The Twins evaluate new additions to the team, not only in ability, but as to their character. General Manager Bill Smith and Manager Ron Gardenhire seem to feel that chemistry in the clubhouse plays an important role in the team’s success. Most of us would agree and certainly it is a lot more pleasant to play Major League baseball without a Barry Bonds or Milton Bradley on your team.

The Twins appear to be pleasant, low-key guys, who say the right thing and act the right way. The team leaders, by example, not necessarily vocally, are Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Both of whom are nice guys and would make good next door neighbors.

In fact when they were being clobbered by the Yankees and jobbed by the umpire in the Red Sox game there was little response by the Twins. There was no “we’ll get them” next time or screams of outrage at the Red Sox game umpiring. That attitude saved them fines and controversy, but did it do anything positive for the team? Perhaps the best way to find an answer is to look at some baseball history.

The premier player example of “scrappy” is Ty Cobb. The epitome of fight to the last out, do anything to win, player. Cobb was terror on the base paths. He’d do anything to steal a base, including spiking opposing players. He sharpened his spikes and used them on the other team’s infielders. If that didn’t do it, he’d offer to meet them behind the grandstand. His nickname was the “Georgia Peach,” but he was not a peach of a guy. Poet Ogden Nash had this to say about him: “C is for Cobb, who grew spikes not corn, and made all the basemen wish they were not born.”

The best example of a scrappy baseball team is the St. Louis Cardinals of 1934. “The Gashouse Gang.” Players on the ‘34 team were Joe (Ducky) Medwick, Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul, Leo (The Lip) Durocher, Pepper (The Wild Horse of the Osage) Martin, Ripper Collins and manager Frankie Frisch. They were a hard-nosed, combative team, whom Durocher characterized as a bunch of gas housers referring to a smelly plant that converted coal to gas usually in the poorer section of town. The team using every means possible, won the pennant and the World Series that year.

Our Minnesota Twins are certainly not “The Gashouse Gang.” Their leaders are all millionaires for one thing and they play the game in a civilized manner. The Twins try not to show up the other team by flipping their bat after a home run, or their pitcher throwing the ball into the stands after a game ending strike out. One pitcher did and was strongly criticized for doing so. Recently, Denard Span apologized to an umpire after he flipped his bat in disgust after a bad call. Can you imagine Ty Cobb or Leo Durocher apologizing to an umpire? It wouldn’t happen.

The only “scrappy” ballplayer I see on the Twins is Nick Punto, who enjoys getting his uniform dirty, but this is a far cry from being a leader on the team.

I believe the Twins could use a little more “Fire in the Belly.” However, in justice to the team, the Morneaus, Mauers, and Cuddyers do have a strong commitment to winning the pennant and World Series. And perhaps scrappiness is overrated. There have been a lot of World Series champs who were not particularly scrappy, but professional and got the job done. And it also true that Major League baseball has made it more and more difficult to act out frustrations and try to intimidate the other team.

Perhaps the best baseball history lesson to scrappiness is that Ty Cobb never did win a World Series.