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TWINS DAILY UPDATE (Tuesday) - And now we add beer. Twins Daily Date Night gets even better yet gain. Not only do you get a night at the Ordway that features baseball (and the Yankees losing) and not only do you get the tickets for 20% off and not only do you get to visit with other Twins Daily readers and writers and not only do you get a White Glove Tour of Twins/Yankees memorabilia - but now there will be a Summit Beer Tasting prior to the show. Honestly, it's like we made a deal with the devil ourselves. Don't blow this. Grab some of the remaining limited tickets now before they are gone.TWINS DAILY UPDATE (Monday): History nerds and baseball lovers, take a step back in time at the Twins Daily Date Night on June 18th. Thanks to Twins curator Clyde Doepner, Twins Daily friends and family will tour a special collection that includes Washington Senators and early Twins memorabilia -- some from Clyde's private collection. This incredibly unique and historic collection features original jerseys, baseball hats, rare photos, collectible signs, Presidential letters and more. If you have ever had the pleasure of talking baseball with Clyde, you know this collection alone is worth joining Twins Daily for our first-ever Date Night. Tickets are limited so don't wait -- buy yours today! The Twins Daily Date Night on June 18th got even better this weekend. Prior to watching the musical Damn Yankees at the Ordway, we'll be conducting a White Glove Tour of exclusive memorabilia documenting the battles between the Yankees and Twins/Senators. These items come from the Twins private collection. Remember, tickets are just $99/pair, which is more than 20% savings off the cost of the tickets that you'll be getting. It's a great way to treat your spouse and make up for all the time you spend on this site. It's also Press Night, so you'll be reading the reviews the next day of the show you saw. Lots of members of Twins Daily will be there, too, and tickets are very limited at this price, so either clear it with your spouse right away or still your neck out and surprise them. Get them now. This will be a night to remember (and at a bargain price.) ORIGINAL POST - Join us for the first-ever Twins Daily Date Night on Thursday, June 18th at 7:30 PM to watch the musical Damn Yankees. That's right - if you've ever subjected your special someone to a Winter Meltdown or a Touch 'Em All Pub Crawl, it's time for you to earn back some of those brownie points! And what better way to do that than a night full of baseball... at The Ordway in downtown St. Paul! Damn Yankees tells a story all too familiar to Twins' fan: How far would you go to beat the Bronx Bombers? When Joe Boyd offers up his soul for his pathetic Washington Senators -- yes, the team that eventually became the Minnesota Twins -- he finds himself in a contract with the devil. Can he beat the Damn Yankees and still keep his soul – and his marriage? We’ll have a Twins Daily contingent on hand for the June 18th performance at 7:30pm. This is Press Night – the unofficial Opening Night of the show that you'll read about in the paper the next day. Tickets are $62.50 apiece, but Twins Daily has arranged special pricing for just $99/pair. We are also working on some special perks for Twins Daily attendees. I need to emphasize – we have a very limited number of tickets at that price, so get them while you can! For this one night, let’s take a break from the ballpark (editor’s note: especially because the Twins have a day game) and enjoy some fun at The Ordway, where we'll all inevitably wonder: What would we give up to beat those Damn Yankees? Do not miss this first ever event! Get your tickets now! Click here to view the article

The Minnesota Twins’ dislike of the Yankees predates the Minnesota Twins. That’s because the Twins team that moved to Minnesota in 1961 was the Washington Senators franchise, and the Senators consternation with the Bronx Bombers goes back at least 80 years. That’s why the musical “Damn Yankees” featured the Senators – their dislike (or jealousy) of New York was legendary.That disgust likely started in the mid-20s. The Yankees were a fairly futile franchise until they traded for Babe Ruth in 1919. Soon after, they started collecting pennants and dominated the rest of the 1920s - except for 1924 and 1925 when the Senators rose up and knocked them out of first place. In fact, in 1924, the Senators not only beat the Yankees by two games to win the AL Pennant, but they also beat another heavily favored New York team – the Giants – to win their first and only World Series Championship. It could not have been more dramatic. The Senators had to play their last twenty games on the road that year, but never gave up first place in that stretch – but also never had more than a 2.5 game lead. They were led by pitcher Walter “Big Train” Johnson, who despite being 36 years old posted a 23-7 record with a 2.72 ERA in 1924. Johnson was as dominant a figure in early baseball as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. Johnson not only set the all-time strikeout record at that time (breaking the record of Cy Young) but also held it for 55 years. He is one of only three two pitchers to belong to the 400-win club. And in Game 7 of that 1924 World Series, he came back on one day’s rest to pitch the last four innings – including three extra innings – without giving up a run. He was the winning pitcher when the Senators scored in the bottom of the 12th and brought the District Of Columbia their championship. But to really understand how legendary Johnson was, listen to Ty Cobb (who was hardly known for his gushing praise) talk about the first time he faced The Big Train: “On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington. Evidently, manager Pongo Joe Cantillon of the Nats had picked a rube out of the cornfields of the deepest bushes to pitch against us. … He was a tall, shambling galoot of about twenty, with arms so long they hung far out of his sleeves, and with a sidearm delivery that looked unimpressive at first glance. ... One of the Tigers imitated a cow mooing, and we hollered at Cantillon: 'Get the pitchfork ready, Joe—your hayseed's on his way back to the barn.' ... The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him. ... every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park." Cobb was right: Johnson was arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of major league baseball. After his career, he was one of the “Five Immortals” (along with Ruth and Cobb) who were the first five players inducted into the Hall of Fame. But the Big Train was not actually immortal. By the mid-20s, his career was nearing its end, and he retired after 1927 amid another run of Yankees pennants. He came back to manage the Senators, including from 1930 through 1932 when the Senators won over 90 games each year – and still never finished closer than eight games back for the AL pennant. The “Nats” finally won the pennant again in 1934 – and then the bottom fell out. In the 22 years from 1934 to 1955 (when Damn Yankees opened on Broadway) the Senators only had three years where they finished less than 20 games out of first place. (And two of those were during World War II, when teams were forced to find ballplayers who had not gone to war.) During that same stretch of 22 years, the Yankees won fourteen AL Pennants and twelve World Series Championships. Yep – the Yankees won more World Series during that stretch than all the other MLB teams combined. As long-suffering Senators fan Joe Boyd notes in Damn Yankees, the Bronx Bombers were especially known for their power hitters. During that time, Yankees players hit more than 25 home runs in a season 29 times – and this was after Babe Ruth’s prodigious run. During that same time, the Senators didn’t have a single player hit more than 25 home runs. It’s no wonder Boyd is willing to sell his soul for a long-ball hitter. Ironically, the year that Damn Yankees opened, a quiet 18-year-old from Idaho hit his first home run for the Senators. He would be the one to break that powerless streak, but it wouldn’t be until the Senators were just about to move to Minnesota. And his nickname rightfully foretold that he would also be the player to end the Yankees’ dominance. That player was Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame slugger Harmon Killebrew. And his nickname was “Killer.” Part 2: How Killebrew Killed The Yankees. Click here to view the article