Butch Wynegar: From Single-A to the Major League All-Star Game in One Year

As a young boy growing up in York, Pennsylvania, Harold Wynegar Jr. emulated Mickey Mantle. “I patterned myself after Mantle,” Wynegar said as a minor leaguer in 1975. “He was a switch-hitter, so I started switch-hitting when I was 9. I’m not saying I’m going to be another Mickey Mantle. He’s one of the biggest ones to follow after. You just don’t know what’ll happen.”1

One similarity they did not share was speed. While Mantle was fleet as a deer, Wynegar had the speed of a John Deere. “I’m all right at catcher,” said Wynegar. “Catchers aren’t supposed to be fast.”2

Wynegar learned much about baseball from his father, Harold Sr. The elder Wynegar was an asthmatic, rendering him unable to play baseball when he was a youngster. “He taught me the things he always wanted to do but couldn’t.”3

As for his nickname, it was bestowed on him by another family member at an early age. “I had an aunt who said I looked like a Butch when I was a baby,” said Wynegar. “I don’t know what a Butch is supposed to look like, but I guess I was a little chubby.”4

Wynegar was a multisport star at Red Lion High School just outside York. He was an all-county center in football and, at first, a third baseman in baseball. He moved to catcher his last two seasons and batted .370 his senior year. On June 5, 1974, he was drafted in the second round by the Minnesota Twins and began his professional career in the Appalachian League as the starting catcher for the Elizabethton (Tennessee) Twins. He led the league in batting average with .346 and was the team leader in home runs (8) and RBIs (51).

In 1975, Wynegar was sent to the Reno Silver Sox of the Class A California League. The Sox were a co-op team, with players from both the Twins and the San Diego Padres. Again, Wynegar led his team in home runs (19) and RBIs (112) while batting .314, helping Reno win the pennant with an 86–54 record.

After the 1975 season, the Twins fired manager Frank Quilici. He had taken over for Bill Rigney midway through the 1972 season. His teams hovered around the .500 mark but never showed much improvement. Exit Quilici and enter Gene Mauch. At the time, Mauch had 16 seasons as a manager under his belt, having previously piloted the Philadelphia Phillies (1960–68) and Montreal Expos (1969–75). His Phillies finished in second place in 1964, but other than that no team he managed had ever finished higher than fourth.

Mauch was saddled with two mediocre catchers on the Twins. Glenn Borgmann and Phil Roof started a combined 152 games, with Borgmann receiving most of the starts. While Borgmann was a competent defensive backstop, his offensive game was lacking. In 1975, he batted .207 with two home runs and a .581 OPS. Conversely, Roof showed some pop in his bat, putting up a .302/.353/.484 line in 142 plate appearances, but he was 34 years old and nearing the end of a long career as mostly a light-hitting backup.

Regardless, Wynegar was surprised when he received a letter from Minnesota general manager Howard Fox inviting him to big-league spring training in 1976. “It scared me,” he said. “I never expected it. [I] decided the Twins were just going to take a look at me and get to know me before sending me back to TripleA or Double-A for more seasoning.”5

As it turned out, Wynegar was not going to get “more seasoning,” even in spring training. Major-league owners locked the players out of spring training as they negotiated a new contract with the player’s union. The renewal clause and free agency were the hot topics between the two factions.

Both sides agreed to a temporary settlement, and teams finally reported on March 18. Wynegar made his presence felt early on, cranking a grand slam in an intrasquad game on March 22. Although he batted only .187 in spring training, it was Wynegar’s defense that got Mauch’s attention. “When spring training opened, I had no right to expect he’d be as polished behind the plate as he is,” Mauch said.6

Mauch informed Wynegar that he would be traveling north with the team as the starting catcher. Borgmann and Roof were retained as backups. “He looks like he’s 15, plays like he’s 25, and has the maturity of a man of 30,” Mauch said.7

Minnesota opened the 1976 season on April 9 in Arlington, Texas, against the Rangers. President Gerald Ford threw the ceremonial first pitch. Wynegar collected his first big-league hit in the top of the sixth inning off Rangers starter Gaylord Perry. The base knock also gave Wynegar his first RBI. It was the only Twins’ run in an 11-inning 2–1 loss.

A week later, Minnesota was at Yankee Stadium for a three-game set against the New York Yankees. The Bronx Bombers took the first two games, and in the third game on April 18, New York starter Catfish Hunter was still on the hill entering the ninth inning with a 4–2 lead. Lyman Bostock evened the score with a two-run line-drive home run into the right-centerfield seats. Wynegar untied it with a solo shot to right field, the first round-tripper of his career. The Twins won, 5–4.

“I saw the right fielder (Oscar Gamble) pound his glove and I thought I’d better start running harder,” Wynegar said. “If the ball was dropped, I would have been embarrassed being on first base. Yes, it was a thrill, to hit it off Catfish, a guy I’ve been reading about all my life.”8

As the season progressed, Wynegar demonstrated that he had talent standing at home plate with a baseball bat in his hands or crouching behind it in his catcher’s gear. In May, Wynegar batted .329 and followed that up with a .314 average in June and .287 in July. As July ended, he was hitting .295/.402./428 with eight home runs in 95 games. A trend that would follow Wynegar throughout his career was his excellent batting eye. He totaled 79 walks and only 63 strikeouts in his rookie season.

Defensively, Wynegar threw out 20 of 41 would-be base stealers in June, and 11 of 26 in July.

 

 

Wynegar received 561,488 write-in votes for the All-Star Game.9 He was selected for the American League squad, joining teammate Rod Carew as the Twins’ representatives. The game was to be played on July 13 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, which was about 100 miles east of Wynegar’s hometown of York. “They’ll probably only use me as a pinch-hitter if I’m lucky,” he said, “but I’m going to be tickled just to sit on the bench. I don’t know how I’m going to get all my friends in at Philadelphia, about 100 miles from home. Each player only gets two tickets, and I don’t think you can find any spare tickets in a sellout.”10 At 20, Wynegar was the youngest player to ever participate in the All-Star Game.

Wynegar proved to be prophetic. He was inserted as a pinch-hitter for Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant in the top of the seventh inning, walking in his lone plate appearance. The National League prevailed, 7–1.

Minnesota entered the second half of the season at 38–43, in fourth place in the AL West, trailing the Kansas City Royals by 12 ½ games. Wynegar cooled off down the stretch, with a .203/.275/.257 slash line and only two homers in 54 games in August and September. But he still came through for the Twins with some big hits. One of the biggest came on July 30, when he hit a grand slam off Dick Bosman, leading the Twins to an 8–7 victory over the Oakland A’s. The four RBIs were a career-high, a total he would equal multiple times.

On September 2, Wynegar had a four-hit game against the Milwaukee Brewers in an 8–4 win. He knocked in two runs and scored twice. He had the only multi-home run game of his career on September 22 at Comiskey Park. Both were solo shots off Chicago White Sox pitcher Bart Johnson in the Twins’ 6–3 win.

The Twins were 18–8 in September and swept Kansas City in a three-game series in October to finish the season in third place. Minnesota finished the season with an 85–77 record, five games behind the Royals. The Twins final place in the standings is remarkable considering not one starting pitcher finished with a record above .500. Dave Goltz (14–14, 3.36 ERA), Bill Singer (9–9, 3.77 after arriving from Texas in a trade), and Pete Redfern (8–8, 3.51) led the pitching staff.11

Wynegar finished his rookie year with 10 home runs, 69 RBIs and a .260/.356/.363 slash line. He had 139 hits, 21 doubles and 58 runs. He threw out 35 percent of would-be basestealers (62 of 175) and committed 16 errors. This performance earned him a second-place finish in the American League Rookie of the Year voting to Mark Fidrych (19–9, 2.34 ERA), who garnered 22 of 24 first place votes.

The Sporting News, which awarded both a rookie pitcher and nonpitcher of the year in each league, chose Wynegar for the AL hitting honor.12 “The first season in the big leagues was a dream come true for me,” he said. “And now to receive this, to be picked by other players, well, it’s sensational.”13

The sophomore jinx that happens to so many athletes did not plague Wynegar. His offensive numbers were strikingly similar to his rookie season. (.261/.344/.370, 10 homers, 22 doubles). He threw out 60 baserunners to lead the league, and he was selected to play in his second All-Star Game.

Butch Wynegar played 13 seasons in the major leagues with Minnesota (1976–82), the Yankees (1982–86) and the California Angels (1987–88). He hit .255/.348/.347 lifetime with 65 home runs and 506 RBIs. His career fielding percentage was .989, and he threw out 40 percent of attempted basestealers.

After he retired, Wynegar held positions with various minor-and major-league clubs. In 2001, he served as the minor-league hitting coach for the Rangers, who held the fifth pick in the draft that year. The team sent Wynegar to St. Paul to scout a phenom named Joe Mauer from Cretin-Derham Hall High School.

“I flew up to see him; the Rangers were very interested if he were to fall to where we were picking,” Wynegar said in 2004, Mauer’s rookie year in the big leagues. “I saw Joe play two ballgames, went back home, called in my report, and raved about him. The thing that really impressed me about the kid is that he didn’t have a whole lot of offensive problems. He had a real good eye at the plate and he didn’t come outside of himself. The biggest thing for me and all hitters at the big-league level is staying within your strengths. It looks like Joe is doing exactly what I saw of him in high school.”14

The Rangers never got the chance to draft Mauer. Minnesota selected the homegrown talent with the first overall pick. But Wynegar was spot-on in his assessment: Joe Mauer was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in January 2024.

JOSEPH WANCHO lives in Westlake, Ohio, and has been a SABR member since 2005.

 

Notes

1 Steve Sneddon, “A Slow Mantle,” Nevada State Journal, June 1, 1975, 19.

2 Sneddon.

3 Sneddon, “Sox Catcher Performs for Asthmatic Father,” Nevada State Journal, May 25, 1975, 20.

4 Bob Fowler, “Wynegar Packs Wallop as No. 1 A.L. Rookie,” The Sporting News, October 30, 1976, 3.

5 Bill Ballew, “Youngest-Ever All-Star Butch Wynegar Now a Manager,” Sports Collectors Digest, December 16, 1994, 130.

6 Gary Libman, “Twins Win on Rookie’s Home Run,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 7, 1987, 1C.

7 Bob Fowler, “Decker Back in Twins’ Deck One Year Between Victories,” The Sporting News, May 1, 1976, 23.

8 Bob Fowler, “Twins Take ‘Season-Breaker,’” Minneapolis Star, April 19, 1976, 7B.

9 Associated Press, “Rod Carew, Wynegar are All-Stars,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 8, 1976, 1D.

10 Tom Briere, “Teammates Cheer Selection of Carew, Wynegar,” Minneapolis Tribune, July 8, 1976, 4D.

11 Reliever Bill Campbell was 17–5 with a 3.01 ERA and 20 saves. But he did not make a start in 1976. Bert Blyleven (4–5, 3.12 as a Twin) was traded to Texas on June 1, 1976. Bill Singer was one of four players the Twins received in the trade.

12 The Sporting News gave a separate Rookie of the Year award for pitcher, which was won by Mark Fidrych in 1976.

13 Fowler, “Wynegar Packs Wallop.”

14 Charley Walters, “Mauer Following Wynegar’s Path,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 7, 2004.