My Vintage Minneapolis Millers & St. Paul Saints Collection

[Tay1038]

Minneapolis Millers vs. St. Paul Saints Program & Ticket Stub from Sept. 8, 1960 - Final game ever played between Millers & Saints featuring Saints pitcher Jim Golden's 20th Win of the season becoming the last 20-Game Winner in the History of the American Association!

I recently acquired what I thought was an ordinary final-year Millers program & ticket from 1960 with Yaz in the line-up for Minneapolis. Come to my surprise this program was dated and scored from the second game of a double-header played on Sept. 8, 1960, between Minneapolis and St. Paul making this program the final game ever played between the two ball clubs marking the end of a fierce 59 year battle and the start of a new baseball beginnings in the State of Minnesota.

After spending the better part of the 1890s hosting entries in the Western League, the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul became part of the newly formed American Association when the league organized in Chicago in November 1901. A tradition of inter-city rivalry that extended from the days of the old Northwestern League in the 1880s, their American Association battles would become legendary over a period of six decades. The two clubs often played double-headers on holidays, playing one game in each city. The double-header rivalry became famously known as the "Streetcar Double-Headers". These teams and their fans put what was then an isolated Midwestern locale securely onto the baseball map until the Millers and Saints played their final games in 1960, departing the scene to make way for the Minnesota Twins."