With online threats mounting, Twins’ first line of defense is a former policeman

MINNEAPOLIS — Before his outing ever really got going, Bailey Ober walked a career-high six batters and yielded four home runs, at which point his wife peeked at her phone. On the screen, she discovered a disturbing message from an unknown user to watch her back.

Before Ober even exited the game, his wife contacted Minnesota Twins director of security Charles Adams. A former Minneapolis police officer, Adams is the first line of defense for Twins players when anonymous social media users — often angry gamblers who’ve lost a bet — threaten them or their families.

Though some incidents are more high-profile — the Boston Red Sox’s Liam Hendriks and Houston Astros’ Lance McCullers Jr. received online death threats in May, and the latter was given additional security — an overwhelming majority of Major League Baseball players recently said legalized sports betting is changing the way fans treat players.

In Ober’s case, a fan displeased by the Twins pitcher yielding seven runs in a blowout loss to the Texas Rangers created an anonymous account to send the pitcher’s wife a four-sentence message that included a threat.

Before the fourth inning ended, Adams had already started to work with the Twins’ security and social media teams and other resources, including MLB’s security and cybersecurity departments, to determine the severity of the threat.

“It’s pretty common — definitely with pitchers,” Adams said last week in the visiting dugout in Cincinnati. “Sadly, it is a postgame routine. The players’ wives are pretty responsive and pretty on top of things. The players, they’re good at communication, and that’s the whole thing about having a relationship with guys. ‘Hey, if this happens, get ahold of me.’ If that comes, they just know.”

After patrolling Minneapolis’ Fourth Precinct for part of his 20 years on the force, Adams, 44, is prepared for just about anything thrown his way with the Twins. He joined the team in October 2020, retiring from driving a patrol car as a daytime 9-1-1 response officer in North Minneapolis.

Though the online threats that are brought forward by players are taken seriously, often they’re deemed not dangerous. Even in McCullers’ case, the Astros and MLB worked in concert with the Houston Police Department to determine that the person making the threat lived overseas and was “frustrated and inebriated when he lashed out on social media.”

In most cases, Adams and the affected player meet and file a report on the incident. Then Adams, members of the Twins social media team and a local MLB security rep coordinate efforts to assess each situation and try to learn the identity of the person making the threat.

“I’ve seen the worst of it and been in the worst situations you can think of,” Adams said. “I’m not saying this is easy, but it’s a lot less stressful.”

With multiple family members on the force, Adams always had a sense of how difficult the job could be. He pursued it anyway.

“It was like a (family) tradition,” he said.

His father, Charles “Charlie” Adams, is a Fourth Precinct inspector with 38 years of experience with MPD. An uncle worked nearly 30 years before retiring from MPD in 2020 to take over as the Minnesota Timberwolves’ director of team security. And Adams’ younger sister, Brittney, is in her fifth year working with the Police Activities League.

Upon graduating from Minneapolis’ North Community High — where he has been the head football coach since 2009 and won a state championship in 2016 — Adams went into law enforcement to help pay for school. He started as a community service officer in 2000 and later became a school resource officer at North High.

One aspect of the job that initially appealed to Adams was the ability to foster better relationships and build trust between MPD and members of his community.

“You’re a peace officer,” Adams said. “You are obligated to serve the community and not respond to crimes but be an asset to the community.

“That’s why it was easier for me to do that job. I respected that piece of it because it was a community that I was from. I think that concept has kind of faded away.”

The Twins approached Adams in October 2020 to gauge his interest in taking over as the team’s security director. Adams wasn’t looking to leave MPD, but the offer from then-Twins president Dave St. Peter was difficult to reject.

“It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse,” Adams said. “Do I want to regret how things would be if I don’t give it a shot? I’ve already got 20 years. I always know law enforcement will be there if I want to come back.”

Though he’s no longer patrolling the streets, Adams remains connected to his community as head coach of North High’s football program. His staff is composed of MPD officers, with his dad as the defensive line coach.

A four-part Showtime documentary featured the program in “Boys in Blue” in 2023. Later that year, Adams released the book “Twin Cities: My Life as a Black Cop and a Championship Coach.”

Every June, Adams helps his team prepare for the upcoming season with the aid of his entire coaching staff. Currently, the team practices once a week, works out three times a week and holds a weekly walk-through. Come August, when the schedule picks up in preparation for the season opener, Adams will attend each practice when the Twins are at home, arriving at Target Field in time for first pitch. While the Twins are on the road, Adams will rely on his coaches to run things in his absence.

But once the football season begins, Adams’ Twins-related travel will be restricted to the postseason and high-priority events, with other team security representatives stepping in for road trips.

Last season, Adams’ inexperienced squad went 8-3, its season ending with a loss to Holy Family in the Section 4AAA championship game. This year, Adams’ club is laden with seniors, which makes him optimistic.

“We’ve got a real hungry group, and they should be ready to go,” Adams said.

Adams never hesitates to share his enthusiasm about the North High football team with the Twins players to whom he’s closest. Several have made cameos at practice.

“It was Charles at his best,” Royce Lewis said of a game he attended in 2023. “It wasn’t much of a game. His team is disgusting. They were so nasty out there on the field. … He protects us. To watch him do his thing and lead kids that are young and about to start their lives, it’s impressive.”

The incident after Ober’s June 12 start against the Rangers wasn’t the first. Ober developed a rapport with Adams while dealing with previous threats.

Many who responded to The Athletic’s player poll this spring said most of their direct messages on social media feature fans asking for reimbursements for lost bets. Some manage to be funny. But with the more serious threats, which can include specific information or a harsher tone, players have noted a difference since sports betting operations were legalized on a larger scale and formed partnerships with MLB.

Adams’ reaction time makes difficult situations less stressful, Ober said.

“Charles is always the man,” he said. “Whenever we need anything, an extra voice behind us to say something that maybe we can’t say, he’s the guy to go to when dealing with situations that aren’t easy. He’s always there for us.”

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Brace Hemmelgarn / Minnesota Twins, Stephen Maturen / Getty Images, iStock)