On a chilly Thursday afternoon, 60 years of hostilities came to an end. On October 26, 1960, the American League announced that the Washington Senators were leaving D.C. to become the Minnesota Twins.

Major League Baseball was coming to Minnesota and the long-standing rivalry between the Minneapolis Millers and the Saint Paul Saints ended. These two minor league rivals had a rivalry that was anything but minor. According to Stew Thornley, author of Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History, before games the teams demanded, “no throwing of rocks, no throwing of dust and dirt in the eyes.”

Over their years of rivalry, both teams had great moments in history. The Saints won their first Little World Series in 1924 in an epic 10 games, Willie Mays began his spectacular career with the Millers in 1951, and in 1959 the Little World Series ended after seven games against the Havana Sugar Kings with Fidel Castro walking the Miller’s dugout, a revolver on his hip.

Like many border battles, this rivalry was town versus town, neighbor versus neighbor. That changed in the spring of 1961. At Metropolitan Stadium, the Minnesota Twins, with a crack of the bat started a new legacy for Minnesota.

Minnesota Historical Society staff. The article first appeared in the October 2013 issue of Minnesota Good Age.