Ron Gardenhire, whose uniform number as Twins' manager was 35 (though he rarely wore his jersey), fittingly became the 35th member of the Twins Hall of Fame on Saturday, an event made more poignant, he said, by the three dozen former players, coaches and trainers who flew to Minnesota to honor him.
"Some of these guys got me fired," said Gardenhire, who won six division titles and 1,068 games over 13 seasons as Twins manager, joked during an induction speech full of thank yous. "But I still love them to death. They made me better."
The second-winningest manager in Twins history was introduced by his predecessor, Tom Kelly, who has the most wins. Said Gardenhire, "Tom Kelly was the best manager I ever saw," and credited the fellow Hall of Famer with teaching him, over the 11 seasons he served as a coach under Kelly, how to empower players and enlist their help in playing the right way.
"When someone didn't run out a ground ball, Torii Hunter would be the first person to say, 'I got this,' and go talk to the guy — 'What are you doing? You've got to run them out,' " Gardenhire said. "I didn't have to yell at anybody. When you've got players like that, then you know you've got it made."
Gardenhire actually did yell at somebody, of course — a tribute video during the ceremony highlighted his 73 career ejections with the Twins and some of the most memorable arguments he ever had with umpires.
The video also featured tributes from fellow managers from his AL Central rivals, including Ozzie Guillen and Jim Leyland, each of whom managed against Gardenhire in one-game playoffs for the division championship in 2008 (a 1-0 loss to Guillen's White Sox) and 2009 (a 6-5 win over Leyland's Tigers).
Guillen joked that "I still hate you, and I still hate those piranhas," the nickname he coined for Gardenhire's "pesky" Twins.
"Ozzie and I loved to make each other laugh," Gardenhire said.
Before the ceremony, the Twins unveiled a banner-shaped plaque on the plaza outside the ballpark commemorating Gardenhire's induction. Only one problem: The plaque said Gardenhire was a Twins coach from 1991-2011 — actually, his coaching stint ended in 2001 — and manager from 2001-2014, though it began in 2002.
