Calvin‎ : Baseball's Last Dinosaur by Jon Kerr (2022, Trade Paperback)

CALVIN: BASEBALL'S LAST DINOSAUR is the story of Calvin  Griffith, who was rescued from poverty and adopted by his uncle (Hall of Famer Clark Griffith) and went on to become owner of the Washing-ton Senators and Minnesota Twins. Calvin's life included friendships with many greats of the game and figures in American history from the 1920s through the 1980s. The Griffith family operation would see many highs and lows, finally succumbing to the corporate-driven economic realities of modern sports. But Calvin, in his typically unvar-nished fashion and with Jon Kerr's help, wouldn't go without giving his version of how baseball and the world changed.  It's my opinion now and will be the day I hang up my typewriter-that the saddest day in Minnesota sports was Sept. 7, 1984, when the Griffiths offi-cially turned over their baseball franchise to a banker who didn't know Ty Cobb from corn on the cob. What we couldn't do is allow Calvin Griffith and his family to get away without compiling their treasure chest of stories. Those stories are here.  -Pat Reusse, Minneapolis Star Tribune  Kerr, with Calvin's help, replays the seduction of Calvin by Minnesota's promise of greener fields, how he ditches his pledge to 'keep the team in Washington as long as I'm alive;' how he became Minnesota's hero by deliver-ing two quick first-division teams and in the Twin's fourth year, a pennant. How fans were spoiled by those early successes and how, later, there was trouble in Minnesota City.