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[CLANKING] DAN OLSON: The ballet of batting practice at the Metrodome in Minneapolis sets a hypnotic rhythm. Balls bounce chest high off the artificial playing surface as infielders return grounders. And a few feet away in the batting cage, hitters are taking their warm up cuts. The young Twins are taking their turn at batting practice. These are the new stars of a winning team, first baseman Kent hrbek.

KENT HRBEK: We always knew he could score some runs. The last two years, we've scored runs. We could score 8 runs a game, but the other team was scoring 9 and 10.

So it's kind of tough to end up winning the ball game. This year, it's been a different story. Our pitching staff's done a super job for us.

DAN OLSON: A minor league club was the label placed on the Minnesota Twins, as they traded away talented players whose salaries had grown too large to fit the budget of former owner Calvin Griffith. Boston Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans confirms that the Twins were regarded as a farm team for other clubs, a team led by a family that wouldn't change with the times.

DWIGHT EVANS: And you have to adjust to the times. The salaries have gone up, and you've got to compete. And they had some fine young ballplayers that they let go and gave to other teams, and those players were leaders on those teams.

So I think that's over with. A new owner is going to help this club and with some new ideas, new and fresh ideas. And I think the players feel it, and they're responding to it.

DAN OLSON: The Griffith family has sold the club, of course. Banking, soft drink bottling, and merger magnate Carl Pohlad of Minneapolis won the right to make multi-millionaires of the Griffith family stockholders. The deal was cut after a host of municipal suitors courted the favor of the Griffith family for relocating in their town.

Minnesota interests countered with a $6 million pledge to buy Twins tickets and hold the team to its Metrodome lease in Minneapolis. But only a portion of the ticket buyout money was spent. The sale of the club to Carl Pohlad caused the suitors to return home, and the ticket buying plan was put on the shelf. But this most unusual year for the Twins took another turn as the team began winning on the strength of stronger hitting and pitching and breathtaking defensive plays from players and new stars, such as center fielder Kirby Puckett.

KIRBY PUCKETT: We pretty much have a good time. We get a little uptight when we don't get hits or whatever. Some guys maybe, but that's because everybody really wants to do as best as they can. Everybody really wants to win.

DAN OLSON: "My Kids," is how Twins manager Billy Gardner refers to his team, a division-leading club with names like Brunansky, Hatcher, Engel, and Teufel, names that were mainly unknown by fans and the media last year.

BILLY GARDNER: It's a long-- we got a long month to go yet. We haven't done nothing yet. And I think when you talk pennant, it comes down to the last week, the last two weeks of the season.

But my kids are handling it well. They know they haven't won nothing, and I like the way they handle it. They know they have to go day by day now, and this is the way to approach the whole thing.

DAN OLSON: Veteran Radio announcer Herb Carneal professes he's not surprised at the club's performance. The voice of the Twins for 23 years, Carneal says a winning team brings Minnesotans out of the woodwork.

HERB CARNEAL: Since we've been in first place traveling around the league, I've had more notes sent up from people saying that they are here from the Midwest, the Twin Cities area, watching the Twins. And they sign their names. And I've had more of that kind of notes, oh, I guess in the last month than I had in the last three years. [LAUGHS] So everybody sits up and takes notice when you win.

DAN OLSON: The Twins turn around this season is mirrored, Carneal recalls, by the World Series Twins of 1965. In the season before their pennant-winning year, the club won fewer than half their games. Home run hitting former Twins Harmon Killebrew, now in the Hall of Fame, rejects the assertion by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner that the Western division is a haven for weak baseball teams compared to the rest of the league.

HARMON KILLEBREW: One thing a lot of people don't realize about the Twins is they're one of the best defensive ball clubs in the American League. And of course, if you got good pitching and good defense, along with the good hitting that they have, you've got a good ball club.

DAN OLSON: Killebrew and others smile at the circumstances. The Twins players collectively earn roughly half the salary of several other teams with poor season records so far. And the unknowns, or kids, as their manager calls them, have a shot at winning their division title. This is Dan Olson reporting in Minneapolis.

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