Within the St. Paul Saints’ corporate offices at CHS Field, an indication on one wall reads, “Gone Fishin’.”
It’s a holdover from the club’s days because the flag-bearer of independent baseball, the spot where outgoing employees and chosen players signed their names before moving on to more prestigious and presumably better-paying gigs. “The Saints’ version of gallows humor,” general manager Derek Sharrer said.
Players stopped signing when the Saints became the Class AAA affiliate of the Twins, for practical reasons. The large club shuttles so many players forwards and backwards the Saints would have needed a wall the dimensions of Fenway Park’s Green Monster to carry all of the signatures. But departing employees still sign. And now, even departing owners.
Last month The Goldklang Group, owners of the Saints since their founding in 1993, sold the club to Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), an offshoot of a giant entertainment company that’s been buying up minor-league franchises coast to coast. Marv Goldklang, the chairman, and his son Jeff, the corporate president, got here to St. Paul in early April to satisfy with staff and discuss the sale. There was a dinner on the St. Paul Grill with senior executives, then a full staff meeting the next morning.
This wasn’t some cold, cut and dried, cash-the-check-and-see-you-later sort of visit. For longtime Saints employees, Goldklang and partner Mike Veeck were the one baseball bosses they ever had. Goldklang and Veeck devoted their hearts and money to a renegade club that wasn’t speculated to last six months. Now it’s one in all skilled baseball’s model franchises, in a sleek modern ballpark, still with a squealing pig on site. It’s been quite the ride.
“There have been numerous tears, and numerous laughter,” Marv said in a telephone interview from his office in Recent Jersey.
The following day, Goldklangs were saying their goodbyes when Sharrer asked them to sign the wall. Marv printed his name, then added this: “For Now.” That’s because Goldklang plans to return once in a while. That’s how much the Saints mean to him.
“The best strategy to put that is, that is our baby, and it’s still our baby,” he said. “You don’t walk away from something you poured rather a lot into – and I’m not talking about financial resources. I’m talking a few commitment to construct something special – then activate a dime and walk away. Whoever owns the Saints, they’ll at all times be an element of our legacy, and we’ll at all times be tuning in to the games.”
So why sell in the primary place? Goldklang, 80, said it wasn’t his idea. “The offer was completely unsolicited,” he said. “We didn’t put the team up on the market. And candidly, until I received the offer, the thought hadn’t occurred.”
But Veeck, the Saints’ co-owner and front man, thought in a different way.
The 72-year-old Veeck says he’s a distinct person since his beloved daughter Rebecca, just 27, died in 2019 of a rare genetic disorder. Rebecca Veeck lost her sight in childhood to retinitis pigmentosa, making her passing a double whammy of heartache for Veeck and his wife Libby. Veeck found himself reordering his priorities, finally concluding the Saints staff not needed him or anyone else looking over their shoulders.
“The thing that’s improper with this country isn’t diversity or Title IX or all the causes that we’ve,” Veeck said in a phone interview from Charleston, South Carolina. “Guys my age should get out of the best way and let the young guys do it. I kept saying that, and here I used to be. Derek’s never had one other employer but us. That’s staggering; 30-some years.
“We were putting it on the market for a protracted time period. Now it’s time for Derek and Tom (Executive Vice President Tom Whaley) and (Executive VP) Chris Schwab and Sierra (Assistant General Manager Sierra Bailey) to place it on the market themselves. They don’t must be, as I’ve taken to calling it, ‘Pelosied.’ (referring to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s decision to step down from Democratic leadership in favor of younger leadership).”
Veeck tells a lot of stories about his father, the Hall of Fame owner and impresario Bill Veeck. But this led him to 1 about his mother, Mary Frances, who died last 12 months, nine days after her 102nd birthday. Veeck remembers waking up within the wee hours one morning to seek out his mother, once a publicist for the Ice Capades, attempting to burn some old scrapbooks. “She was a really beautiful woman, and felt that after six children, nature had taken its toll,” he said.
After stopping her, he said they talked about attrition, and knowing when to depart. “She said, `You realize honey, your father and I won’t be remembered for numerous things, but one thing people said about is, we knew exactly when to go,’” Mike Veeck said of the conversation along with his mother. “And I’ve never forgotten it.”
Bill Veeck sold the White Sox in 1981 and died five years later.
Sharrer said the transition from the Goldklang Group to DBH has been smooth, yet sad for longtime Saints employees like himself. “Those guys are my family,” he said, meaning Goldklang, Veeck and co-owner Bill Murray. “It’s definitely been an emotional transition for those of us within the front office who’ve worked with and for those guys for thus long.”
DBH, founded in 2021, now owns 16 minor league clubs, including the Class AAA Iowa Cubs and Oklahoma City Dodgers in addition to the Wichita Wind Surge, the Twins’ Class AA affiliate. DBH likes to purchase clubs entrenched of their markets and usually leaves front office staffs intact. Last week, a visit to a game at CHS Field offered no evidence the club had modified hands. There have been the same old MC-led shenanigans, between-innings gags, the seventh-inning peanut bag toss from the press box and appearances by this 12 months’s pig, named Mud Grant after late Vikings’ coach, Bud Grant.
Marv Goldklang said he and Veeck have known DBH CEO Peter B. Freund for greater than 15 years, since bringing him on as co-owner of one other Goldklang Group club, the Charleston RiverDogs. Goldklang and Freund are also minority owners of the Yankees.
“They understand not only who the St. Paul Saints are from the standpoint of a ball club, but they understand the culture of the organization, and I feel in addition they understand the vision that we’ve,” Goldklang said.
“So we ultimately concluded it was the proper time, and it was the proper purchaser. Candidly, if someone had walked within the door with the identical offer that we didn’t know or didn’t have an actual comfort level with, I’m certain the choice would have been different.”
At its height, the Goldklang Group ran five minor-league teams. Now it’s all the way down to two, the skilled RiverDogs and the amateur Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Suns of the collegiate Futures League. But Goldklang isn’t seeking to retire or close up shop.
“I’ve been blessed with an exquisite wife for 55 years (Sheila), and she or he has made it clear to me she doesn’t want me home for lunch,” he said. “We’re another opportunities. Not further contracting our footprint, but expanding.”
Veeck has things on his plate as well: A documentary about 4 generations of Veecks in baseball, one other book and a few speaking engagements. That’s, when he’s not walking on the beach with Libby.
His father told him never to fall in love with a team, but Veeck couldn’t help but fall in love the Saints. How could he not? From the rainy opening night at sold-out at Midway Stadium in 1993 through five independent league championships through the affiliation with the Twins, the scruffy Saints delivered 1000’s of gags and laughs and memories. All from a flicker of an idea from Miles Wolff, who founded the Northern League and suggested Goldklang hire Veeck for the fledgling club in St. Paul.
“The reality of the matter was, we thought we’d have a hell of a time for 2 or three years, run out of cash, after which go and do something else,” Goldklang said.
Added Veeck: “It makes me insane when Marv goes, `I assumed we’d invest for 2 or three years, lose our money and go do something else.’ And I’m like, `Marv, what planet did you come from? I couldn’t lose my money. That was every nickel I had.’”
Then Veeck laughed, that throaty cackle that punctuates so lots of his stories. The Saints revived Veeck’s baseball profession after personal and skilled hardship, and St. Paul and its fans will at all times hold a special place. And, he adds, they haven’t seen the last of him.
“You possibly can’t have a love affair like that and never revisit the primary careless rapture,” he said. “I could not hang around at Gabe’s every night or live on the Lexington and have Rebecca sleeping in a chest of drawers with two pillows as her bedding, but those were wonderful years. It was numerous fun.”
Besides, Veeck has to return back. There’s a wall for him to sign.