie Yost, 151 (1956). Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score - Motion Picture (Carmine Coppola & Francis Ford Coppola). Hitting streak: Ken Landreaux, 31 games (1980). Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall). Stolen bases: Chuck Knoblauch, 62 (1997). Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Francis Ford Coppola).

Extra-Base hits: Tony Oliva, 84 (1964). Academy Award for Sound (Richard Beggs, Mark Berger, Nathan Boxer and Walter Murch). Triples: Goose Goslin and Christian Guzman, 20 (1925 and 2000). Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro). Doubles: Mickey Vernon, 51 (1966). Cannes Film Festival : Palme d'Or. Singles: Sam Rice, 182 (1925). Colleen Camp - Playmate, "Miss May".

Hits: Rod Carew, 239 (1977). Tom Mason - supply sgt. Runs: Chuck Knoblauch, 140 (1996). Colby, previously assigned Willard's current mission. Runs batted in: Harmon Killebrew, 140 (1969). Richard M. Home runs: Harmon Killebrew, 49 (1964 and 1969). Scott Glenn - Lt.

Batting average: Rod Carew, .388 (1977). Lucas, aide to Corman. 44 Bob Casey. Harrison Ford - Col. 42 Jackie Robinson (retired throughout baseball). Corman, G-2. 34 Kirby Puckett. Spradlin - Gen.

29 Rod Carew. D. 14 Kent Hrbek. G.   6 Tony Oliva. Laurence Fishburne - Tyrone, AKA "Clean", sailor.   3 Harmon Killebrew. Johnson, sailor and famous surfer.

Bob Casey, the public address announcer for the first 44 years of Twins baseball (<! daterange+ ->1961 to 2004<!- daterange- ->). Sam Bottoms - Lance B. Frank Viola. Albert Hall - Chief Phillips, Navy boat commander. Zoilo Versalles. Frederic Forrest - "Chef", sailor. César Tovar. Bill Kilgore.

Kevin Tapani. Col. Rich Rollins. Robert Duvall - Lt. Jeff Reardon. Dennis Hopper - "American photojournalist". Pierzynski. Willard.

A.J. Benjamin L. Jim Perry. Martin Sheen - Capt. Camilo Pascual. Kurtz. Tony Oliva. Walter E.

Joe Niekro. Marlon Brando - Col. Al Newman. Jack Morris. Doug Mientkiewicz.

Shane Mack. Gene Larkin. Chuck Knoblauch. Tom Kelly.

Jim Kaat. Kent Hrbek. Brian Harper. Eddie Guardado.

Mudcat Grant. Dan Gladden. Greg Gagne. Gary Gaetti.

Scott Erickson. Chili Davis. Tom Brunansky. Bert Blyleven.

Juan Berenguer. Bob Allison. Rick Aguilera. Tom Kelly and Paul Molitor often work with the Twins in scouting and assistant coach roles, though neither are in the dugout during games.

Note