MLB History Challenge: All-Time Twin Cities Team

Bleacher Report’s Alexander Freund has challenged the BR Baseball Community to come up with all-time lineups for various Major League Baseball teams.

I began to write up a lineup for the Minnesota Twins...then I decided to stop. 

I have written similar articles three or four times, which made for too much repetition and not enough passion.

No fears—I'll be publishing my Twins all-time lineup soon, so keep checking Bleacher Report’s MLB section. I just wanted to force myself down a different path before I took the road more traveled.

First, I considered writing up a team of players born in Minnesota, but my hopes were dashed when I realized a book focusing on the same subject already existed in my library—and that I wouldn’t have to do any research at all besides getting off the couch and walking to my bookcase.

I needed a real challenge, something that would keep me up at night reading statistics and esoteric works on regional baseball. 

The Twins came to Minnesota in 1961, but one has to remember that there was a fine history of professional baseball in the state dating back into the 19th century.  Long before the Twins and their lack of home run hitting stole the hearts of Minnesotans, there were several minor league teams in the area, including the Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints.

Among the greats who stopped by the Land of Lakes en route to the majors were Ted Williams, Roy Campanella, Lefty Gomez, Duke Snider, and Willie Mays.

But just listing a bunch of Hall of Famers is, again, a little too easy. Instead, I decided to push myself further.

Below you'll find my all-time list of professional ballplayers who had spectacular seasons playing for Twin Cities teams...but who aren’t enshrined in Cooperstown.

1B: Joe “Unser Choe” Hauser

You may not recognize the name, but Unser Choe Hauser was the first player to hit 60 or more home runs twice as a professional. 

Hauser first broke the mark in 1930 when he played for the Baltimore Orioles in the International League. He came to Minnesota in 1932 and proceeded to hit 202 home runs in five seasons for the Millers. His best year came in 1933, when he hit 69 dingers.

Hauser also played six very good seasons in the majors for the Athletics and the Indians. In 1924, he finished seventh in the MVP voting after posting a .288/.358/.516 line with 27 home runs—second in the league.

Hauser's career line was .284/.368/.480 in 629 major league games.

2B: Bobby Marshall

Marshall was one of the premier black athletes in Minnesota in the early part of the 20th century. 

Marshall attended the University of Minnesota, where he received a law degree in 1907.  The first black player in the “Big Nine,” which later became the Big Ten, Marshall once kicked a either a 60- or 48-yard game-winning field goal (accounts of the game differ) for the U of M. 

He played football professionally and in his life competed in everything from track to ice hockey.

Bobby was also an excellent baseball player. In 1909, Marshall played for the best all-black team in Minnesota’s history, the St. Paul Colored Gophers. Records of specific games or statistics are lost, but Marshall was able to get the attention of Rube Foster, who invited Marshall to play for the Chicago team, the Leland Giants.

While playing for the Leland Giants, Marshall faced the Chicago Cubs, and was able to get a taste of big league baseball in a segregated age.

Marshall is probably one of the best athletes Minnesota has ever produced, but his accomplishments are largely forgotten.

I couldn’t even find out what position Marshall played, so I've slotted him in at second base.  I have every confidence such an extraordinary person could play out of position if need be.

3B: Joe Goldie Rapp

Rapp was a keystone member of one of the greatest professional teams in Minnesota’s pre-Twins history.

Playing for the original St. Paul Saints in 1920, Rapp hit .335 with healthy numbers in the stolen base and walk categories. He didn’t hit a single home run, but he was second on the team in doubles.

The 1920 St. Paul Saints are ranked the sixth-best minor league team ever by baseball historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright. The Saints went 115-49—a ridiculous .701 winning percentage. 

Rapp went on to play in the major leagues for the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies. The magic didn’t carry over, as Rapp hit a pitiful .253/.303/.312 in 276 games.

SS: Swede Risberg

In 1917 Swede Risberg must have felt on top of the world: The rookie shortstop for the Chicago White Sox had just won his first World Series ring. 

The good times must not have lasted very long.

In 1919, Risberg played an executive role to Chick Gandil in fixing the World Series. Risberg hit .050 in the 1919 World Series (versus a career .243/.311/.332 line in the majors), and his hot-tempered nature was used to keep the more weak-kneed parties to the fix in line.

In 1920, Swede was forced out of baseball forever by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Sorta.

Swede would come back to baseball playing for the Mesaba Range Black Sox in 1922, and continued to play baseball on a number of semipro teams into the 1930s. He worked mostly as a pitcher after the ban, but I have slotted him at shortstop since that's where he played in the majors.

The true bit of justice here is that Swede played with a number of the other banned White Sox players—and got paid better than he ever did playing in Chicago.

C: Bubbles Hargrave

Joe Mauer was the first catcher ever to lead both leagues in batting average, but Bubbles Hargrave was the first player ever to lead any league in batting average as a catcher. 

In 852 big league games, Hargrave hit .310/.372/.452, including a league-best .353 batting average in 1926.

Hargrave was a staple of Twin Cities baseball for several years. As a young man on the way up, he played for the St. Paul Saints from 1920 to 1922. He would come back to Minnesota as a player/manager for the Saints in 1928, and later suited up across the river in Minneapolis in 1931.

He hit .335 for the St. Paul Saints in 1920.

LF: Helen Callaghan

This might be a bit of a reach, but I think Helen earned her way onto this team. 

In 1944, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League expanded to Minneapolis.  Callaghan played for the Minneapolis Millerettes in their only season in Minnesota before the team was moved to Fort Wayne.

Helen hit .287 for the Millerettes in her rookie year, but she would go on to become one of the best hitters in the AAGPBL. In 1945, she lead the league with a .299 average; the league average was .198 that year, to give you some perspective on her abilities.

I’ve moved her from right field over to left field to make room for Ab Wright.

One of her sons, Casey Candaele, would play nine seasons in the big leagues.

CF: Elmer Miller

Miller was another member of the 1920 St. Paul Saints. There are plenty of players to pick from that squad, but Miller's wonderful combination of offense and defense puts him into the all-time lineup.

The starting center fielder for the Saints was also the cleanup hitter, and posted a very good .333 average with eight home runs. Miller played seven seasons in the majors, where he hit .243/.307/.335 with above-average defensive numbers.

RF: Ab Wright

Wright had two stints in the major leagues: He played for Cleveland in 1935 at the age of 29, and he returned to the majors at the age of 38 in 1944 for the Boston Red Sox.

His .248/.310/.386 line doesn’t tell the whole story, as he only got 355 big league at bats.

In 1940, playing for the Minneapolis Millers, Wright won the triple crown with a .369 batting average, 39 home runs, and 159 RBI. Ted Williams also won a minor league triple crown while playing for the Millers in 1938, hitting .366 with 43 home runs and 142 RBI.

Williams was 19 years old at the time; Wright did it at the age of 34.  

Wright missed a lot of baseball, as he didn’t start out professionally until the age of 26.  A year earlier, he was spending his time in the NFL.

DH: Perry "Moose" Werden

Moose was a home run king before anyone even knew the things were worth hitting. 

In 1894, Moose hit 42 round trippers, and topped that total again the next year to establish a professional record that would stand until Babe Ruth gave up the pitching racket in the 1920s.

Sure, Werden did his deed in a band box which wouldn’t be fit to host some of my local softball teams...but nobody else was able to hit as many home runs in that park or any park for thirty years.

Playing in three different major leagues for six teams in seven years, Werden hit a respectable .282/.359/.414.

P:  Charley “Sea Lion” Hall

Sea Lion, a former major league pitcher, went 27-8 with a 2.07 ERA for the 1920 St. Paul Saints. He led the league in ERA and wins at the age of 35. The right-hander had a personality larger than life, and his booming voice was described by some as “like a fog horn.”

Sea Lion went 54-47 with 12 saves and a 3.09 ERA in nine major league seasons.

P:  Lefty Williams

Another of baseball’s lost souls—Lefty, like Risberg, was a member of the 1919 Black Sox who found his way to Minnesota with the Mesaba Range Black Sox.

Lefty was banned from organized baseball just as he was hitting his stride. In 1919 and 1920, he won 45 games and lost only 25. At age 27, he had many years left in him, and might have had a Hall of Fame career.

P:  Dorothy Wiltse

Another pick from the Millerettes of the AAGPBL.

Dorothy won 20 games in four of her six years playing professional baseball. I would use her in relief as a righty vs. righty specialist.

There are plenty of stories of converted female softball pitchers scoring strikeouts against seasoned big league veterans. Pitching is more about deception than brute strength—and taking one of the best in the AAGPBL seems logical

P:  Jim Brown (UA St. Paul Apostles) 

Minnesota did have a major league team before the Twins.

The short-lived Union Association existed for just a single season, and most of the teams involved went bankrupt before the end 1884. Bill James has argued otherwise, but I don’t have an objection to calling the St. Paul Apostles a major league team.

The Apostles never played a home game, as the league went under before they could return home from their opening road trip. The Apostles were a minor league team before the Union Association and continued to play in the Twin Cities until the team moved to Duluth in 1891.

Jim Brown was the only member of the Apostles to pitch outside of the Union Association, in both the National League and the American Association. I’m throwing him in the bullpen because his 2-15 record and 4.74 ERA aren’t going to make for great starting material. 

It’s not actually known whether Brown was right- or left-handed.

I’m also putting Swede Risberg and Moose Werden in the bullpen, as both had experience as pitchers. Risberg spent most of his time pitching after his lifetime expulsion. Moose went 12-1 in 16 starts as a pitcher in the Union Association in 1884, and had an ERA more than a run below the league average.

Fritz Coumbe is another pitcher I’m grabbing for bullpen help. He was a lefty for the 1920 St. Paul Saints, and went 19-7 with a 3.14 ERA. Fritz went 38-38 with 13 saves and a 2.80 ERA in eight major league seasons.

Manager: Dick Siebert

Siebert Field is a small ballpark near where I used to get drunk as an undergrad, and it’s where the Gophers play when the Metrodome is occupied.  I never really learned about the former Gophers coach for which it was named—and I was missing out.

Siebert was an All-Star major leaguer who went on to manage the Minnesota Golden Gophers at the University of Minnesota from 1948 to 1978, winning three national titles. He played amateur ball in the Twin Cities throughout his life—even as he was coaching.  It was only his death at the age of 66 that ended his reign at the U of M.

So there you have it, my all-time Twin Cities team from before the Twins era, sans Hall-of-Famers. 

This squad is made up of mostly unheralded professional players who had some decent seasons in the majors but never really shined outside the cozy confines of the Twin Cities. That's a weakness measured against some of the other great teams in this series, but I would play this squad in a five-game set against any collection of greats and expect to sneak a win or two.

This team’s strength comes from the fact all of these players are capable of playing at the highest level. However, the team's weakness is that they were never able to do so consistently.

I would also hate to have to go to this team’s bullpen with the game on the line.

The main reason I wanted to write this column was to show readers that quality baseball can be seen in just about every major city—regardless of the existence of an MLB franchise. 

Minnesota, like much of fly-over country, has always been a great place for baseball, and it’s important to recognize the achievements of all the players who once called the Twin Cities home.