n economics the term capital refers to

In economics, labour is a measure of the work done by human beings. It is conventionally contrasted with such other factors of production as land and capital. There are theories which have developed a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not necessarily their actual work).

Labour economics

Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour.

Labour markets or job markets function through the interaction of workers and employers. Labour economics looks at the suppliers of labour services (workers) and the demanders of labour services (employers), and attempts to understand the resulting pattern of wages, employment, and income.

There are two sides to labour economics. Labour economics can generally be seen as the application of microeconomic or macroeconomic techniques to the labour market. Microeconomic techniques study the role of individuals and individual firms in the labour market. Macroeconomic techniques look at the interrelations between the labour market, the goods market, the money market, and the foreign trade market. It looks at how these interactions influence macro variables such as employment levels, participation rates, aggregate income and gross domestic product.

The labour force is defined as the number of people of working age, who are either employed or actively looking for work. The participation rate is the number of people in the labour force divided by the size of the adult civilian noninstitutional population (or by the population of working age that is not institutionalized). The non-labour force includes those who are not looking for work, those who are institutionalised such as in prisons or psychiatric wards, stay-at home spouses, children, and those serving in the military. The unemployment level is defined as the labour force minus the number of people currently employed. The unemployment rate is defined as the level of unemployment divided by the labour force. The employment rate is defined as the number of people currently employed divided by the adult population (or by the population of working age).  In these statistics, self-employed people are counted as employed.

Variables like employment level, unemployment level, labour force, and unfilled vacancies are called stock variables because they measure a quantity at a point in time. They can be contrasted with flow variables which measure a quantity over a duration of time. Changes in the labour force are due to flow variables such as natural population growth, net immigration, new entrants, and retirements from the labour force.  Changes in unemployment depend on inflows made up of non-employed people starting to look for jobs and of employed people who lose their jobs and look for new ones, and outflows of people who find new employment and of people who stop looking for employment. When looking at the overall macroeconomy, several types of unemployment have been identified, including:

Neoclassical economists view the labour market as similar to other markets in that the forces of supply and demand jointly determine price (in this case the wage rate) and quantity (in this case the number of people employed).

However, the labour market differs from other markets (like the markets for goods or the financial market) in several ways. In particular, the labour market may act as a non-clearing market. While according to neoclassical theory most markets quickly attain a point of equilibrium without excess supply or demand, this may not be true of the labour market: it may have a persistent level of unemployment. Contrasting the labour market to other markets also reveals persistent compensating differentials among similar workers.

Models that assume perfect competition in the labour market, as discussed below, conclude that workers earn their marginal product of labour.[1]

Households are suppliers of labour. In microeconomic theory, people are assumed to be rational and seeking to maximize their utility function. In the labour market model, their utility function expresses trade-offs in preference between leisure time and income from time used for labour. However, they are constrained by the hours available to them.

Let w denote the hourly wage, k denote total hours available for labour and leisure, L denote the chosen number of working hours,  Ï€ denote income from non-labour sources, and A denote leisure hours chosen. The individual's problem is to maximise utility U, which depends on total income available for spending on consumption and also depends on time spent in leisure, subject to a time constraint, with respect to the chooses of labour time and leisure time:

This is shown in the graph below, which illustrates the trade-off between allocating time between leisure activities and income-generating activities. The linear constraint indicates that every additional hour of leisure undertaken requires the loss of an hour of labour and thus of the fixed amount of goods that that labour's income could purchase. Individuals must choose how much time to allocate to leisure activities and how much to working. This allocation decision is informed by the indifference curve labelled IC1. The curve indicates the combinations of leisure and work that will give the individual a specific level of utility. The point where the highest indifference curve is just tangent to the constraint line (point A), illustrates the optimum for this supplier of labour services.

If consumption is measured by the value of income obtained, this diagram can be used to show a variety of interesting effects. This is because the absolute value of the slope of the budget constraint is the wage rate. The point of optimisation (point A) reflects the equivalency between the wage rate and the marginal rate of substitution[2] of leisure for income (the absolute value of the slope of the indifference curve). Because the marginal rate of substitution of leisure for income is also the ratio of the marginal utility of leisure (MUL) to the marginal utility of income (MUY), one can conclude:

where Y is total income and the right side is the wage rate.

If the wage rate increases, this individual's constraint line pivots up from X,Y1 to X,Y2. He/she can now purchase more goods and services. His/her utility will increase from point A on IC1 to point B on IC2.
To understand what effect this might have on the decision of how many hours to work, one must look at the income effect and substitution effect.

The wage increase shown in the previous diagram can be decomposed into two separate effects. The pure income effect is shown as the movement from point A to point C in the next diagram. Consumption increases from YA to YC and – since the diagram assumes that leisure is a normal good – leisure time increases from XA to XC. (Employment time decreases by the same amount as leisure increases.)

But that is only part of the picture. As the wage rate rises, the worker will substitute away from leisure and into the provision of labourâ€”that is, will work more hours to take advantage of the higher wage rate, or in other words substitute away from leisure because of its higher opportunity cost. This substitution effect is represented by the shift from point C to point B. The net impact of these two effects is shown by the shift from point A to point B. The relative magnitude of the two effects depends on the circumstances. In some cases, such as the one shown, the substitution effect is greater than the income effect (in which case more time will be allocated to working), but in other cases the income effect will be greater than the substitution effect (in which case less time is allocated to working). The intuition behind this latter case is that the individual decides that the higher earnings on the previous amount of labour can be "spent" by purchasing more leisure.

If the substitution effect is greater than the income effect, an individual's supply of labour services will increase as the wage rate rises, which is represented by a positive slope in the labour supply curve (as at point E in the adjacent diagram, which exhibits a positive wage elasticity). This positive relationship is increasing until point F, beyond which the income effect dominates the substitution effect and the individual starts to reduce the amount of labour hours he supplies (point G) as wage increases; in other words, the wage elasticity is now negative.

The direction of slope may change more than once for some individuals, and the labour supply curve is different for different individuals.

Other variables that affect the labour supply decision, and can be readily incorporated into the model, include taxation, welfare, work environment, and income as a signal of ability or social contribution.

A firm's labour demand is based on its marginal physical product of labour (MPPL). This is defined as the additional output (or physical product) that results from an increase of one unit of labour (or from an infinitesimal increase in labour). (See also Production theory basics.)

Labour demand is a derived demand; that is, hiring labour is not desired for its own sake but rather because it aids in producing output, which contributes to an employer's revenue and hence profits. The demand for an additional amount of labour depends on the Marginal Revenue Product (MRP) and the marginal cost (MC) of the worker. With a perfectly competitive goods market, the MRP is calculated by multiplying the price of the end product or service by the Marginal Physical Product of the worker. If the MRP is greater than a firm's Marginal Cost, then the firm will employ the worker since doing so will increase profit. The firm only employs however up to the point where MRP=MC, and not beyond, in neoclassical economic theory.[2]

The MRP of the worker is affected by other inputs to production with which the worker can work (e.g. machinery), often aggregated under the term "capital". It is typical in economic models for greater availability of capital for a firm to increase the MRP of the worker, all else equal. Education and training are counted as "human capital". Since the amount of physical capital affects MRP, and since financial capital flows can affect the amount of physical capital available, MRP and thus wages can be affected by financial capital flows within and between countries, and the degree of capital mobility within and between countries.[3]

According to neoclassical theory, over the relevant range of outputs, the marginal physical product of labour is declining (law of diminishing returns). That is, as more and more units of labour are employed, their additional output begins to decline.

The marginal revenue product of labour can be used as the demand for labour curve for this firm in the short run. In competitive markets, a firm faces a perfectly elastic supply of labour which corresponds with the wage rate and the marginal resource cost of labour (W = SL = MFCL). In imperfect markets, the diagram would have to be adjusted because MFCL would then be equal to the wage rate divided by marginal costs. Because optimum resource allocation requires that marginal factor costs equal marginal revenue product, this firm would demand L units of labour as shown in the diagram.

The demand for labour of this firm can be summed with the demand for labour of all other firms in the economy to obtain the aggregate demand for labour. Likewise, the supply curves of all the individual workers (mentioned above) can be summed to obtain the aggregate supply of labour. These supply and demand curves can be analysed in the same way as any other industry demand and supply curves to determine equilibrium wage and employment levels.

Wage differences exist, particularly in mixed and fully/partly flexible labour markets. For example, the wages of a doctor and a port cleaner, both employed by the NHS, differ greatly. There are various factors concerning this phenomenon. This includes the MRP of the worker. A doctor's MRP is far greater than that of the port cleaner. In addition, the barriers to becoming a doctor are far greater than that of becoming a port cleaner. To become a doctor takes a lot of education and training which is costly, and only those who excel in academia can succeed in becoming doctors. The port cleaner however requires relatively less training. The supply of doctors is therefore significantly less elastic than that of port cleaners. Demand is also inelastic as there is a high demand for doctors and medical care is a necessity, so the NHS will pay higher wage rates to attract the profession.

Some labour markets have a single employer and thus do not satisfy the perfect competition assumption of the neoclassical model above. The model of a monopsonistic labour market gives a lower quantity of employment and a lower equilibrium wage rate than does the competitive model.

In many real-life situations the assumption of perfect information is unrealistic. An employer does not necessarily know how hard workers are working or how productive they are. This provides an incentive for workers to shirk from providing their full effort â€“ since it is difficult for the employer to identify the hard-working and the shirking employees, there is no incentive to work hard and productivity falls overall, leading to the hiring of more workers and a lower unemployment rate.

One solution used recently[when?] – stock options – grants employees the chance to benefit directly from a firm's success. However, this solution has attracted criticism as executives with large stock-option packages have been suspected of acting to over-inflate share values to the detriment of the long-run welfare of the firm. Another solution, foreshadowed by the rise of temporary workers in Japan and the firing of many of these workers in response to the financial crisis of 2008, is more flexible job- contracts and -terms that encourage employees to work less than full-time by partially compensating for the loss of hours, relying on workers to adapt their working time in response to job requirements and economic conditions instead of the employer trying to determine how much work is needed to complete a given task and overestimating.[citation needed]

Another aspect of uncertainty results from the firm's imperfect knowledge about worker ability. If a firm is unsure about a worker's ability, it pays a wage assuming that the worker's ability is the average of similar workers. This wage undercompensates high-ability workers and may drive them away from the labour market. Such a phenomenon, called adverse selection, can sometimes lead to market collapse.[4]

There are many ways to overcome adverse selection in labour market. One important mechanism is called signalling, pioneered by Michael Spence.[5] In his classical paper on job signalling, Spence showed that even if formal education does not increase productivity, high-ability workers may still acquire it just to signal their abilities. Employers can then use education as a signal to infer worker ability and pay higher wages to better-educated workers. It may appear to an external observer that education has raised the marginal product of labour, without this necessarily being true.

One of the major research achievements of the 1990-2010 period was the development of a framework with dynamic search, matching, and bargaining.[6]

At the micro level, one sub-discipline eliciting increased attention in recent decades is analysis of internal labour markets, that is, within firms (or other organisations), studied in personnel economics from the perspective of personnel management. By contrast, external labour markets "imply that workers move somewhat fluidly between firms and wages are determined by some aggregate process where firms do not have significant discretion over wage setting."[7] The focus is on "how firms establish, maintain, and end employment relationships and on how firms provide incentives to employees," including models and empirical work on incentive systems and as constrained by economic efficiency and risk/incentive tradeoffs relating to personnel compensation.[8]

Many sociologists, political economists, and heterodox economists claim that labour economics tends to lose sight of the complexity of individual employment decisions.[9] These decisions, particularly on the supply side, are often loaded with considerable emotional baggage and a purely numerical analysis can miss important dimensions of the process, such as social benefits of a high income or wage rate regardless of the marginal utility from increased consumption or specific economic goals.

From the perspective of mainstream economics, neoclassical models are not meant to serve as a full description of the psychological and subjective factors that go into a given individual's employment relations, but as a useful approximation of human behaviour in the aggregate, which can be fleshed out further by the use of concepts such as information asymmetry, transaction costs, contract theory etc.

Also missing from most labour market analyses is the role of unpaid labour such as unpaid internships where workers with little or no experience are allowed to work a job without pay so that they can gain experience in a particular profession. Even though this type of labour is unpaid it can nevertheless play an important part in society if not abused by employers. The most dramatic example is child raising. However, over the past 25 years an increasing literature, usually designated as the economics of the family, has sought to study within household decision making, including joint labour supply, fertility, child raising, as well as other areas of what is generally referred to as home production.[10]

The labour market, as institutionalised under today's market economic systems, has been criticised,[11] especially by both mainstream socialists and anarcho-syndicalists,[12][13][14][15] who utilise the term wage slavery[16][17] as a pejorative for wage labour. Socialists draw parallels between the trade of labour as a commodity and slavery. Cicero is also known to have suggested such parallels.[18]

According to Noam Chomsky, analysis of the psychological implications of wage slavery goes back to the Enlightenment era. In his 1791 book On the Limits of State Action, classical liberal thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt explained how "whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness" and so when the labourer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."[19] Both the Milgram and Stanford experiments have been found useful in the psychological study of wage-based workplace relations.[20]

The American philosopher John Dewey posited that until "industrial feudalism" is replaced by "industrial democracy," politics will be "the shadow cast on society by big business".[21] Thomas Ferguson has postulated in his investment theory of party competition that the undemocratic nature of economic institutions under capitalism causes elections to become occasions when blocs of investors coalesce and compete to control the state.[22]

As per anthropologist David Graeber, the earliest wage labour contracts we know about were in fact contracts for the rental of chattel slaves (usually the owner would receive a share of the money, and the slave, another, with which to maintain his or her living expenses.) Such arrangements, according to Graeber, were quite common in New World slavery as well, whether in the United States or Brazil. C. L. R. James argued that most of the techniques of human organisation employed on factory workers during the industrial revolution were first developed on slave plantations.[23]

Additionally, Marxists posit that labour-as-commodity, which is how they regard wage labour,[24] provides an absolutely fundamental point of attack against capitalism.[25] "It can be persuasively argued," noted one concerned philosopher, "that the conception of the worker's labour as a commodity confirms Marx's stigmatisation of the wage system of private capitalism as 'wage-slavery;' that is, as an instrument of the capitalist's for reducing the worker's condition to that of a slave, if not below it."[26]


where is the u21 euro championships being held

The 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship (also known as UEFA Under-21 Euro 2017) was the 21st edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, a biennial international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-21 national teams of Europe. The final tournament was hosted in Poland for the first time, after their bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee on 26 January 2015 in Nyon, Switzerland.[1] The tournament took place from 16â€“30 June 2017.[2] Players born on or after 1 January 1994 were eligible for the tournament.

In March 2012, UEFA announced that the competition would take place in even numbered years from 2016 onwards.[3] In September 2013, UEFA announced its intention to continue holding the final tournament in odd numbered years following a request from its member national football associations.[4] On 24 January 2014, UEFA confirmed that the final tournament would be held in 2017 and that it would be expanded from 8 teams to 12.[5]

The hosts were announced at a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Nyon on 26 January 2015. In late April 2014 the Polish football association PZPN very strongly indicated the country has high chances to host the tournament. Bidding to welcome Europe's best youth teams was one of the reasons for Poland's withdrawal from the Euro 2020 race.[6]

A total of 53 UEFA nations entered the competition (Gibraltar did not enter), and with the hosts Poland qualifying automatically, the other 52 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 11 spots in the final tournament.[7] The qualifying competition, which took place from March 2015 to November 2016, consisted of two rounds:[8]

The following 12 teams qualified for the final tournament.[9]

Note: All appearance statistics include only U-21 era (since 1978).

The final draw was held on 1 December 2016, 18:00 CET (UTC+1), at the ICE Congress Centre in Kraków.[10][11] The 12 teams were drawn into three groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying play-offs, with the hosts Poland assigned to position A1 in the draw. Each group contained either the hosts or one team from Pot 1, one team from Pot 2, and two teams from Pot 3.[12][13]

On 7 June 2016, Polish Football Association selected six venues:[14]

In February 2017, UEFA selected nine referees and their teams for this tournament.

Each national team have to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers. If a player was injured or ill severely enough to prevent his participation in the tournament before his team's first match, he could be replaced by another player.[8]

The group winners and the best runner-up advanced to the semi-finals.

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 18.01 and 18.02):[8]

All times are local, CEST (UTC+2).[15]

Sweden  v  England

Poland  v  Slovakia

Slovakia  v  England

Poland  v  Sweden

England  v  Poland

Slovakia  v  Sweden

Portugal  v  Serbia

Spain  v  Macedonia

Serbia  v  Macedonia

Portugal  v  Spain

Macedonia  v  Portugal

Serbia  v  Spain

Germany  v  Czech Republic

Denmark  v  Italy

Czech Republic  v  Italy

Germany  v  Denmark

Italy  v  Germany

Czech Republic  v  Denmark

The match-ups of the semi-finals depend on which runner-up qualified (Regulations Article 17.02):[8]

In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out was used to decide the winner if necessary.[8]

On 2 May 2016, the UEFA Executive Committee agreed that the competition would be part of the International Football Association Board's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time.[17]

England  v  Germany

Spain  v  Italy

Germany  v  Spain

There have been 65 goals scored in 21 matches, for an average of 3.1 goals per match.

Source: UEFA.com[19]

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

After the tournament the Under-21 Team of the Tournament is selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.[22]


how are the waters of hydration eliminated from a hydrated compound

In organic chemistry, a hydrate is a compound formed by the addition of water or its elements to another molecule. For example: ethanol, CH3–CH2–OH, is the product of the hydration reaction of ethene, CH2=CH2, formed by the addition of H to one C and OH to the other C, and so can be considered as the hydrate of ethene. A molecule of water may be eliminated, for example by the action of sulfuric acid. Another example is chloral hydrate, CCl3–CH(OH)2, which can be formed by reaction of water with chloral, CCl3–CH=O.

Hydrate

In chemistry, a hydrate is a substance that contains water or its constituent elements. The chemical state of the water varies widely between different classes of hydrates, some of which were so labeled before their chemical structure was understood.

Many organic molecules, as well as inorganic molecules, form crystals that incorporate water into the crystalline structure without chemical alteration of the organic molecule (water of crystallization). The sugar trehalose, for example, exists in both an anhydrous form (melting point 203 °C) and as a dihydrate (melting point 97 °C). Protein crystals commonly have as much as 50% water content.

Molecules are also labeled as hydrates for historical reasons not covered above. Glucose, C6H12O6, was originally thought of as C6(H2O)6 and described as a carbohydrate. Methanol is often sold as "methyl hydrate", implying the incorrect formula CH3OH2, while the correct formula is CH3â€“OH.

Hydrates are inorganic salts "containing water molecules combined in a definite ratio as an integral part of the crystal"[1] that are either bound to a metal center or that have crystallized with the metal complex. Such hydrates are also said to contain water of crystallization or water of hydration. If the water is heavy water, where the hydrogen involved is the isotope deuterium, then the term deuterate may be used in place of hydrate.[citation needed]

A colorful example is cobalt(II) chloride, which turns from blue to red upon hydration, and can therefore be used as a water indicator.

The notation "hydrated compoundâ‹…nH2O", where n is the number of water molecules per formula unit of the salt, is commonly used to show that a salt is hydrated. The n is usually a low integer, though it is possible for fractional values to occur. For example, in a monohydrate n is one, and in a hexahydrate n is 6. Numerical prefixes of Greek origin are:[2]

A hydrate which has lost water is referred to as an anhydride; the remaining water, if any exists, can only be removed with very strong heating. A substance that does not contain any water is referred to as anhydrous. Some anhydrous compounds are hydrated so easily that they are said to be hygroscopic and are used as drying agents or desiccants.

Clathrate hydrates (also known as gas hydrates, gas clathrates, etc.) are water ice with gas molecules trapped within; they are a form of clathrate. An important example is methane hydrate (also known as gas hydrate, methane clathrate, etc.).

Nonpolar molecules such as methane can form clathrate hydrates with water, especially under high pressure. Although there is no hydrogen bonding between water and guest molecules when methane is the guest molecule of the clathrate, guest-host hydrogen bonding often forms when the guest is a larger organic molecule such as tetrahydrofuran. In such cases the guest-host hydrogen bonds result in the formation of L-type Bjerrum defects in the clathrate lattice.[3]

The stability of hydrates is generally determined by the nature of the compounds, their temperature, and the relative humidity (if they are exposed to air).


what does the c stand for on the minnesota twins cap

The name "Twins" was derived from the popular name of the region, the Twin Cities. The NBA's Minneapolis Lakers had relocated to Los Angeles in 1960 due to poor attendance which was believed to have been caused in part by the reluctance of fans in St. Paul to support the team.[33] Griffith was determined not to alienate fans in either city by naming the team after one city or the other, so his desire was to name the team the "Twin Cities Twins",[33] however MLB objected. Griffith therefore named the team the Minnesota Twins. However, the team was allowed to keep its original "TC" (for Twin Cities) insignia for its caps. The team's logo shows two men, one in a Minneapolis Millers uniform and one in a St. Paul Saints uniform, shaking hands across the Mississippi River within an outline of the state of Minnesota. The "TC" remained on the Twins' caps until 1987, when they adopted new uniforms. By this time, the team felt it was established enough to put an "M" on its cap without having St. Paul fans think it stood for Minneapolis. The "TC" logo was moved to a sleeve on the jerseys, and occasionally appeared as an alternate cap design.[34] Both the "TC" and "Minnie & Paul" logos remain the team's primary insignia. As of 2010, the "TC" logo has been reinstated on the cap as their logo.[35]

Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area comprising Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome from 1982 to 2009. They played their inaugural game at the newly completed Target Field on April 12, 2010.[7]

The team was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1901 as one of the eight original teams of the American League, named the Washington Senators or Washington Nationals. Although the Washington team endured long bouts of mediocrity (immortalized in the 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees),[8] they had a period of prolonged success in the 1920s and 1930s, led by Baseball Hall of Fame members Bucky Harris, Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, Heinie Manush, Joe Cronin, and Walter Johnson.[9] Manager Clark Griffith joined the team in 1912 and became the team's owner in 1920.[10] The franchise remained under Griffith family ownership until 1984.[11]

In 1960, Major League Baseball granted the city of Minneapolis an expansion team. Washington owner Calvin Griffith, Clark's nephew and adopted son, requested that he be allowed to move his team to Minneapolis-St. Paul and instead give Washington the expansion team. Upon league approval, the team moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season, setting up shop in Metropolitan Stadium, while Washington fielded a brand new "Washington Senators" (which later became the Texas Rangers prior to the 1972 season).[12]

Success came quickly to the team in Minnesota. Sluggers Harmon Killebrew[13] and Bob Allison, who had already been stars in Washington, were joined by Tony Oliva and Zoilo Versalles, and later second baseman Rod Carew[14] and pitchers Jim Kaat and Jim Perry, winning the American League pennant in 1965.[15] A second wave of success came in the late 1980s and early 1990s under manager Tom Kelly, led by Kent Hrbek, Bert Blyleven,[16] Frank Viola, and Kirby Puckett,[17] winning the franchise's second and third World Series (and first and second in Minnesota).[18]

Through the 2017 season, the franchise has won three World Series championships (1924, 1987, and 1991), and has fielded 18 American League batting champions.[19][20] The team has hosted five All-Star Games (1937, 1956, 1965, 1985 and 2014).

The Washington Senators spent the first decade of their existence finishing near the bottom of the American League standings. Their fortunes began to improve with the arrival of 19-year-old pitcher, Walter Johnson, in 1907. Johnson blossomed in 1911 with 25 victories, although the Senators still finished the season in seventh place.[21] In 1912, the Senators improved dramatically, as their pitching staff led the league in team earned run average and in strikeouts. Johnson won 33 games while teammate Bob Groom added another 24 wins to help the Senators finish the season in second place.[22] The Senators continued to perform respectably in 1913 with Johnson posting a career-high 35 victories, as the team once again finished in second place.[23] The Senators then fell into another period of decline for the next decade. After a string of mediocre seasons, a rejuvenated Johnson rebounded in 1924 to win 23 games with the help of his catcher, Muddy Ruel, as the Senators won the American League pennant for the first time in the history of the franchise.[24]

The Senators faced John McGraw's heavily favored New York Giants in the 1924 World Series.[25] The two teams traded wins back and forth until the series reached the seventh and deciding game. The Senators trailed the Giants 3 to 1 in the eighth inning of Game 7, when Bucky Harris hit a routine ground ball to third which hit a pebble and took a bad hop over Giants third baseman Freddie Lindstrom. Two runners scored on the play, tying the score at three.[26] An aging Walter Johnson then came in to pitch the ninth inning, and held the Giants scoreless into extra innings. In the bottom of the twelfth inning with Ruel at bat, he hit a high, foul ball directly over home plate.[27] The Giants' catcher, Hank Gowdy, dropped his protective mask to field the ball but, failing to toss the mask aside, stumbled over it and dropped the ball, thus giving Ruel another chance to bat.[27] On the next pitch, Ruel hit a double and proceeded to score the winning run when Earl McNeely hit a ground ball that took another bad hop over Lindstrom's head.[26][27] This would mark the only World Series triumph for the franchise during their 60-year tenure in Washington.

The following season they repeated as American League champions but ultimately lost the 1925 World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates. After Walter Johnson's retirement in 1927, he was hired as manager of the Senators. After enduring a few losing seasons, the team returned to contention in 1930. In 1933, Senators owner Clark Griffith returned to the formula that worked for him nine years prior: 26-year-old shortstop Joe Cronin became player-manager. The Senators posted a 99–53 record and cruised to the pennant seven games ahead of the New York Yankees, but in the 1933 World Series the Giants exacted their revenge winning in five games. Following the loss, the Senators sank all the way to seventh place in 1934 and attendance began to fall. Despite the return of Harris as manager from 1935–42 and again from 1950–54, Washington was mostly a losing ball club for the next 25 years contending for the pennant only during World War II. Washington came to be known as "first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League",[28] with their hard luck being crucial to the plot of the musical and film Damn Yankees. Cecil Travis, Buddy Myer (1935 A.L. batting champion), Roy Sievers, Mickey Vernon (batting champion in 1946 and 1953), and Eddie Yost were notable Senators players whose careers were spent in obscurity due to the team's lack of success.[29][30] In 1954, the Senators signed future Hall of Fame member Harmon Killebrew. By 1959 he was the Senators’ regular third baseman and led the league with 42 home runs earning him a starting spot on the American League All-Star team.

After Griffith's death in 1955, his nephew and adopted son Calvin took over the team presidency. Calvin sold Griffith Stadium to the city of Washington and leased it back leading to speculation that the team was planning to move as the Boston Braves, St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia Athletics had all done in the early 1950s. By 1957, after an early flirtation with San Francisco (where the New York Giants would eventually move after that season ended), Griffith began courting Minneapolisâ€“St. Paul, a prolonged process that resulted in his rejecting the Twin Cities' first offer[31] before agreeing to relocate. The American League opposed the move at first, but in 1960 a deal was reached: The Senators would move and would be replaced with an expansion Senators team for 1961. Thus, the old Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins.

The Washington franchise was known as both "Senators" and "Nationals" at various times, and sometimes at the same time. In 1905, the team changed its official name to the "Washington Nationals."[32] The name "Nationals" appeared on uniforms for only two seasons, and was then replaced with the "W" logo for the next 52 years. The media often shortened the nickname to "Nats." Many fans and newspapers (especially out-of-town papers) persisted in using the "Senators" nickname, because of potential confusion caused by an American League team using the "Nationals" name. Over time, "Nationals" faded as a nickname, and "Senators" became dominant. Baseball guides listed the club's nickname as "Nationals or Senators", acknowledging the dual-nickname situation.

The team name was officially changed to Washington Senators around the time of Clark Griffith's death. It was not until 1959 that the word "Senators" first appeared on team shirts. "Nats" continued to be used by space-saving headline writers, even for the 1961 expansion team, which was never officially known as "Nationals."

The current "Nationals" and "Nats" names were revived in 2005, when the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington to become the Nationals.

The Twins were eagerly greeted in Minnesota when they arrived in 1961. They brought a nucleus of talented players: Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Camilo Pascual, Zoilo Versalles, Jim Kaat, Earl Battey, and Lenny Green. Tony Oliva, who would go on to win American League batting championships in 1964, 1965 and 1971, made his major league debut in 1962. That year, the Twins won 91 games, the most by the franchise since 1933. Behind Mudcat Grant's 21 victories, Versalles' A.L. MVP season and Oliva's batting title, the Twins won 102 games and the American League Pennant in 1965, but they were defeated in the World Series by the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games (behind the Series MVP, Sandy Koufax, who compiled a 2â€“1 record, including winning the seventh game).[36]

Heading into the final weekend of the 1967 season, when Rod Carew was named the A.L. Rookie of the Year, the Twins, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and Detroit Tigers all had a shot at clinching the American League championship. The Twins and the Red Sox started the weekend tied for 1st place and played against each other in Boston for the final three games of the season. The Red Sox won two out of the three games, seizing their first pennant since 1946 with a 92–70 record. The Twins and Tigers both finished one game back, with 91–71 records, while the White Sox finished three games back, at 89–73. In 1969, the new manager of the Twins, Billy Martin, pushed aggressive base running all-around, and Carew set the all-time Major League record by stealing home seven times in addition to winning the first of seven A.L. batting championships.[37] With Killebrew slugging 49 homers and winning the AL MVP Award, these 1969 Twins won the very first American League Western Division Championship, but they lost three straight games to the Baltimore Orioles, winners of 109 games, in the first American League Championship Series. The Orioles would go on to be upset by the New York Mets in the World Series. Martin was fired after the season, in part due to an August 1969 fight in Detroit with 20-game winner Dave Boswell and outfielder Bob Allison, in an alley outside the Lindell A.C. bar. Bill Rigney led the Twins to a repeat division title in 1970, behind the star pitching of Jim Perry (24-12), the A.L. Cy Young Award winner, while the Orioles again won the Eastern Division Championship behind the star pitching of Jim Palmer. Once again, the Orioles won the A.L. Championship Series in a three-game sweep,[38] and this time they would win the World Series.

After winning the division again in 1970, the team entered an eight-year dry spell, finishing around the.500 mark. Killebrew departed after 1974. Owner Calvin Griffith faced financial difficulty with the start of free agency, costing the Twins the services of Lyman Bostock and Larry Hisle, who left as free agents after the 1977 season, and Carew, who was traded after the 1978 season.[39] In 1975, Carew won his fourth consecutive AL batting title,[40] having already joined Ty Cobb as the only players to lead the major leagues in batting average for three consecutive seasons. In 1977, Carew batted.388, which was the highest in baseball since Boston's Ted Williams hit.406 in 1941; he won the 1977 AL MVP Award. He won another batting title in 1978, hitting.333.[40]

In 1982, the Twins moved into the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, which they shared with the Minnesota Vikings. After a 16-54 start, the Twins were on the verge on becoming the worst team in MLB history. They turned the season around somewhat, but still lost 102 games which is the second-worst record in Twins history (beaten only by the 2016 team, who lost 103 games), despite the.301 average, 23 homers and 92 RBI from rookie Kent Hrbek.[41] In 1984, Griffith sold the Twins to multi-billionaire banker/financier Carl Pohlad. The Metrodome hosted the 1985 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. After several losing seasons, the 1987 team, led by Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Frank Viola (A.L. Cy Young winner in 1988), Bert Blyleven, Jeff Reardon, Tom Brunansky, Dan Gladden, and rising star Kirby Puckett, returned to the World Series after defeating the favored Detroit Tigers in the ALCS, 4 games to 1. Tom Kelly managed the Twins to World Series victories over the St. Louis Cardinals in 1987[42][43] and the Atlanta Braves in 1991.[44] The 1988 Twins were the first team in American League history to draw more than 3 million fans.[45] On July 17, 1990, the Twins became the only team in major league history to pull off two triple plays in the same game. Twins' pitcher and Minnesota native Jack Morris was the star of the series in 1991, going 2â€“0 in his three starts with a 1.17 ERA.[46] 1991 also marked the first time that any team that finished in last place in their division would advance to the World Series the following season; both the Twins and the Braves did this in 1991.[47] Contributors to the 1991 Twins' improvement from 74 wins to 95 included Chuck Knoblauch, the A.L. Rookie of the Year; Scott Erickson, 20-game winner; new closer Rick Aguilera and new designated hitter Chili Davis.

The World Series in 1991 is regarded by many as one of the classics of all time. In this Series, four games were won during the teams' final at-bat, and three of these were in extra innings. The Atlanta Braves won all three of their games in Atlanta, and the Twins won all four of their games in Minnesota. The sixth game was a legendary one for Puckett, who tripled in a run, made a sensational leaping catch against the wall, and finally in the 11th inning hit the game-winning home run. The seventh game was tied 0â€“0 after the regulation nine innings, and marked only the second time that the seventh game of the World Series had ever gone into extra innings. The Twins won on a walk-off RBI single by Gene Larkin in the bottom of the 10th inning, after Morris had pitched ten shutout innings against the Braves.[48] The seventh game of the 1991 World Series is widely regarded as one of the greatest games in the history of professional baseball.[49][50][51]

After a winning season in 1992 but falling short of Oakland in the division, the Twins fell into a years-long stretch of mediocrity, posting a losing record each season for the next eight: 71–91 in 1993, 50–63 in 1994, 56–88 in 1995, 78–84 in 1996, 68–94 in 1997, 70–92 in 1998, 63–97 in 1999 and 69–93 in 2000. From 1994 to 1997, a long sequence of retirements and injuries hurt the team badly, and Tom Kelly spent the remainder of his managerial career attempting to rebuild the Twins. In 1997, owner Carl Pohlad almost sold the Twins to North Carolina businessman Don Beaver, who would have moved the team to the Piedmont Triad area.[52][53]

Puckett after the 1995 season was forced to retire at age 35 due to loss of vision in one eye from a central retinal vein occlusion.[54] The 1989 A.L. batting champion, he retired as the Twins' all-time leader in career hits, runs, doubles, and total bases. At the time of his retirement, his.318 career batting average was the highest by any right-handed American League batter since Joe DiMaggio. Puckett was the fourth baseball player during the 20th century to record 1,000 hits in his first five full calendar years in Major League Baseball, and was the second to record 2,000 hits during his first 10 full calendar years. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, his first year of eligibility.

The Twins dominated the Central Division in the first decade of the new century, winning the division in six of those ten years ('02, '03, '04, '06, '09 and '10), and nearly winning it in '08 as well. From 2001 to 2006, the Twins compiled the longest streak of consecutive winning seasons since moving to Minnesota.

Threatened with closure by league contraction,[55] the 2002 team battled back to reach the American League Championship Series before being eliminated 4â€“1 by that year's World Series champion Anaheim Angels. The Twins have not won a playoff series since the 2002 series against the Athletics, this despite the team winning several division championships in the decade.

In 2006, the Twins won the division on the last day of the regular season (the only day all season they held sole possession of first place) but lost to the Oakland Athletics in the ALDS. Ozzie Guillén coined a nickname for this squad, calling the Twins "little piranhas".[56] The Twins players embraced the label, and in response, the Twins Front office started a "Piranha Night", with piranha finger puppets given out to the first 10,000 fans. Scoreboard operators sometimes played an animated sequence of piranhas munching under that caption in situations where the Twins were scoring runs playing "small ball", and the stadium vendors sold T-shirts and hats advertising "The Little Piranhas".

The Twins also had the AL MVP in Justin Morneau,[57] the AL batting champion in Joe Mauer,[56] and the AL Cy Young Award winner in Johan Santana.[58]

In 2008, the Twins finished the regular season tied with the White Sox on top of the AL Central, forcing a one-game playoff in Chicago to determine the division champion.[59] The Twins lost that game and missed the playoffs. The game location was determined by rule of a coin flip that was conducted in mid-September. This rule was changed for the start of the 2009 season, making the site for any tiebreaker game to be determined by the winner of the regular season head-to-head record between the teams involved.[60]

After a year where the Twins played.500 baseball for most of the season, the team won 17 of their last 21 games to tie the Detroit Tigers for the lead in the Central Division.[61] The Twins were able to use the play-in game rule to their advantage when they won the AL Central at the end of the regular season by way of a 6–5 tiebreaker game that concluded with a 12th-inning walk-off hit by Alexi Casilla to right field, that scored Carlos Gómez.[62] However, they failed to advance to the American League Championship Series as they lost the American League Divisional Series in three straight games to the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees.[63] That year, Joe Mauer became only the second catcher in 33 years to win the AL MVP award.[64] Iván Rodríguez won for the Texas Rangers in 1999, previous to that, the last catcher to win an AL MVP was the New York Yankees Thurman Munson in 1976.[65]

In their inaugural season played at Target Field, the Twins finished the regular season with a record of 94-68, clinching the AL Central Division title for the 6th time in 9 years under manager Ron Gardenhire. New regular players included rookie Danny Valencia at third base, designated hitter Jim Thome,[66] closer Matt Capps,[67] infielder J. J. Hardy,[68] and infielder Orlando Hudson.[69] In relief pitching roles were late additions Brian Fuentes and Randy Flores. On July 7, the team suffered a major blow when Justin Morneau sustained a concussion, which knocked him out for the rest of the season. In the divisional series, the Twins lost to the Yankees in a three-game sweep for the second consecutive year.[70] Following the season, Ron Gardenhire received AL Manager of the Year honors after finishing as a runner up in several prior years.[71]

After repeating as AL Central champions in 2010, the Twins entered 2011 with no players on the disabled list, and the team seemed poised for another strong season. During the off-season, the team signed Japanese shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka to fill a hole in the middle infield, re-signed Jim Thome, who was in pursuit of career home run number 600, and also re-signed Carl Pavano. However, the season was largely derailed by an extensive list of injuries. Nishioka's broken leg in a collision at second base[72] led the way and was followed by DL stints from Kevin Slowey, Joe Mauer, Jason Repko, Thome, Delmon Young (two stints on the DL), José Mijares, Glen Perkins, Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, Jason Kubel, Denard Span (two stints), Justin Morneau, Scott Baker, and Alexi Casilla. The team's low point was arguably on May 1 when the team started 7 players who were batting below.235 in a game against Kansas City.[73] From that day forward, the Twins made a strong push to get as close as five games back of the division lead by the All-Star break. However, the team struggled down the stretch and fell back out of contention. The team failed to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and experienced their first losing season in four years. Despite an AL-worst 63-99 record, the team drew over 3 million fans for the second consecutive year.[74]

Michael Cuddyer served as the Twins representative at the All-Star game, his first appearance.[75] Bert Blyleven's number was retired during the season and he was also inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during the month of July.[76] On August 10, Nathan recorded his 255th save, passing Rick Aguilera for first place on the franchise's all-time saves list.[77] On August 15, Thome hit 599th and 600th home run at Comerica Park to become the eighth player in Major League history to hit 600 home runs, joining Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Alex Rodriguez.[78]

The team started the 2012 season with a league worst 10-24 record.[79] In late May and early June, the team embarked on a hot streak, winning ten out of thirteen games.[80][81] By mid July, the team found themselves only 10 games out of the division lead.[82] On July 16, the Twins defeated the Baltimore Orioles 19-7, the most runs scored in the short history of Target Field.[83][84] By the end of August, the Twins were more than 20 games below.500, and last in the American League.[85] On August 29, it was announced that the Twins would host the 2014 All-Star Game.[86] In 2013, the Twins finished in 4th place in the AL Central, with a record of 66-96.[87] In 2014, the team finished with a 70-92 record, last in the division and accumulated the second fewest wins in the American League.[88] As a result, Ron Gardenhire was fired on September 29, 2014.[89] On November 3, 2014 Paul Molitor was announced by the team as the 13th manager in Twins history.

In 2015, the team had a winning season (83-79), following four consecutive seasons of 90 or more losses.

In 2016, the Minnesota Twins finished last in the AL Central, with a 59-103 record. Brian Dozier set his career high in home runs with 43, which was tied for second in baseball, and leading all 2nd basemen. Tyler Duffey led all Twins starters with 9 wins throughout the season, while fellow reliever Brandon Kintzler led the team with 17 saves. Rising stars Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, and Byron Buxton combined to have 263 total hits, 52 home runs, 167 RBIs, and a batting average of.232 throughout the season. The Twins signed star Korean slugger Byung Ho Park to a 4-year/$12 million contract, where he hit a.191 batting average, with 12 home runs, and 24 RBIs before being sent down to Rochester for the remainder of the season.[90]

The quirks of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, including the turf floor and the white roof, gave the Twins a significant home-field advantage that played into their winning the World Series in both 1987 and 1991, at least in the opinion of their opponents, as the Twins went 12â€“1 in postseason home games during those two seasons.[91] These were the first two World Series in professional baseball history in which a team won the championship by winning all four home games.[92] (The feat has since been repeated once, by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.) Nevertheless, the Twins argued that the Metrodome was obsolete and that the lack of a dedicated baseball-only ballpark limited team revenue and made it difficult to sustain a top-notch, competitive team (the Twins had been sharing tenancy in stadiums with the NFL's Minnesota Vikings since 1961). The team was rumored to contemplate moving to such places as New Jersey, Las Vegas, Portland, Oregon, the Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina, area, and elsewhere in search of a more financially competitive market. In 2002, the team was nearly disbanded when Major League Baseball selected the Twins and the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals franchise) for elimination due to their financial weakness relative to other franchises in the league. The impetus for league contraction diminished after a court decision forced the Twins to play out their lease on the Metrodome. However, Twins owner Carl Pohlad continued his efforts to relocate, pursuing litigation against the Metropolitan Stadium Commission and obtaining a state court ruling that his team was not obligated to play in the Metrodome after the 2006 season. This cleared the way for the Twins to either be relocated or disbanded prior to the 2007 season if a new deal was not reached.

In response to the threatened loss of the Twins, the Minnesota private and public sector negotiated and approved a financing package for a replacement stadium— a baseball-only outdoor, natural turf ballpark in the Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis— owned by a new entity known as the Minnesota Ballpark Authority.[93] Target Field was constructed at a cost of $544.4 million (including site acquisition and infrastructure), utilizing the proceeds of a $392 million public bond offering based on a 0.15% sales tax in Hennepin County and private financing of $185 million provided by the Pohlad family.[94][95] As part of the deal, the Twins also signed a 30-year lease of the new stadium, effectively guaranteeing the continuation of the team in Minnesota for a long time to come. Construction of the new field began in 2007, and was completed in December 2009, in time for the 2010 season. Commissioner Bud Selig, who earlier had threatened to disband the team, observed that without the new stadium the Twins could not have committed to sign their star player, catcher Joe Mauer, to an 8-year, $184 million contract extension. The first regular season game in Target Field was played against the Boston Red Sox on April 12, 2010, with Mauer driving in two runs and going 3-for-5 to help the Twins defeat the Red Sox, 5–2.[96]

On May 18, 2011, Target Field was named "The Best Place To Shop" by Street and Smith's SportsBusiness Journal at the magazine's 2011 Sports Business Awards Ceremony in New York City.[97] It was also named "The Best Sports Stadium in North America" by ESPN The Magazine in a ranking that included over 120 different stadiums, ballparks and arenas from around North America.[98]

In July 2014, Target Field hosted the 85th Major League Baseball All-Star Game and the Home Run Derby.

Pitchers
Starting rotation

60-day disabled list

7- or 10-day disabled list
 Suspended list
# Personal leave
Roster and coaches updated June 15, 2018
Transactions â€¢ Depth chart

Minnesota Twins all-time roster: A complete list of players who played in at least one game for the Twins franchise.

Stan Coveleski
Joe Cronin
Ed Delahanty

Rick Ferrell
Lefty Gomez
Goose Goslin

Clark Griffith
Bucky Harris
Whitey Herzog
Walter Johnson

Heinie Manush
Sam Rice
Al Simmons

George Sisler
Tris Speaker
Early Wynn

Rod Carew
Steve Carlton

Harmon Killebrew
Paul Molitor

Jack Morris
Kirby Puckett

Jim Thome
Dave Winfield

Molitor and Winfield, St. Paul natives and University of Minnesota graduates,[99] came to the team late in their careers and were warmly received as "hometown heroes", but were elected to the Hall on the basis of their tenures with other teams. Both swatted their 3,000th hit with the Twins.[100][101]

Cronin, Goslin, Griffith, Harris, Johnson, Killebrew and Wynn are listed on the Washington Hall of Stars display at Nationals Park (previously they were listed at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium). So are Ossie Bluege, George Case, Joe Judge, George Selkirk, Roy Sievers, Cecil Travis, Mickey Vernon and Eddie Yost.[102]

The Metrodome's upper deck in center and right fields was partly covered by a curtain containing banners of various titles won, and retired numbers. There was no acknowledgment of the Twins' prior championships in Washington and several Senator Hall of Famers, such as Walter Johnson, played in the days prior to numbers being used on uniforms. However Killebrew played seven seasons as a Senator, including two full seasons as a regular prior to the move to Minnesota in 1961.

Prior to the addition of the banners, the Twins acknowledged their retired numbers on the Metrodome's outfield fence. Harmon Killebrew's #3 was the first to be displayed, as it was the only one the team had retired when they moved in. It was joined by Rod Carew's #29 in 1987, Tony Oliva's #6 in 1991, Kent Hrbek's #14 in 1995, and Kirby Puckett's #34 in 1997 before the Twins began hanging the banners to reduce capacity. The championships, meanwhile were marked on the "Baggie" in right field.

In the Metrodome, the numbers ran in that order from left to right. In Target Field, they run from right to left, presumably to allow space for additional numbers in the future. The retired numbers also serve as entry points at Target Field, The center field gate is Gate No. 3, honoring Killebrew, the left field gate is Gate No. 6, honoring Oliva, the home plate gate is Gate No. 14, for Hrbek, the right field gate serves as Gate No. 29, in tribute to Carew, and the plaza gate is known as Gate No. 34, honoring Puckett.

The numbers that have been retired hang within Target Field in front of the tower that serves as the Twins' executive offices in left field foul territory. The championships banners have been replaced by small pennants that fly on masts at the back of the left field upper deck. Those pennants, along with the flags flying in the plaza behind right field, serve as a visual cue for the players, suggesting the wind direction and speed.

Jackie Robinson's number, 42, was retired by Major League Baseball on April 15, 1997 and formally honored by the Twins on May 23, 1997.[108] Robinson's number was positioned to the left of the Twins numbers in both venues.

In 2007, the Twins took the rights to the broadcasts in-house and created the Twins Radio Network (TRN). With that new network in place the Twins secured a new Metro Affiliate flagship radio station in KSTP (AM 1500). It replaced WCCO (AM 830), which held broadcast rights for the Twins since the team moved to Minneapolis in 1961. For 2013, the Twins moved to FM radio on KTWN-FM 96.3 K-Twin, which is owned by the Pohlad family. The original radio voices of the Twins in 1961 were Ray Scott, Halsey Hall and Bob Wolff. After the first season, Herb Carneal replaced Wolff. Twins TV and radio broadcasts were originally sponsored by the Hamm's Brewing Company. In 2009, Treasure Island Resort & Casino became the first ever naming rights partner for the Twins Radio Network, making the commercial name of TRN the Treasure Island Baseball Network.[111] In 2017, it was announced that WCCO would become the flagship station the Twins again starting in 2018, thus returning the team back to its original station after 11 years.[112]

Cory Provus is the current radio play by play announcer,[113] taking over in 2012 for longtime Twins voice John Gordon who retired following the 2011 season.[114] Former Twins OF Dan Gladden serves as color commentator.[115]

TRN broadcasts are originated from the studios at Minnesota News Network and Minnesota Farm Networks. Kris Atteberry hosts the pre-game show, the "Lineup Card" and the "Post-game Download" from those studios except when filling in for Provus or Gladden when they are on vacation.

On April 1, 2007, Herb Carneal, the radio voice of the Twins for all but one year of their existence, died at his home in Minnetonka, Minnesota after a long battle with a list of illnesses. Carneal is in the broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.[116]

The television rights are held by Fox Sports North[117] with Dick Bremer as the play-by-play announcer and former Twin, 2011 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee,[118] Bert Blyleven as color analyst. They are sometimes joined by Roy Smalley and Jack Morris.[119]

Bob Casey was the Twins first public-address announcer starting in 1961 and continuing until his death in 2005. He was well known for his unique delivery and his signature announcements of "No smoking in the Metrodome, either go outside or quit!" (or "go back to Boston", etc.), "Batting 3rd, the center-fielder, No. 34, Kirby Puckett!!!" and asking fans not to 'throw anything or anybody' onto the field.[120]

Fans wave a Homer Hanky to rally the team during play-offs and other crucial games. The Homer Hanky was created by Terrie Robbins of the Star Tribune newspaper in the Twin Cities in 1987. It was her idea to originally give away 60,000 inaugural Homer Hankies. That year, over 2.3 million Homer Hankies were distributed.[122]

The party atmosphere of the Twins clubhouse after a win is well-known,[123] the team's players unwinding with loud rock music (usually the choice of the winning pitcher) and video games.[123]

The club has several hazing rituals, such as requiring the most junior relief pitcher on the team to carry water and snacks to the bullpen in a brightly colored small child's backpack (Barbie in 2005, SpongeBob SquarePants in 2006, Hello Kitty in 2007, Disney Princess and Tinkerbell in 2009, Chewbacca and Darth Vader in 2010),[123] and many of its players, both past and present, are notorious pranksters.[123] For example, Bert Blyleven earned the nickname "The Frying Dutchman" for his ability to pull the "hotfoot" – which entails crawling under the bench in the dugout and lighting a teammate's shoelaces on fire.[124][125]


who plays evil steve in keith lemon film

At the convention, Keith's demonstration of the Securipole fails to attract investors and leaves the public underwhelmed. Keith is devastated by his failure, but is approached by another entrepreneur named Kushvinder (Harish Patel), who offers to give him rights to his own unsuccessful invention, a touch-screen mobile phone without buttons, which Keith reluctantly accepts. In Leeds, a shipment of one million Securipoles arrives at Keith's office, to Rosie and Dougie's dismay. Before going to London, Keith had ordered the Securipoles (his dyscalculia leading him to believe that he had only ordered one thousand), from a benefactor named Evil Steve (Leigh Francis), who is notorious for torturing and even killing clients who fail to pay him. Rosie and Dougie are unable to pay for the poles or contact Keith, so Evil Steve kidnaps Rosie. Before she is taken away, she orders Dougie to travel to London and find Keith.

Keith Lemon: The Film

Keith Lemon: The Film is a 2012 British comedy film written and directed by Paul Angunawela, and co-written by and starring Leigh Francis as television personality Keith Lemon. The film co-stars Verne Troyer as his guardian angel, Archimedes, Kevin Bishop as his best friend, Dougie, Laura Aikman as Keith's girlfriend Rosie and Kelly Brook as Herself. The film also features a selection of celebrity cameos, including appearances by David Hasselhoff, Ronan Keating, Gary Barlow, Peter Andre, Fearne Cotton, Emma Bunton and Jedward, amongst others.[2]

The film's plot surrounds Lemon's rags to riches story, after achieving success on the basis of a mobile phone with a lemon sweet stuck on the back. After receiving a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, it is considered one of the worst movies ever made by critics. On 13 January 2014, Francis confirmed that the writing of a sequel had been completed.[3] He also announced at the 2015 National Television Awards on 21 January 2015 that the sequel had been pushed back and that he would instead focus on other projects. [4]

Keith Lemon (Leigh Francis) is an aspiring business entrepreneur from Leeds, who is trying to secure investment for his invention, the Securipole (a metal pole put in the driveway to prevent car theft). He travels to London to present the Securipole at an inventor's convention, putting his friend Dougie (Kevin Bishop) in charge of his business while he is away. Keith's girlfriend Rosie (Laura Aikman) advises that he should start the Securipole business slowly and try to sell some poles in Leeds first, but Keith is too eager for the Securipole to be an overnight success and ignores her.

After Keith is attacked by a group of muggers, a talking satellite navigation app on Kushvinder's phone leads him to the office of Archimedes (Verne Troyer), an advice guru who tries to solve the problems of those in need. Archimedes hears out Keith's plight and manages to get him an appearance on a television chat show hosted by David Hasselhoff (playing an exaggerated version of himself). On the show, Keith tries to promote Kushvinder's phone, but the audience is uninterested. Thinking quickly, he sticks a lemon-shaped sweet on the phone, making it look like it has a lemon on the cover, which immediately impresses the audience. The "Lemon Phone" becomes an overnight success, and Keith is instantly propelled into the life he has always wanted. He becomes a household name, earns billions of pounds from the Lemon Phone, and starts dating Kelly Brook (playing an exaggerated version of herself) who, unbeknownst to Keith, is only dating him so she can divorce him and take his money later. Despite Archimedes' advice however, Keith prefers his new celebrity lifestyle and decides not to return to Leeds, the Securipole business or Rosie.

Keith hosts a toga party at a luxury venue, but during the party he is confronted by Dougie, who tells him Evil Steve has kidnapped Rosie and is going to kill her unless he pays for the Securipoles. Refusing to listen and no longer caring about what he left behind in Leeds, Keith dismisses Dougie and throws him out. This angers Archimedes, who also leaves. Going back to Leeds, Dougie decides to rescue Rosie himself, dressing up as Rambo and storming into Evil Steve's warehouse lair, but his plan fails when he accidentally knocks himself out on a metal bar. Back at the party, as Keith and Kelly take to the stage to sing together, the Lemon Phone is suddenly revealed to have a major technical fault that causes the owner's mouth to sag, giving them a speech impediment. The mouths of everyone who was using the phone immediately sag, including those of Kelly and some of Keith's celebrity friends. Outraged, the crowd at the party turn on Keith and chase him on to the roof of the building. Realising the error of his ways, Keith finds Archimedes and begs for forgiveness, but Kelly and the angry mob force him over the balcony. As he falls to the ground, he is saved by Archimedes, who reveals that he is a guardian angel, and explains that he put Keith through this experience to teach him not to ignore his friends and loved ones in the pursuit of success.

Archimedes flies Keith back to Leeds, dropping him over Evil Steve's lair and proceeding to Heaven. Keith falls through the roof, causing rubble to fall on top of Evil Steve, and rescues Rosie from being lowered into a vat of liquid hot metal. He apologises to his friends for ignoring them, and proposes to Rosie. At first, Rosie is angered by Keith's actions and refuses to forgive him (especially when Keith off-handedly confesses that Kelly Brook was the superior girlfriend), but she soon accepts both his apology and proposal, and with their relationship repaired, Keith, Rosie and Dougie leave the warehouse. During the end credits, Keith explains through a voice-over that he settled down and had a family with Rosie, and converted the Securipoles into water pumps for countries in the "Fourth World".

The film was universally panned. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rare 0% score, based on twelve reviews.[5]

In a one-star review in The Daily Telegraph, Robbie Collin said "it may be the most staggeringly perfunctory piece of filmmaking I have ever seen."[6] Phelim O'Neill, in another one-star review for The Guardian, said "the script... must have taken longer to read than it did to write."[7] Writing in The Sun, Alex Zane was slightly less critical in a two-star review entitled "This Lemon sucks", saying that "this film just doesn’t capture the anarchy that makes Keith Lemon enjoyable, unpredictable and, most importantly... amusing."[8] In writing for Total Film, George Bass describes the funniest moment in the film as "a bus sign (“T’LEEDS”). Six letters and an apostrophe. Save yourself the ticket."[9] Chris Tookey of the Daily Mail named the film as one of the worst British comedies of all time and said that, "Nothing funny happens... In some inner circle of Hell, this movie will be for ever playing."[10]

The movie debuted at #5 at the UK Box Office, earning £1,196,310 in revenue. In its opening weekend, the film was the highest ranking debut film at the box office.[11] During its second weekend, the movie dropped to #9, earning £370,735, for a two-week total gross of £2,531,902.[12] It went on to make a total of £4,017,234.

The film won three BARFTA awards (a spoof award given to poorly-reviewed films, similar to the Razzies); Worst Film, Worst Dialogue and Worst Female Acting Performance.[13]

Keith Lemon: The Film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on 10 December 2012. The set includes an uncut version of the film which was not shown in cinemas.