After waiting three days for General Manager Terry Ryan to locate the keys, new Twins manager Paul Molitor finally was able to move into his new office on Friday. To his surprise, he found it largely untouched from his predecessor, Ron Gardenhire. Tasked with having to empty out the office cluttered with thirteen years worth of collectables, photographs, and personal items, Molitor filled up 16 boxes to be returned to Gardenhire. Before turning them over, he took a quick inventory including:
- Stack of sabermetric analysis on Twins oppenents for the past 11 years, unread and still wrapped in their original packaging.
- A loyalty card from Burnsville Bowl, which closed in 2010.
- Multiple thank-you cards and emptied gift baskets from Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter with postage dates from 2003, 2004, 2009, & 2010.
- An emptied crate from Old Dutch potato chips with invoice marked, “Endorsement compensation: Paid in Full.”
- An envelope marked “Return to Sender” originally mailed to Torii Hunter in Anaheim, a Hallmark card saying “Missing You” enclosed.
- Similar envelope and card marked Return to Sender, this time to Hunter in Detroit.
- A large box of compromising photographs of Gardenhire, included in the box is a note stating, “These are copies. I have the originals. Remember, I want to start at third base. – N. Punto”.
- A similar box with identical photos, this time with the note, “Nick gave me these and said you would know what to do. I need a job. – J. Bartlett”.
- Two dartboards, one with pictures of position players marked “Starting Lineup” and one marked with his pitching staff marked, “Rotation & Bullpen”.
- A large pile of framed photographs of Gardenhire and former pitching coach Rick Anderson posing together with each frame saying “BFFs”.
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Upon hauling the boxes onto a flatbed truck, Molitor reflected on all the different items boxed up. “I knew Gardy was kind of a softie, but I never realized he was so sentimental.” Molitor continued, “Just the number of random notepads with his scribbling players’ names ending with him adding ‘-sie’ numbered in the hundreds.”
There were a couple items that Molitor did not return, however, “Yeah, there were some newsclippings from when the Twins hired me last year. Some are very crumpled up and all of them appear to be stained with tears. I thought that would be rude to return.” The last item was specifically left for the new manager, Molitor explains, “It was a sealed envelope addressed ‘To the new manager’. I opened it up and it was from Gardy giving me a lot of tips and advice how to handle some of the staff and roster. For some reason, it ended by saying ‘Remember, always be nice to Jim Souhan. Weird.”
Until next time…
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