board. Legacy Allegations of racism Griffith became well known for his public statements. Wrote Sports Illustrated in 1983: "Griffith long ago established himself as one of sport's most accessible and quotable owners. Reporters could rap on his door, enter and fill their note pads with sentences so coarse in honesty and so magnificently mangled in syntax that some began to enjoy him. He was quoted last year as saying that rookie center fielder Jim Eisenreich was 'doomed to be an All-Star'." "He'll either be the best manager in baseball — or the worst", he said when he gave a young Billy Martin his first manager job after the 1968 season. A year later, Griffith became the first owner to fire Martin, despite Martin's having led the Twins to 97 victories and the 1969 American League West Division title. The firing—which stemmed from Martin's well-publicized, alcohol-fueled assaults on 20-game-winning pitcher Dave Boswell and team executive Howard Fox—was highly unpopular with many Twins' fans. However, even before then, a number of Twins executives had received complaints about Martin's heavy drinking on road trips. When he was asked who would replace Martin as the Twins' 1970 manager, Griffith replied, "I guarantee you one thing. I won't do anything rational." However, Griffith's off-the-cuff remarks landed him in more serious trouble in September 1978, and drew charges of racism. Speaking at a Lions Club dinner in Waseca, Minnesota, Griffith was unaware that Minneapolis Tribune staff writer Nick Coleman was attending the gathering. The meeting proceeded in a question and answer format. Griffith began to make comments about specific players and about race in general. Coleman is quoted as saying “I was wincing the whole time thinking, you don’t want to say that.” At that point, Griffith interrupted himself, lowered his voice and asked if there were any blacks around. After he looked around the room and assured himself that his audience was white, Griffith resumed his answer stating: "I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ballgames, but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here." He went on to call Carew a "damn fool" for accepting a below-market $170,000 annual salary when he was actually worth "a