by Randy Ooney
My Nickel’s Worth by Randy Ooney
Hanky
It was thirty years ago in October, and the Twins had taken care of the Tigers and were preparing to host the Cardinals in the World Series. A young lady named Terrie Robbins was in the marketing department of the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper and came up with an idea for a Homer Hanky. The Trib ordered 100,000 of them and gave them to the fans entering the Dome for game 1. I cannot help but notice that it seems like nearly every pro team aiming for a championship, now has a Rally Rag or a Touchdown Towel for fans to wave at the games. They are all Homer Hanky copycats. At that time I had a sports collectables store in Hopkins, and I went to the Star Tribune office and purchased 200 Homer Hankys for $1.00 each. I brought them back to the store and put a $1.50 price on them and sold out in several hours. It was the easiest hundred dollars I ever made in my life. But then the phone calls started. “Do you have any more Hankys for sale?”
Oh well, It looks like the Twins will not be needing Hankys this year. Maybe crying towels. Somehow, when the front office thinks that Byron Buxton and Haystack Sano are major leaguers, and Paul Molitor is a bad manager, and they shop the bargain basement for pitchers like Lance Lynn, (Wild thing, you walk everything) I don’t expect any Homer Hankys to be waving at Target Field in the near future.
![](images/1_000.jpg)
past articles
![](images/MaxBowlingOfficialLogosmcopy_045.jpg)