July 4 always had special meaning for cities' rivalry

The American Association was formed in 1902 with eight franchises: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Columbus, Toledo and Louisville. The cities didn't change over the next 50 years, with the exception of the Toledo team spending two seasons (1914-15) in Cleveland.

The residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul were perfectly content with their "Association" status -- a league of stability, intimate ballparks and outstanding rivalries.

None was stronger than the Minneapolis Millers vs. the St. Paul Saints. The schedule-makers made sure the teams were playing a series over the holidays, so that two-ballpark doubleheaders could be played on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day.

The Millers and the Saints undertook a tradition where a morning game was played in the Millers' Nicollet Park and an afternoon game in the Saints' Lexington Park, or vice versa, on the holidays.

This wasn't a tough commute for customers interested in viewing both games. Nicollet Park was located on Nicollet and Lake, and Lexington Park was located on Lexington near Marshall.

Lake and Marshall are the same street in different cities, and a trolley ran along it -- until the tracks were ripped up over a five-year period (1949-54) to create a monopoly for buses.

There were two factors that substantially damaged the appeal of the Millers, the Saints and the Association: A) In 1953, the Boston Braves moved into Milwaukee's new County Stadium, making that beer town in a bordering state a major league city; and B) the public became fascinated with a revolutionary form of entertainment called television.

Start treating Omaha like an equal and, next thing you know, our football Gophers might start losing those frequent season openers to those manure kickers from Nebraska.

The Millers moved to a new Bloomington ballpark, Metropolitan Stadium, for the 1956 season. St. Paul followed with Midway Stadium in 1957.

The competition that stirred the cities was no longer Millers vs. Saints, but which new ballpark -- the Minneapolis-backed Met or St. Paul's Midway -- would lure a big-league franchise.

One notable aspect of the Millers-Saints rivalry after World War II was affiliations with the Brooklyn Dodgers (Saints) and the New York Giants (Millers). The best rivalry in the big leagues added more fire to the best rivalry in the Association.

That was lost in 1958, when the Dodgers and the Giants moved to California, and the Giants moved their Class AAA farm club to Phoenix. The Boston Red Sox were losing San Francisco (new home of the Giants), so they moved to Minneapolis.

The Millers won a second Junior World Series as a new Red Sox farm club in 1958. Gene Mauch was a player-manager and also returned to manage the Twins (1976-80).

On July 4, 1959, perhaps the last great moment in a Millers-Saints holiday doubleheader took place in the morning game at Midway Stadium.

There was a handful of Saints fans that congregated behind the visitors dugout. The fans chose the location to heckle the visitors.

Chuck Van Avery was the group's leader. He was a great pal of St. Paul Pioneer Press sports columnist Don (The Eye) Riley, and that automatically made him a true St. Paul character.

On Independence Day 49 years ago, Van Avery and friends brought along an amplifier to be better heard. They zeroed in on Mauch. By the fourth inning, the manager was pointing out the heckler to ushers who had no interest.

"I told the guy he could holler and shout at me as much as he wanted, but to stop the personal remarks," Mauch said.

George Brophy, the Millers general manager, defended Mauch, and Minneapolis Star columnist Charles Johnson chastised Saints management for tolerating the hecklers. Mel Jones, the Saints president, criticized Mauch's overreaction, and Riley celebrated Van Avery's new-found status as a champion heckler in the Pioneer Press.

It was always thus with the Millers and the Saints, where both cities were blindly loyal to the home teams. And this was especially true on a summer holiday, where the rivalry traveled to both sides of our great river.