Location: A central Minnesota lake, frozen over by the cold condition. (a drone starts high, above the trees, showing an expansive, ice-covered lake. Slowly the drone flies over the lake until it reaches an ice fishing house, smoke coming out the pipe chimney.)

Time of Day: A quiet winter morning between the Christmas and New Years holidays. 

Location 2: Inside the fish house. Big winter jackets hanging up on the wall, a wood floor with four holes drilled into the ice. 

People: a man just months shy of his 70th birthday. His wife. They have a son and a daughter. Each has their own chair and is responsible for watching one the bobber in one of the holes. While not wearing the heavy jackets any longer, all four are still dressed in layers, jeans, sweatshirts, gloves and stocking caps. The son is wearing a Pensacola Blue Wahoos stocking cap. The other three have Minnesota Twins stocking caps. They are eating breakfast and drinking coffee. 

Suddenly, a cell phone ringer goes offer (yes, playing Take Me Out to the Ballgame). All four reach for their phones. The matriarch of the family picks up his phone, looks down at it, puts it up to his ear. For the first time, the camera gets a direct shot at his face. He smiles as he says in one of the most recognizable voices in the Upper Midwest, “This is Dick Bremer.” 

On the other side of the phone call are Dustin Morse (Twins VP of Communications and Public Affairs), Dave St. Peter (long-time Twins President). and Hall of Famer Rod Carew. 

After a few minutes, and a lot of Thank Yous, Bremer hung up the phone. With water droplets emerging, and starting to freeze, Bremer told his family he was elected to the Twins Hall of Fame. 

Bremer noted later, “It meant a lot to me to have the whole family there. They paid quite a price to let me chase that little white ball around the country.” 

After hugs, the family celebrated with a champagne toast, “…with small Dixie cups. After all, it was in the fish house!” 

End Scene. 

 

On Saturday, July 11th, Bremer will be inducted as the 42nd member of the Twins Hall of Fame. He has been the emcee for many of the ceremonies. 

Bremer grew up in the small, west-central Minnesota town of Dumont where he began to love playing baseball. When he was about five years old, the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota, and Bremer has been one of their biggest and most loyal fans. 

His family moved to Missouri for a couple of years, but he never allowed another team to become his favorite. The family returned to Minnesota, and Bremer graduated from Staples high school. He spent his college years at St. Cloud State. His first job was at a radio station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, (insert Duke After Dark note here) where he was a disc jockey but also called play-by-play for the University of Iowa’s men’s basketball team. 

In 1983, Bremer became the Twins television voice. on Spectrum Sports. He spent three years in the role but didn’t work in 1986. He returned to the role in 1987 and held the role through 2023, his 40th season. After the year, he announced his retirement. On Opening Day 2024, the Twins presented him with a plague and named the home TV booth after Dick Bremer. 

Early in his career, he also called North Star games, Vikings preseason games, Gophers sports, and even some for the Minnesota State High School League. 

In his time working play-by-play, he had an impressive group of partners in the booth. The first was Harmon Killebrew. (Can you imagine how cool that would be for a kid from Minnesota?) He worked with Tommy John, Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat, Torii Hunter, LaTroy Hawkins, Glen Perkins, Justin Morneau, Trevor Plouffe, Denard Span, and others. 

In the offseasons, he remained busy, representing the Twins at various functions such as the Diamond Awards, the Twins Winter Caravan, several Hot Stove events and more. 

In 2020, Bremer wrote his memoir in the book, Game Used, a story of his lif e and times around the Twins. It is broken into 108 “stitches,” each a unique story to help explain the lessons he’s learned over time. 108 stitches, of course, is the number stitches on a major-league baseball. 

You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of the Twins, someone as knowledgeable in their history and who has seen so much of it from a really good view. We would be hard pressed to find someone who has been a bigger, more public ambassador for the Twins than Bremer. 

Congratulations on this well-deserved and well-earned honor! 

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