FORT MYERS, FLA. – A Minnesota reporter was visiting the Boston Red Sox spring complex last week in an attempt to interview David Ortiz. This worked out, and sitting at a table next to where Ortiz was being interviewed, Luis Tiant was talking with Jim Rice and other spring training instructors.

This was quite a coincidence for anyone with an appreciation for Twins lore, since the release of Ortiz on Dec. 16, 2002, and the release of Tiant on March 31, 1971, rate as perhaps the two greatest personnel gaffes in the franchise's Minnesota history.

Big Papi is headed into the final season as the slugging star of the Red Sox. El Tiante's brief time with the Twins requires a glance at the archives.

The Twins acquired starting pitcher Tiant and reliever Stan Williams from Cleveland on Dec. 10, 1969, in exchange for Dean Chance, Bob Miller, Ted Uhlaender and Graig Nettles.

The decision to give up on Nettles at age 25 (close to a Hall of Fame third baseman later with the Yankees) also rates high in the Twins' pantheon of blunders.

Tiant started off 7-0 for the Twins but came up with a hairline fracture in his right shoulder. He finished 7-3 with a 3.40 ERA.

Twins owner Calvin Griffith forced Tiant to take a cut from $50,000 to $48,000. Dave Boswell also had a shoulder problem in 1970, went 3-7 with a 6.42 ERA and took a cut from $40,000 to $32,000.

There was no guaranteed money in those deals and, as the Twins prepared to leave spring training in Orlando, Griffith released both Tiant and Boswell. This saved the Twins roughly $50,000 over the minimum salaries their replacements would be receiving.

"They won only 10 games last year and it looked like the same thing again,'' Griffith said.

Boswell pitched only 29 more innings in big leagues. Tiant was a different story. He finished 1971 in Boston's bullpen and then went about becoming a Red Sox legend. He won 121 games and pitched 1,700 innings from 1972 to 1978, as well as being a postseason hero in 1975.

Read Patrick Reusse's blog at startribune.com/patrick. E-mail him at preusse@startribune.com.