MPR’s Tom Fudge reports on the Minnesota Twins parade that traversed downtown Minneapolis. There were large crowds and excitement, but no repeat of unexpected problems that affected the 1987 Twins celebratory parade.
MPR’s Tom Fudge reports on the Minnesota Twins parade that traversed downtown Minneapolis. There were large crowds and excitement, but no repeat of unexpected problems that affected the 1987 Twins celebratory parade.
CROWD: [CHEERING]
SPEAKER 1: Stand up, stand up.
TOM FUDGE: Who are you cheering for?
SPEAKER 1: Morris.
TOM FUDGE: Jack Morris?
SPEAKER 1: You betcha.
TOM FUDGE: The noise from the cheering crowd on 4th Street in downtown Minneapolis may have been a match for the Metrodome, and it reached its greatest pitch as [? Twins ?] Ace Jack Morris rode by.
CROWD: [CHEERING]
TOM FUDGE: The parade began at Saint Mary's Basilica and reached Minneapolis City Hall right on time at 1:30. Everybody was working hard to find a good vantage point. One boy stood on his bicycle, which was propped against a lamppost.
SPEAKER 2: I see everything.
SPEAKER 3: Who-- who do you see? What players?
SPEAKER 2: I see Rick [? Aguilera, ?] Chuck Knoblauch, Jarvis Brown. I see all of them.
TOM FUDGE: There were other people standing atop traffic lights. Bob Swanson, building supervisor for City Hall, says he got quite a few requests from people who wanted to get a view of the parade.
BOB SWANSON: Well, they knew our office was directly looking over the parade route, so a lot of people haven't seen for a while called and said, gee, can I stop by about 1:30, 2:00 o'clock.
TOM FUDGE: There were a couple of things parade planners wanted to do differently this year compared to the last victory parade in 1987. First, they wanted to keep people up on the sidewalk so the motorcade wouldn't have to fight its way through crowded streets. But even though Minneapolis doubled its patrol this year, Sheriff's deputy Jerry Layton said police officers simply couldn't keep people out of the streets.
JERRY LAYTON: It's pretty hard, but they're a good group. No problems with them, but it's hard to keep them back. You can push them back and they push you back, you know?
TOM FUDGE: This year, parade planners also discouraged the use of confetti in the parade, given the fire hazard created by the confetti in 1987. But while nobody was giving it away, some people like Robert [? Luken ?] brought their own. Luken says he got the paper from his office.
[? RUBERT LUKEN: ?] With the documents that we type up we have to destroy, and so we shred them, and we keep the shreds. And usually we recycle it with a paper recycling company. But with the Twins getting to the World Series, we thought this would be a little more appropriate.
TOM FUDGE: After the parade, people walked through streets that emptied very quickly with the passing of the Twins motorcade. Cleaning vehicles wetted down the streets, and soon Downtown Minneapolis was left with only the chilly weather and a gray sky. Baseball season was over, and winter was on its way. In Minneapolis, this is Tom Fudge.
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