Sid Hartman's Birthday, March 15th

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In honor of Sid Hartman's Birthday I'm going to put out my Gopher flag. Encouraging others to do the same. One of the objectives of this is to get more people to buy a flag to expand on our presence in Gopher Country. Reactions?
 

Shiite, Sid was 39 years old when I was born and he was the GM of the Minneapolis Lakers.
 
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My first Sid sighting...
I had just moved here from New Mexico, and I guess it'd be Ziggy Wilf and Pete Rozelle were having a press conference about the Vikings needing a new stadium. They were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a bank of microphones, and some old guy I didn't know (Sid) walks up behind them and sticks his arm in between them holding a microphone in front of their faces. On TV you see Ziggy, Pete and Sid's arm holding a mic. I thought he was some sort of comic genius, upstaging the two VIPs while they were trying to hold a serious press conference. They just let Sid stand there behind them, holding the mic in front of them as they talked. Wish I had a video of that, it was great.
 

When Sid passes away don't be surprised nationally all the accolades he receives from NYT article, Sports Center and all his close personal friends talking about him.
 

Livingat45north said:
My first Sid sighting...
I had just moved here from New Mexico, and I guess it'd be Ziggy Wilf and Pete Rozelle were having a press conference about the Vikings needing a new stadium. They were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a bank of microphones, and some old guy I didn't know (Sid) walks up behind them and sticks his arm in between them holding a microphone in front of their faces. On TV you see Ziggy, Pete and Sid's arm holding a mic. I thought he was some sort of comic genius, upstaging the two VIPs while they were trying to hold a serious press conference. They just let Sid stand there behind them, holding the mic in front of them as they talked. Wish I had a video of that, it was great.
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?
 


Livingat45north said:
My first Sid sighting...
I had just moved here from New Mexico, and I guess it'd be Ziggy Wilf and Pete Rozelle were having a press conference about the Vikings needing a new stadium. They were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a bank of microphones, and some old guy I didn't know (Sid) walks up behind them and sticks his arm in between them holding a microphone in front of their faces. On TV you see Ziggy, Pete and Sid's arm holding a mic. I thought he was some sort of comic genius, upstaging the two VIPs while they were trying to hold a serious press conference. They just let Sid stand there behind them, holding the mic in front of them as they talked. Wish I had a video of that, it was great.
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Sid-Hartman,-Mike-Lynn,-Pete-Rozelle.jpg
 






For someone with such a long career interlinked with Minnesota Sports history I feel like he deserves more detailed Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Hartman

I'm not good at this type of research, but perhaps someone here is/knows someone who is? Maybe we can try to update his Wikipedia page for his birthday this year?
 

4four4 said:
When Sid passes away don't be surprised nationally all the accolades he receives from NYT article, Sports Center and all his close personal friends talking about him.
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You mean, “If” Sid passes away.....
 


Livingat45north said:
My first Sid sighting...
I had just moved here from New Mexico, and I guess it'd be Ziggy Wilf and Pete Rozelle were having a press conference about the Vikings needing a new stadium. They were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a bank of microphones, and some old guy I didn't know (Sid) walks up behind them and sticks his arm in between them holding a microphone in front of their faces. On TV you see Ziggy, Pete and Sid's arm holding a mic. I thought he was some sort of comic genius, upstaging the two VIPs while they were trying to hold a serious press conference. They just let Sid stand there behind them, holding the mic in front of them as they talked. Wish I had a video of that, it was great.
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Zygi Wilf and Pete Rozelle? Wha? Given that Rozelle retired from the NFL 16 years before Wilf bought the Vikings (not to mention that Rozelle had been dead for 9 years by then), I'm pretty confident in saying it wasn't those two.
 



It is sort of interesting, and maybe a window into what Sid was all about, but Sid was extremely tied into the world of Max Winter, going back way before Max Winter controlled the Vikings. (old Minneapolis- gambling, Kid Kahn underworld, MPLS Lakers)

Mike Lynn, an outsider from the south and former underling, and a very interesting character in his own right, staged a coup and essentially ousted Max Winter, they guy at the helm since the beginning, even though that reality was downplayed at the time.

Sid, of course did not miss a beat, and started sucking up to Mike Lynn immediately. Max was old news, washed up, to Sid. Oh well many would lack that loyalty in that situation, but some would not.

I would circle back to Jerry Kill and his absolute melt down over Mark Coyle running over TC, and getting POed about PJF talking about fixing the culture (his culture) For old fashioned guys like Jerry Kill loyalty is everything, and for Fleck, a guy that he brought in at No. Illinois to work for him, then shot his mouth off about the "culture" that crossed a big line, probably forever.

For Sid not so much.
 
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I respect what Sid has done and what he has meant to the Twin Cities sports scene.

But - he really hasn't written his own column for years, and his radio segments are painful to listen to.

I wish he would retire, but I suspect he will try to keep working until he dies on the job.

and WCCO is devoting 7 hours of air time next Sunday to observe Sid's 100th birthday. Yikes.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I respect what Sid has done and what he has meant to the Twin Cities sports scene.

But - he really hasn't written his own column for years, and his radio segments are painful to listen to.

I wish he would retire, but I suspect he will try to keep working until he dies on the job.

and WCCO is devoting 7 hours of air time next Sunday to observe Sid's 100th birthday. Yikes.
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To be fair, Sid made CCO a lot of money over the years.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I respect what Sid has done and what he has meant to the Twin Cities sports scene.

But - he really hasn't written his own column for years, and his radio segments are painful to listen to.

I wish he would retire, but I suspect he will try to keep working until he dies on the job.

and WCCO is devoting 7 hours of air time next Sunday to observe Sid's 100th birthday. Yikes.
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Sid said if they fire him he will die so they keep him around.
 

I love Sid, warts and all. I support whatever he wants to do at this point and will miss him greatly if I outlive him.
 

He picked a bad year to turn 100 on March 15.
 


I heard it was canceled due to the shear numbers of people attending. More than the Premier League.
 

'Homer' Hartman always had something good to say about local teams and was always in favor of new stadiums paid for by the city and state..
In many ways he was very responsible for moving MN football to the Hump.
It was said he had a conflict of interest in owning land very near to where the stadium was built.
After many decades his schtick got very stale.
 


Happy Birthday Sid! I always enjoyed reading your column in the Star Tribune. They should make a movie about your life, starring someone like Matt Damon. Thanks for everything you did for MN sports!
 

I remember years ago in the 90’s s guy calling into the KQ morning show. He was a chimney cleaner and while performing his job he found a piece of the newspaper with a Sid article from a few decades earlier. The entire article was Sid complaining about officiating against a local team. Sid is who he is. Love the guy.
 

Like him or not, he is a legendary MN/National Icon who forged his own style and is embedded in sports history.

He is truly a living legend.

In the late seventies when I first started reading his sports column, I got hooked. This is the age of the dial telephone, the Smith-Corona typewriter, microfiche, public phone booths, and the key punch machines.

No Sunday in particular is complete. Not without reading the Sunday Comics strips, and Sid's cloumn.
 

Plato said:
'Homer' Hartman always had something good to say about local teams and was always in favor of new stadiums paid for by the city and state..
In many ways he was very responsible for moving MN football to the Hump.
It was said he had a conflict of interest in owning land very near to where the stadium was built.
After many decades his schtick got very stale.
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Sid is nowhere near as efficient as you, as you got stale within 6 months.
 


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