You might be a Minnesota Twins fan from Storm Lake, Iowa if …

… you listened to Minnesota Twins baseball on 830 WCCO Minneapolis, 1040 WHO Des Moines, and 570 WNAX Yankton, S.D. The radio reception and sound quality from Storm Lake on each of them was not perfect, with WNAX the best in the daytime, with WHO immaculate in the night with its 50,000 watts clear channel. We amazingly tuned it in on various family vacations in such far off places as El Paso, Colorado Springs, and Jackson Hole.

If you got up early to make the 225-mile five hour or so one way trip from Storm Lake via Estherville, Fairmont (a great Country Kitchen was located there), and Mankato arriving in time for 1:15 p.m. starting Saturday or Sunday afternoon games to Bloomington, Minn., and beautiful and scenic Metropolitan Stadium (the entire time in those pre-Metrodome days while in the car praying that it would not rain — please clouds stay away). And if the Twins won, the drive home never seemed long.

I could not understand as a child why KAYL 990 Storm Lake would broadcast (it seemed a betrayal) not the Twins but the St. Louis Cardinals, as St. Louis was a long ways away and not getting that the Cardinals were a marquee franchise and for many years back when teams still traveled by train the furthest team west in the Majors. So along with the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox had been the closest teams to Storm Lake at one time.

If you always had a small portable radio in your school locker in the hallway at West School, the junior high, and then the high school to quickly get an update on Twins games being played on school day afternoons, which were frequent especially in April with still cold Minnesota temps not allowing scheduling night games. I think my teachers knew but they would let it slide.

Although with Storm Lake Cable adding Super Station WTCG Atlanta in the spring of 1978, and then WGN Chicago at Christmas time 1979, meaning rather than only getting to watch one single MLB game per week (the Saturday afternoon NBC Joe Garagiola game), it was awesome that one could watch the Atlanta Braves and then the Chicago Cubs seemingly play daily. But in those pre-Interleague Play days when the National League never played the American League, both now Storm Lake shown teams still never played the Minnesota Twins.

To compensate for this even after Storm Lake got cable, you would shut off the cable and play and play around again with your TV’s rabbit ears attempting to tune in Channel 12 Mankato which would sometimes show Twins’ Sunday afternoon road games;

If as a long-suffering Twins fan (did not make the playoffs for 17 seasons from 1970 to 1987) and being used to the Dodgers and Yankees getting all the media attention, you took great pride and pleasure in Rod Carew’s 1977 historic season when he hit .388 with 239 hits, 128 runs scored and 100 RBIs, kept the Twins in first place in the Western Division until mid-August, won the American League MVP, and appeared on the covers of not just Sports Illustrated, but also Time and Newsweek.

If you remember that then Storm Lake Pilot-Tribune sports editor Barry Poe attended one of the first games held at the Metrodome in 1982 with his write up in the newspaper a major story as now Storm Lakers could make the drive up to the Twin Cities to attend a Twins game without running the risk of it being rained out or delayed (halleluiah!).

If seeing in the Mall of America on the Log Ride during its speedy descent the very spot where Harmon Killebrew’s home run (520 feet in 1967) — the longest in the history of Metropolitan Stadium landed — puts a lump in your throat;

If you persevered through all the disappointing years and never gave up on them (okay, almost gave up on them) and when the Twins incredibly and even miraculously (with such a small overall payroll compared with large market teams) won the World Series by the skin of their teeth in seven games in 1987 and then amazingly did it again in 1991, it was one of (two of) the happiest moments of your life.

And, if the names Kirby, Herbie, TK, Harmon, Dazzle, Tony O and Rodney Cline are each sacred and royalty to you, then you might be a Minnesota Twins fan from Storm Lake, Iowa. 

Kregg Halstead graduated from Storm Lake High School in 1984. He enjoys sharing his cherished childhood memories of life in Storm Lake during the 1970s and 80s.