Twenty-one players from the 1987 Minnesota Twins will be in Minneapolis this weekend for the World Championship Reunion. There were 24 players on the 1987 World Series roster and two of those players, outfielder Kirby Puckett and pitcher Joe Niekro, are deceased. The Twins front office hasn’t been able to contact pitcher Dan Schatzeder and he isn’t expected to attend the reunion.
Patrick Klinger, Twins vice president of marketing, is impressed with the commitments made by those 21 players, plus five coaches and manager Tom Kelly. “I think it really speaks to the camaraderie of that team,” Klinger said. “It was a team not known as the most talented but they had tremendous camaraderie and chemistry. It was also a team that had a lot of fun together.”
The 1987 Twins won 85 games and lost 77. Their regular season winning percentage of .525 is among the lowest ever for a team that won a World Series.
The team became world champions in Kelly’s second season as manager and ended a series of mostly miserable seasons in the 1980s as the Twins played seven consecutive years without winning more than half of their games.
The world championship was largely the result of talented scouting and patience by the Twins farm system. The organization developed outstanding players for the 1987 team like Puckett, first baseman Kent Hrbek, third baseman Gary Gaetti, catcher Tim Laudner and pitcher Frank Viola.
They were a surprising group of players who enjoyed a stunning season. That storyline fueled the emotions of local baseball fans that hadn’t seen the Twins ever win a World Series and had been without a world title in any pro sport since the 1954 Minneapolis Lakers won the NBA championship.
On Saturday night in a re-creation of the world championship parade, each of the 1987 alums will ride on to the Metrodome field in the back of a pickup truck. Later all the alumni will collectively throw out the first pitch, tossing balls to current Twins.
Before the game on Saturday, from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m., 1987 alumni will be available to fans in the stadium concourse for photographs. On Friday, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., about half of the alums will sign autographs on the Metrodome plaza. Sunday the remainder of them will sign autographs on the plaza from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The first 10,000 fans on Friday, Saturday and Sunday receive giveaways. Friday’s giveaway is baseball cards of every player, plus Kelly and coaches. Saturday is a mini-Metrodome giveaway and Sunday is a Gaetti bobblehead (he will be inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame that day). The always popular Homer Hanky will be given to the first 40,000 fans on Saturday.
Tickets are still available for all three games. Klinger said the Twins are expecting about 30,000 on Friday, 35,000 Saturday and 30,000 Sunday.
Alumni arrive today and will attend a private affair tonight. They are being flown into town and hosted at the ball club’s expense, Klinger said. Each alum will receive a DVD set of the 1987 World Series. Bobbleheads? You bet. Each person receives a team set of bobbleheads (all players, Kelly and coaches in bobblehead form). Other gifts include two boxes of their own bobbleheads and Twins jackets created for them, Klinger said.
“Guys are excited to a man to comeback to Minnesota and spend time with their teammates, and relive the ‘87 world championship,” Klinger said.