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Minneapolis Millers

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''For the hockey team with the same name see Minneapolis Millers (hockey).
The Minneapolis Millers were a professional minor league baseball team that played in Minneapolis, Minnesota until 1960. The team was a member of the American Association. The Millers were managed from 1924-1931 by Michael Joseph Kelley, one of the great figures of American Association history. Kelley operated the team as club president until 1946. Broadcaster Halsey Hall was the Millers' play-by-play man from 1933 until the club was folded in 1960 to make way for the Minnesota Twins.

Ted Williams, Willie Mays and Carl Yastrzemski were among some future major leaguers who played for the Millers. The Millers won nine pennants in the Association from 1902 to 1960. They played their home games at Nicollet Park until 1955, the ballfeld being demolished the following year. That site, at 31st and Nicollet Avenue, is now the home of bank. In 1956 they moved into Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota until 1960. They had a heated crosstown rivalry with the St. Paul Saints.

Over the years the Millers were participants in four Junior World Series; matchups between the champions of the American Association and the International League. In the 1932 championship, the team was defeated by the Newark Bears 4 games to 2. The Millers, under manager Bill Rigney clinched the 1955 series against the Rochester Red Wings, 4 games to 3, in the final ball game played at Nicollet Park. In 1958, the Millers, with Gene Mauch as manager, beat the Montreal Royals 4 games to 0. Their last appearance in this Series was in 1959, with Mauch as manager, when the Millers lost the series 4 games to 3 to the Havana Sugar Kings.

After the farm system era began, the Millers were longtime farm teams of the Boston Red Sox (1936-38; 1958-60) and New York Giants (1946-57).

The team played their final year and folded after the 1960 season with the arrival of the Minnesota Twins in 1961. Both the Millers and the Saints were resurrected in the mid-1990s; the Millers folded after one season (1994) but the Saints, who began playing in the Northern League in 1993, survive to the present despite sharing their market with the major league Twins. The 1994 Millers played as part of the Great Central League. The ignominious end of the Great Central League leaves it highly doubtful that the Millers will rise again.

In the 19th century a different Minneapolis Millers were part of the Western League.The team played first in Athletic Park and later Nicollet Park. The team was folded in 1901. There is uncertainty as to whether or not the team became the Baltimore Orioles (who would later move to New York and become the New York Yankees), as the history of the end of the Western League and the beginning of the American League is anything but clear.

Notable players

Numerous famous baseball players have appeared for the Minneapolis Millers at some point in their careers, these players include:

References

 

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