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Dave St. Peter came through the ranks and became the president of Twins in 2002, at age 35. It is a role in which a person finds himself at meetings with owners and executives in the game's business end.
"I'm a big fan of the Cleveland Indians' ownership," St. Peter said. "Paul Dolan is one of the best people you're going to meet, and his father Larry is terrific, too. There's also some AL Central pride at work with the Indians."
So that means St. Peter is rooting for Cleveland to give the Twins' division a second straight World Series title?
"I guess so," St. Peter said, "although I have to admit to some mixed emotions."
Twins CEO Jim Pohlad made the wrenching decision in June to fire Terry Ryan in the middle of what would become the worst season in the franchise's 56 years in Minnesota.
Ryan was invited to stick around until season's end, but he tired of sitting on the secret and giving hollow answers as the media started asking questions about what might be done to raise the sunken ship.
"Let's get this over with," Ryan told Pohlad and St. Peter in mid-July and the announcement was made on July 20.
The Twins went through the search and announced the hiring of Derek Falvey, a 33-year-old Cleveland executive, to take Ryan's role as the person with the power over all baseball decisions.
The announcement of Falvey's hiring was made Oct. 3. The complication was that Cleveland would be starting the playoffs three days later against Boston, and Falvey would be an employee of the Indians until they were eliminated.
Cleveland was an underdog against Boston and swept the Red Sox in three games. It was a slight underdog against Toronto and now leads the Blue Jays 3-1 in the ALCS.
The World Series beckons, and hooray for the Dolans, fine gentlemen that they are. Along with that, there must be patience as Pohlad, St. Peter and the Twins wait for their new decision maker to arrive at Target Field to start making decisions.
Who is this young man that Pohlad and St. Peter are confident can turn short-term uncertainty into a long-term gain?
"Derek is one of those guys with kind of a spark that hooks people to join in an effort," Bill Decker said. "How he carried himself, how he interacted with the other guys on the team and people around campus … it was unique."
Decker was the baseball coach at Trinity College, a highly rated liberal arts school in Hartford, Conn. Derek was there as a lightly used reliever in the early 2000s. His cousin, Brendan Falvey, was much more of an on-field contributor — as a pitcher and a first baseman.
"Brendan was a bit older," Decker said. "The Falveys were here when we started winning."
Derek was in Trinity's Class of 2005. Three years after that, the Bantams won their first 44 games of the season and captured the NCAA Division III national championship. Decker took over as Harvard's baseball coach in 2012.
A young Yale graduate, Theo Epstein, brought a World Series victory to Boston for the first time in 86 years in 2004. With that, an Ivy League education — Yale, Harvard, etc. — turned into a résumé booster for young people looking to join and then move up the ranks of baseball organizations.
And not to move up in the business end of the organizations, but to become the makers of baseball decisions.
Trinity College isn't Ivy League, but it might as well be. And Derek Falvey's goal was clear as he went through his modest pitching career with the Bantams, proud members of the New England Small College Athletic Conference:
"Derek wasn't a great pitcher, but he was a great student of pitching," Decker said. "He had a passion for the game, and a passion to work in major league baseball.
"Once he got a chance, he worked tremendously hard and earned the trust of people that he could handle more responsibility."
Falvey started as an intern with Cleveland in 2007. The Indians organization has become an incubator for people taking over other teams' baseball operations at a young age.
The Twins were attracted to Falvey by his ability to gain trust with baseball lifers such as Cleveland manager Terry Francona. He is a planner and a communicator, the Twins believe, and the Twins need both.
He is also a follower of the gospel of the Indians organization: Input is encouraged; people in a baseball department should not have their ideas pigeonholed in a specific area.
I can give you one baseball man who will embrace that idea if he is kept in Falvey's operation: Class AA manager Doug Mientkiewicz.
The Twins are embracing change with the hiring of Falvey. What they need now is continuing patience before such change starts.
Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500. • preusse@startribune.com
