[majesty95]

Monday, September 30, 1968

A man approached Minnesota Twins' owner Calvin Griffith in a hotel lobby in Baltimore back in August. The Twins had just lost back-to-back games to the Orioles and were in a stretch where they had lost 8-of-11.

"Mr. Griffith. Hello. I'm John Wacker. My friends call me Jack. Soon enough you will too." he began.

"Your team is in trouble." he continued, "You've got a good core but you're 1-2 seasons away from a decade of mediocrity. You want to get ahead of the curve. The Orioles are what you're chasing and Oakland is closing ground on both of you. You don't want to look back in 15 years after a decade of playing .500 ball and wonder what happened. I can help you.

I've developed a system for analyzing players and trends. You could liken it to what Wall Street uses but I've adapted it for baseball. I think we could turn this Twins team around. In 10 years you could be the talk of baseball with multiple world championships.

Someone is going to take this this route Mr. Griffith. The question you need to be asking is will the Twins be on the route with them or reading about them in the newspaper?"

Mr. Wacker handed Mr. Griffith a card with his room number on it and disappeared out the main entrance into the lobby.

The encounter caught Mr. Griffith off-guard. This certainly wasn't the first time he had been approached by a fan to offer suggestions or remind him of his failures. This was different though. He paused for moment, then stuffed the card in his jacket pocket and left to attend game three of the Twins' series with Baltimore.

The Twins fell behind 6-1 early. They appeared to be on their way to a sweep by the Orioles. The conversation in the lobby had been in Mr. Griffith's head since he left the hotel. He dug around in his jacket pocket and found the card he had been given. He called Mr. Wacker and told him to meet him in the lobby after the game and to pack for a trip to New York. Mr. Wacker had the length of the plane ride to New York to sell him on his idea.