On Tuesday in Omaha, the St. Paul Saints will play their first game as a Minnesota Twins farm club. On May 11, the Saints will play their first home game as the Twins' AAA affiliate, at CHS Field.
The franchise known for pigs delivering baseballs to home plate and nuns giving massages — or is it the other way around? — is becoming part of the machine it once took delight in raging against.
Can the Saints do the serious work of developing prospects for a big-league team while honoring their longtime slogan, "Fun is Good"?
"I think the change will make us both better," said Saints president and co-owner Mike Veeck. "Left to our own devices, I think we can monetize things and introduce things that will make sense to all of Major League Baseball.
"That's what's exciting to me. We need change, desperately, as an overall industry. We need to appeal to kids and we need to do it quickly, fervently and passionately. Kids want to have fun. If we had 40 Fernando Tatis Juniors, it would be a whole different game.
"We have to cultivate a culture where people feel comfortable just throwing their arms up the way we did when we were all playing on the sandlot and driving in the winning run or impressing Sally Lou. That's what is at the heart of the game — it's a game. It's a game."
When the Saints came to St. Paul in 1993, the Twins were beginning an eight-season losing streak in a dank, indoor ballpark, the Metrodome, that they desperately wanted to leave. The Saints capitalized on the Twins' woes, offering frivolity and a place to drink beer in the sun.
Veeck was also running the Twins' Class A affiliate in Fort Myers. Relationships between Veeck's group and the Twins were both productive and awkward.