Dick Bremer spent four decades as the voice of Twins baseball. On Saturday, he got the kind of honor that makes all those years feel official: a place in the Twins Hall of Fame.
Bremer’s induction came before the game against the Los Angeles Angels at Target Field, with family, friends and 10 Twins Hall of Fame members in matching suits gathered on the field to celebrate him. The longtime broadcaster even opened his speech with a note to himself that didn’t quite hold up in the moment.
Bremer wrote in his Twins Hall of Fame induction speech, “Don’t choke up.”
“So I get the first sentence out, and I get choked up,” Bremer said.
That reaction fit the moment. Bremer had already been inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame and has his name on the Twins’ broadcasting booth, but this was the final stamp on a run that made him the team’s lead television announcer for 40 years - the longest single-team tenure of any Twins broadcaster to date.
“For 40 seasons, Dick Bremer wasn’t just the voice of Twins baseball, he was woven into the fabric of it, ” said now former Twins president Derek Falvey at the time of the original announcement.
Bremer said the honor still felt almost impossible when he thinks back to how it started, especially with the league at just 26 teams when he began.
“How unrealistic would it have been to think, ‘Oh, I want to be a play-by-play guy for a team. And by the way, I want it to be the Twins, the team I grew up following as a little kid. I’ve been so blessed.”
His career carried him through the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome and Target Field, through an ownership change, a player walkout and two World Series titles. For the ceremony, he wore the wool tie Calvin Griffith gave him before his first Twins telecast in 1983.
And when it was time to toast the moment, Bremer did it the way fans knew best: with his classic left-handed toast, the same one he would raise after every Twins win. Forty-three years later, the glass went up for the man who spent a lifetime calling the games.
The Twins also made a roster move Friday, acquiring right-handed pitcher Tommy Nance from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for minor-league catcher/third baseman Ryan Sprock, last year’s eighth-round pick.
Minnesota is hoping the 35-year-old Nance can help steady a bullpen that has been among the league’s weakest. The Twins entered Friday with the worst earned-run average in the American League at 5.28.
Nance spent three years with Toronto and said he wasn’t expecting the trade when it came through.
“But I’m happy to be here,” Nance continued. “All the guys here have already been super welcoming, and the staff and everything has been great so far. So I’m excited to get going here.”
He has thrown 33 innings this season and owns a 3.82 ERA with 34 strikeouts. Nance also pointed to the pitch he trusts most.
“I own the curveball that I throw,” Nance said. “It’s my best pitch.”
To clear a spot for Nance, the Twins sent Eric Orze to Triple-A St. Paul.
Orze, 28, has been used heavily out of the bullpen, logging 41⅓ innings across 35 games. He has a 5.27 ERA overall, and that number has climbed to a 9.00 ERA since June 1.
Manager Derek Shelton said the path back to the majors for Orze starts with two things.
“The split has to be something that’s more consistent, and he has got to put the ball into play more.”
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