Pablo López had the Twins' new home run celebration planned for months, but he needed to wait for the right time to bring it out.
Equipped with a custom-made purple Prince-themed vest, a purple fedora and a purple inflatable guitar, the items finally made their way to the dugout Thursday on, fittingly, Prince Night.
"Pablo told me before the game someone has got to hit a homer today, I've got something special," Royce Lewis said. "I figured it would be something cool. I didn't think it'd be Prince."
After Carlos Correa connected on a two-run homer in the Twins' 6-2 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Thursday, López stood on top of the dugout with the vest. The Twins had the "Land of 10,000 Rakes" vest for their home run celebrations last year, and this is the new Purple Rain-inspired vest.
López, who was behind the fishing vest last year, ordered a new vest in the offseason, but it didn't arrive until a couple months into the season.
"About the time the sausage was full force, and we were winning. Can't mess with that," said López, who learned Prince Night was coming up in June after chatting with clubhouse attendant Frank Hanzlik, and he figured that would be time to debut it.
Most Twins players were unaware of the new home run props before Correa donned them for the first time, though some of them saw the vest hanging in the dugout.
"It just appeared," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Like a lot of things related to Prince, it just kind of appeared and it's awesome."
Correa added: "I saw it pregame. When I asked Pablo, I was like, 'Was this you?' He was like, 'yeah.' I'm like, 'This is creative. I love this.' I was like I want to hit a home run so bad. It happened in the last at-bat, but it happened."
The 28-year-old López enjoys thinking of ideas to bring the team together after veterans Martín Prado, Curtis Granderson and Neil Walker did similar things when he was on the Miami Marlins. López created their own version of the Wheel of Fortune for the player of the game to spin after victories. He was behind a Bingo Night during an off day in Detroit in April, which was his favorite idea to date.
"I'm all for finding things sometimes not related to baseball that can bring us closer not only as players but also as people, as friends, as brothers," he said. "I always like finding little things, little opportunities to make something cool happen. Something that has no added pressure, something that's a little different, lighthearted."
