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Terry Collins, Star Tribune
September 3, 2003
For 21 seasons, Minnesota Twins organist Ronnie (Baseball) Newman had a playing streak that would rival many of the game's greats today.
Newman, of Minneapolis, died Tuesday of complications from diabetes at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina. He was 70.
A moment of silence was held Tuesday night at the Twins-Anaheim Angels game for Newman, who had played the baseball anthem "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for 1,775 straight home games.
During Tuesday's game "Satin Doll," a song he performed before every home game, was played.
"Ronnie's one of the all-time great ambassadors for the Twins, right up there with [longtime radio announcer] Herb Carneal and [public address announcer] Bob Casey," said Matt Hoy, Twins vice president of operations. "Ronnie would go anywhere to promote the team. He was a Twin through and through."
Newman's daughter, Connie Newman of Minneapolis, said Tuesday that a friend of her father's referred him to Twins owner Calvin Griffith before the 1977 season.
"He was hired with a handshake," she said. "He'd tell that story quite frequently.
"Music was his life, and he really loved the Twins. It's all he lived for."
He last played music for the Twins in 1998, when scoreboard commercials and recorded rock music grew more popular than his organ tunes.
Newman played from behind home plate at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, where he earned $50 a game. In the early days at the Metrodome he played from a pit, watching the game through a periscope.
He frequently played jazz in clubs in the Twin Cities, and he also performed in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, Nev., with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme and Lenny Bruce.
"I never got tired of listening to him play," said friend Dagmar Runyon of St. Paul. "Ronnie always had something refreshing to put out. He was a true jazz improvisational musician."
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