Patrick Reusse’s 50th anniversary of spring training: It was all fun until Sid showed up

FORT MYERS, FLA. – This is the 50th anniversary of my first trip to spring training. Even radio partner Joe Soucheray can figure out the math on that one — 1974 in Orlando, and the start of a five-year run as the Twins beat writer for the St. Paul newspapers.

This is not a consecutive streak. I missed the trip to Orlando for the Twins’ final spring there in 1990 for a very good reason:

Clem Haskins took his Gophers on a surprising run to the Elite Eight in New Orleans. Wouldn’t trade covering those two games for anything, even if Richard Coffey kicking me in the head when crashing into a press table did live for decades in blooper videos.

I also missed the past two years, in fear of pythons and other snakes in Florida. But a 50-year anniversary … you have to show up, right?

The first one was so long ago that the airline industry had not yet been deregulated, and a far lower share of the public could even consider the price of flying.

Jimmy Robertson, in charge of concessions for the Twins and an admirer of what had been the once-sleepy burgh of Orlando, could tell you when some hard-core fans were going to finish the trek from the Twin Cities.

“Cully is going to be here Wednesday with his wife,” Jimmy would say, and that meant Cully Anderson and his wife.

Lo and behold, I looked up Cully on Google, and there was a 1988 article in the Orlando Sentinel that led with Cully heckling an opposing player.

The other big events were the faithful brought by WCCO Radio as “Fans in the Stands” for a few days and also the arrival of Sid Hartman, coming in late and stirring up news.

It became irritating after a few springs when Sid would break the Opening Day roster news that we had been trying to manipulate out of owner/GM Calvin Griffith for two weeks.

Years later, Tom Mee, the media man, said, “The rest of you never figured that out. Sid was getting the final roster early from Ray Crump. As the equipment manager, Ray needed the names so he could get them sewn on the uniforms.”

Another Hartman, Chad, had me on the radio recently and asked for my No. 1 spring training moment. Remember, spring training is an entity, an ambience, not just some practices and exhibition games.

First answer: “1981 … in my closing weeks of drinking, Steve Pascente from Channel 11 and the all-time great cameraman, Rich Nuessle, were at a bar watching the Gophers play Virginia for the NIT title — Randy Breuer versus Ralph Sampson.

“We remained thirsty when we got back to the hotel, and we’re drinking in my room at 3 a.m. Nuessle told of Pascente’s wonderful imitation of Freddie Goodwin, the Englishman running the soccer Kicks as they were on death watch.

“We immediately began dialing sports anchors and reporters at their homes in the Twin Cities to have ‘Freddie’ complain about the terrible coverage the Kicks were receiving.”

I thought more over the next few hours and came up with a topper:

Late in 1977 spring training, the visiting Rangers were taking batting practice at Tinker Field in Orlando. Randy Galloway, then a Rangers beat writer, and I were a few feet from the cage, talking smart-alecky.

Suddenly, Galloway said, “Look at this.” I turned, and Rangers manager Frank Lucchesi was halfway into a back-first fall, eyes closed, knocked out, and second baseman Lenny Randle was facing him in fury.

Player TKOs manager with three-punch assault — that can’t be topped.

Although there was Clif Keane, the Boston Globe beat writer and an icon of insult, seeing Bob Allison walking down an aisle at Tinker and yelling from what was jokingly called a press box:

“Hey, Allison, how far did Yaz have you out at second when you blew the pennant?” which would have been a reference to the end of the American League’s Great Race in ‘67 in Fenway.

There was Ted Williams sitting down in a dugout in Winter Haven, asking how Dave Engle was doing that spring, and then I found out Engle’s father and Ted were the closest of friends growing up in San Diego.

Great layup column out of that one.

Or seeing Kirby Puckett lead off after a rain delay in the exhibition opener, hit a routine grounder to shortstop and beat it out for a hit. Who runs that hard that early?

Or seeing Fort Myers fella Tommy Watkins hit an extra-inning home run, with maybe 400 people left in the ballpark, and his mother leaping around in a psychotic display of joy.

Or Tom Kelly, by then a visiting coach at spring training, hitting grounders to a disinterested Ruben Sierra at first base on the small field next to the big park here in 2006 and finally TK saying, “That’s enough, Ruben. Neither of us wants to waste any more time.”

A half-century of little moments. Time definitely flies when you’re having fun.