Jay Thomas Kelly (born August 15, 1950 in Graceville, Minnesota) is the former manager of the Minnesota Twins baseball team from 1986 to 2001. Under his tenure, the Twins won two World Series crowns in the span of five years (1987 and 1991); however, from 1994 to 1997 a long sequence of retirements and injuries (including superstars Kent Hrbek and Kirby Puckett) hurt the team badly, and Kelly spent the remainder of his managerial career rebuilding the Twins. In 1998, management cleared out the team of all of its players earning over 1 million dollars (except for pitcher Brad Radke) and rebuilt from the ground up; the team barely avoided finishing in the cellar that year, finishing just five games ahead of perennial cellar dwellers Detroit Tigers and avoiding the humiliating mark of 100 losses by just eight games. His efforts paid off the year after he retired from the Twins, with back to back divisional championships in 2002 and 2003. Kelly was succeeded as manager of the Twins by Ron Gardenhire.

Kelly's managerial style has been described as "even-keel," emphasizing consistent performance over the span of a season rather than flashy individual game performance. Under his and successor Gardenhire's leadership, the Twins have been widely known for playing the kind of fundamental baseball that wins ball games consistently, rather than having individual superstar players, although a number of well-known stars have emerged from the Twins organization under their leadership (most notably Kirby Puckett and Torii Hunter).

1987 World Series

A year after taking over the reins of the Twins from Ray Miller, Kelly took the team that he had helped build through his role as one of the top people in the Twins' minor league organization and led it to a World Series championship. Though the '87 Twins were criticized for being the top team in a weak division (amassing only a .525 record in regular season play), they easily handled the Detroit Tigers in five games, losing only Game 3 of the American League Championship Series to a heartbreaking 8th-inning two-run dinger.

The World Series was a well-fought contest between the Twins and the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals, each team winning all of its home games. Games 1, 2, 4 and 6 were decidedly lopsided contests (10-1 Twins, 8-4 Twins, 7-2 Cards, 11-5 Twins), with games 3, 5 and 7 being much closer contests, each being decided by only two runs (3-1 Cards, 4-2 Cards and 4-2 Twins).

Unlike in many other cities after major championship victories, the victory celebration in the streets of Minneapolis was very notable in that it did not become a sports riot, owing partially to strong deployed police presence around the Metrodome and partially to the generally reserved nature of Minnesota fans. After a 63-year drought, Tom Kelly's even-keel leadership had won the Twins their second World Championship (the first coming in 1924 as the Washington Senators, with legendary skipper Bucky Harris at the helm).

References

Baseball-reference.com (http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/kellyto01.shtml)