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Cathy Wurzer
St. Paul, Minn.

Long before Sterling's comments, there was Calvin Griffith

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NBA Commissioner Adam Silver
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
Elsa/Getty Images

Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, the chair of the NBA Board of Governors, says he will work quickly to try and convince Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to sell the franchise.

Yesterday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that Sterling has been banned from the league for life and fined $2.5 million.

All of this was a result of racist comments that Sterling made which became public just a few days ago.

It's not the first time that a team owner has gotten in trouble for making racist statements. In 1978, Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith told a Waseca Lions Club audience that he decided to move the Twins to Minnesota from Washington when he found out that there were only 15,000 black people here.

Nick Coleman, a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune at the time, was in the audience that day and reported what Griffith said. MPR's Cathy Wurzer spoke with Coleman about what happened.