Apr. 22—MINNEAPOLIS — April 1961 was a month full of change and new beginnings.
In world news, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.
Closer to home, Fargo officially changed the name of 13th Street to University Drive, and about 230 miles to the southeast, Minneapolis was welcoming some new boys of summer to town.
The new Major League Baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, played their first game in the state 65 years ago this spring, on April 11, 1961.
The team had moved from Washington, D.C., where they were the Washington Senators. While our nation's capital is synonymous with political debate and division, the team found a similar divide in its new home.
For decades, baseball fans in Minneapolis and St. Paul had rooted against each other — the Minneapolis Millers versus the St. Paul Saints, a rivalry as wide as the Mississippi River that separated them.
So when the former Washington Senators relocated north, the new franchise made a deliberate choice: it would represent the entire state, not just one city.
The name "Twins" was part of that effort. So was the logo — not an "M" for Minneapolis, but an interlocked "TC" for Twin Cities. And on their uniform sleeve, a small but telling patch: a Millers player and a Saints player, smiling as they reached across the river to shake hands. Unity stitched into wool and slapped across a concession cup of Coca-Cola.
And then, in one of the more charming marketing ideas in baseball history, the team decided to take the idea literally.
That first year, they would hire real twins — and only twins — to work on the field with the players.
In the spring of 1961, the team put out the call — not just for bat boys and ball boys, but for identical pairs of twin boys to fill those roles. (Girls wouldn't be hired for those positions until the early 1970s — among them, a future household name whose fame had little to do with Major League Baseball. See sidebar below.)
Dozens of twin boys from all over the region responded.
At Metropolitan Stadium, 74 sets of twins showed up to audition, according to reports. LIFE magazine photographers captured the scene: boys in matching outfits, eating hot dogs and drinking milk as they waited for a chance to wear a big-league uniform.
Among them were two farm boys from Rosemount, Minn.
Richard and Peter King looked younger than their 15 years, with fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes (a little like Eddie Haskell from "Leave It to Beaver," but presumably less snarky).
What was it like to win the job against 73 other sets of brothers, for a role no one else had ever held, as the first bat boys for the Twins?
Sadly, 65 years after that memorable summer, the King brothers aren't around to share their memories. Peter died in 2022 and Richard in 2024.
But their widows are still here to share the stories their husbands undoubtedly told at cocktail parties for more than half a century.
"They were very close. Just two great guys," Susan King, Peter's wife, told WCCO-TV in 2024.
They weren't polished baseball insiders. In fact, that may have been part of the appeal.