The Minnesota Twins began as the original Washington Senators, a 1901 American League charter franchise that spent six decades in the capital before moving to the Twin Cities in 1961. In Washington the club was often a punchline — “First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League” — but it also produced Walter Johnson, whose 417 wins and sidearm fastball made him the premier pitcher of the dead-ball era. The Senators won the 1924 World Series, lost in 1925 and 1933, and then faded. Calvin Griffith’s relocation to Minnesota, and the new name honoring the Twin Cities, started a second life in a region hungry for major-league baseball.

Metropolitan Stadium hosted Harmon Killebrew’s tape-measure homers, Tony Oliva’s batting titles, and Rod Carew’s artistic hitting. The 1965 pennant, lost to Koufax’s Dodgers in seven games, was Minnesota’s first October. The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, loud and eccentric, became home in 1982. There the Twins won the 1987 World Series over St. Louis and the 1991 Series over Atlanta, both times taking Game 7 at home. Kirby Puckett’s Game 6 heroics in 1991 — a leaping catch and an 11th-inning homer — and Jack Morris’s 10-inning shutout in Game 7 are two of the most replayed nights in World Series history.

After contraction rumors in 2001, the Twins survived and thrived on development: Johan Santana’s Cy Youngs, Joe Mauer’s catching-and-hitting excellence, and a run of division titles in the 2000s. Target Field opened in 2010 and restored outdoor baseball. The 2019 “Bomba Squad” hit 307 home runs, then a new generation of sluggers and the 2023 club’s first postseason series win since 2004 kept the brand competitive. Carew, Killebrew, Puckett, Mauer, and Santana give Minnesota a Hall of Fame spine unusual for a mid-market club.

Three World Series titles — one in Washington, two in Minnesota — and a fan culture that treats Target Field as a summer civic space define the franchise. The Twins are Walter Johnson’s distant heirs and Puckett’s immediate ones: a club that moved, renamed itself for two cities, and twice turned a loud indoor stadium into October theater. From Griffith Stadium to the Dome to Target Field, the through-line is contact hitting, homegrown stars, and the belief that small-market baseball can still win in October.