Calvin Griffith
Calvin Robertson Griffith (December 1, 1911 – October 20, 1999), born Calvin Griffith Robertson, was a Canadian-born American Major League Baseball team owner. As president, majority owner and de facto general manager of the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise of the American League from 1955 through 1984, he orchestrated the transfer of the Senators after 60 years in Washington, D.C., to Minneapolis–Saint Paul in the autumn of 1960 to create the Twins. He was famous for his devotion to the game and for his sayings, some of them racist.
On June 19, 2020 (Juneteenth), the Minnesota Twins removed his statue from Target Field. After the statue was removed, Rod Carew denied longtime allegations that a controversial comment which Griffith made in 1978 regarding Minnesota's low African American population was what triggered his trade to the California Angels and denounced the idea that Griffith was a racist
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Calvin Griffith was the son of James A. Robertson and the former Jane Barr Davies. His father was a native of the Shetland Islands who emigrated to Canada and became a minor league baseball player. Robertson had a tryout with the Montreal Royals of the high minors before his career washed out and he became a newspaper distributor. Troubled by alcoholism, he died in 1922, leaving a widow and seven young children in Montreal in dire circumstances. But a sister, Anne ("Addie") Robertson, had moved to the United States, where in 1900 she married Clark Griffith, a future Hall of Fame pitcher who became a manager (Chicago White Sox, New York Highlanders, Cincinnati Reds and Washington Senators) during the first two decades of the 20th century and then president and chief stockholder of the Senators after 1920.
Clark and Addie Griffith, who were childless, took Calvin and a sister, Thelma, into their Washington home in 1923. Clark Griffith raised Calvin from the age of 11, and he and his sister both took on the Griffith surname. Their mother and siblings moved to nearby Takoma Park, Maryland.
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