Masseuse makes it to the Big Leagues

Brookings native is Twins’ first full-time massage therapist

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BROOKINGS – Kelli Quist is living the Major League dream with the Minnesota Twins.

The 1989 Brookings High School grad is employed full-time as a member of the Minnesota Twins organization, arguably one of the most groundbreaking hires in the recent history of Twins territory.

The daughter of Mike and Bobbe Bartley, who still live in Brookings, is in her first full season as the massage therapist for the Twins this summer after working part-time for the team for a number of years.

Important connection

Quist’s path to Target Field started in 2001, when her children were younger. She was working at a health club and decided she wanted to do something part time.

Quist looked at multiple options allowing her to be flexible with her time and ultimately decided to become a masseuse. She attended massage school at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Minneapolis and graduated in August 2002.

“Massage is a good fit because you can be really flexible with your hours,” she said. “That’s the whole reason I went massage school, just to stay home more with my kids for the most part.”

She started working a health club in the Minneapolis area, but the job did not have the flexibility she was hoping for. Despite leaving the health club after eight weeks, she made an important connection that led to bigger things.

Quist was taking a neuromuscular therapy class. One of its facilitators was a chiropractor who worked with former Twins third basemen Corey Koskie.

The instructor told Quist that Koskie was looking for someone to come to his house to do massages. Eventually Koskie put Quist through an interview of sorts, coming to the health club first to see if Quist would be a good fit. She can still remember the first conversation they had together.

During the massage Koskie asked where she was from. Kelli replied that she was from South Dakota. “Oh, you can come to my house then,” Koskie said.

“I was like, OK. I guess that gave me some instant credibility or something,” Quist said with a laugh.

Meeting more Twins

A friendship began to form. Koskie would sneak Quist into the old Metrodome and set up a table in the Gopher locker room for massages before games.

Koskie convinced other players to follow; one of those players was rookie catcher Joe Mauer.

Before she was full-time with the Twins, she asked to work the Harmon Killebrew Golf Tournament. There some attendees told Mauer that he should get a massage from Quist, and instantly Mauer recognized her. They exchanged numbers, and Quist began a working relationship with Mauer.

Also through the golf tournament she was introduced to the idea of coming to the Twins Fantasy Camp each January in Fort Myers to give massages.

“I was like, what a great way to write off going for a week down to Florida. Plus I get to the see the facility down there because I really didn’t have much connection with anybody else here,” she said. “In a way, it was the best thing I ever did.”

Working with Kent Hrbek, Tony Oliva, Bert Blyleven, Tim Laudner and other Twins legends through the camp allowed Quist to become known throughout the organization.

“Having my face around more often was definitely a good thing to do,” she said.  

A foot in the door

Quist became a baseball fan slightly by default. Her ex-husband was a huge Twins fan, and when they lived in Kansas City they would attend games all the time around the ’87 and ’91 World Series.

“When I went to massage school, my thoughts were never, ‘Oh gosh, I hope I get to work with the pro athletes.’ It was really strictly more I just want to have flexibility,” she said. “It ended up just being a fluke that I had (Koskie) as a client.”

Going forward, she catered more toward sports and athletes, especially since she had a foot in the door with professional athletes. Quist was heading in the right direction.

During the 2016 Twins Fantasy Camp training, she bumped into Terry Ryan, who was the Twins’ general manager at the time. He suggested since she was coming to fantasy camp that they would start to bring her down for spring training for roughly three to four weeks.

Lobbying for her

Heading into this year’s spring training in Fort Myers, Quist was still unsure if she would be brought on full-time. First-year Twins reliever Matt Belisle was one of the players who really pushed for Quist to be offered a full-time job.

Since most of the teams in the MLB have a full-time massage therapist in the training room, sometimes two, hiring Quist made sense.

“Matt went and talked to a lot of the pitchers about it, and Joe (Mauer) has always been for it,” she said.

After the players talked to the front office and asked if they could bring her on, a decision was made.

“I’m not really sure who actually made the decision, to be quite honest,” she said laughing. “With two weeks left of spring training, I’m going, ‘Are we doing this or not doing this?’” she said.

With new ideas in place within the organization and with the hiring of GM Thad Levine, Quist was brought on full-time. She was officially the first full-time massage therapist for the Minnesota Twins.

Still challenges

As the Twins approach the All Star break with a much-improved team, Quist is enjoying the feeling of being part of something special.

“I would just say the comradery and being part of the team, it’s just a neat feeling,” she said. “The guys are so fun, and it’s neat to be up here every day versus when I was only up here every so often.”

Quist loves the new experiences of learning her role with the team but acknowledges the difficulty of being a woman in a professional sports environment.

She said finding women’s bathrooms around an MLB clubhouse is one of the hardest challenges for her when she is on the road with the team. Many pro stadiums were built not expecting women to be working within the baseball operation.

“Usually during spring training I have to go up to the concourse to use the bathroom,” she said. “As crazy as it sounds, it’s funny that they never really thought that somewhere down the road they might have a female trainer or worker.”

Quist said most stadiums across the country have the same problem.

Another issue she runs into is finding places to give massages. Target Field has a dedicated room with mood lighting where she is able to work on players. It’s not a complete massage room, but it’s far better than some other stadiums offer.

“In Detroit I’m literally in the hallway on the way to the field, and right where my table is at is where the two kids are cleaning the shoes and stuff,” she said.

Adjustments

Life on the road has been a huge adjustment, as well. The Twins wrapped up a 10-game road trip on the West Coast at the beginning of June. While the trip lasted 11 days, Quist joked that it felt like a year.

“It’s been good so far. It’s kind of spoiled travel, like I’m not really sure how I’m ever going to fly commercial again,” she said chuckling.

She also has been taking more classes and became certified as a personal trainer because her insurance didn’t cover her stretching players. Expanding her abilities with the certification changed that.

“I do a method called ‘lock method’ where I actually put them on the floor and step on them and then they go through ranges of motions,” she said. “That really doesn’t fall under massage, and having those dual certifications just helps protect me.”

So far, so good

In this day and age of big money contracts, teams are willing to go to extra lengths to keep their players on the field.

The results with Quist have been excellent so far, her clients say.

“Kelli does a heck of a job, this being one of the most taxing sports as far as physically, … just the grind over the course of, really, eight months,” All-Star second baseman Brian Dozier said. “You need someone like Kelli just for five or 10 minutes sometimes, like me, for about 30 minutes. It’s anything that we could ask for and more.”

Outfielder Robbie Grossman agreed. “For her to be with us all the time on the road is huge and keeping our bodies right to play this game.”

Quist’s personality and work ethic have earned her respect from the guys in the locker room. Although she jokes that the players always are giving her a hard time, she knows that they admire her work.

Quist is feeling the grind of baseball almost halfway through her first full season. Her plan is to return to South Dakota during the off-season to be with family and friends, and possibly take on some massage work.

“I’m kind of talking to a couple of different places in South Dakota. I’d like to do some work in the off-season,” she said. “I can tell when that time rolls around I’m probably going to be ready for little bit of an off-season… come out and feed cattle or something instead.”