History of Baseball Team Nicknames - Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota

Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota

The two adjacent cities have had a long-standing, mostly-friendly rivalry, and each city had high-level minor league clubs, including teams in the American Association for the better part of five decades. The Minneapolis clubs were usually called the Minneapolis Millers, Minneapolis being known as the "Mill City". St. Paul, as the state capital, avoided the usual stereotype of teams called "Senators", "Solons" or "Capitals", and instead went for a more direct stereotype. The city's early teams were typically called the St. Paul Saints or Apostles, including the city's short lived Union Association entry in 1884. Later the city's minor league clubs adopted the St. Paul Saints nickname, a self-contained redundancy. The Western League club from the 1890s moved to Chicago in 1900 and became the Chicago White Sox. The revived minor league Saints joined their cross-river rivals in the American Association for much of the first half of the 1900s. The Saints name was revived by an independent minor league club in 1993.