Ex-Twins manager remembers day with the Beatles
Ray Crump has seen the eye rolls when he shares his story. "I know they think I'm lying," he says.Fortunately, Ray has the pictures to back up his claim.
Fifty years ago this week he spent several hours in a locker room with the Beatles. "I didn't know who they were, I'll be truthful with you," the 78-year-old says. "If I said I did, I'd be a liar." Ray was, at the time, the equipment manager for the Minnesota Twins. When the Beatles landed in Minnesota for their concert on August 21, 1965 at Metropolitan Stadium, Ray was responsible for keeping tabs on the home clubhouse occupied by the British visitors.
"'Where's Killebrew's locker?'" Ray recalls the Beatles asking. "That's all they knew was (Harmon) Killebrew."
Beds were brought in on which the Beatles could relax. Ray later sold the sheets for $1,500 to a department store chain that cut them up and raffled them off.
"They had never taken a sauna in their lives; they'd never seen a sauna. I said 'You want to go in the sauna?' They said, 'Yes we want to go in the sauna.' So they went into the sauna."
Ray grabbed a camera loaded with color film and posed for the photos he proudly display for the next 50 years. In one shot he's seated in a folding chair with George Harrison and Ringo Starr on one side, and Paul McCartney and John Lennon on the other. Jock straps hang from the locker doors above them, where Twins players had left them.
By: Boyd Huppert
Source: USA Today
