Name Thelma Haynes | ||
Thelma Griffith Haynes (ca. 1913 – October 15, 1995) was a Canadian–American club owner (1955–84) in Major League Baseball. Born Thelma Mae Robertson in Montréal, Québec, she was the niece of Clark Griffith, a former star pitcher who became manager (1912–20) and then president and chief stockholder of the Washington Senators (1920 until his death in 1955). The Senators relocated to Minneapolis–Saint Paul in the autumn of 1960 and have been known as the Minnesota Twins since 1961.
Haynes' father, James Robertson, was a Canadian minor league baseball player who died in 1922, leaving behind a widow and seven young children. Clark Griffith's wife, Anne ("Addie"), James Robertson's sister, took in the destitute survivors, and the family moved from Montréal to Washington, D.C., with eldest son Calvin Robertson and Thelma assuming the Griffith surname. Calvin Griffith was groomed to succeed his uncle, who was childless, as the Senators' president and de facto general manager.
In October 1955, Clark Griffith died at age 85, leaving his 52 percent majority interest in the Senators evenly split between Calvin and Thelma. She served as treasurer and executive vice president of the Twins and, with her brother, ensured that the Griffith-Robertson family would control the operation of the team until it was purchased on August 15, 1984, by Carl Pohlad; the family's share of the Twins reportedly was sold for $32 million.
Thelma wed a former Washington pitcher, Joe Haynes of the Chicago White Sox, in 1941. Joe would later return to the Senators/Twins as a player, coach and front office executive until his death in January 1967. Their son, Bruce Haynes, also was an executive with the Twins' franchise. The family also included brother-in-law Joe Cronin, like Clark Griffith a Baseball Hall of Fame player (and later a manager, general manager and American League president), brother Sherry Robertson, who played, coached and served as farm system director for the Senators and Twins, and two other brothers, Jimmy and Billy Robertson, who were also team executives.
Thelma Griffith Haynes relocated from Minnesota to Florida in 1982 and died at 82 on October 15, 1995 in Orlando, the team's longtime spring training home, after suffering a stroke.