April 14, 1962: Angels chill Twins in blustery season opener

The Minnesota Twins were scheduled to open their 1962 home season on Friday, April 13. The date proved unlucky for a ballgame as six inches of snow blanketed the Twin Cities, forcing a postponement to the next day.

It took a flamethrower, sprinklers, and a helicopter hovering over the outfield to melt the snow and ice from Metropolitan Stadium’s field. Stadium staff removed tons of snow from the stands with shovels and wheelbarrows. When the helicopter, which preempted any batting practice, departed shortly before the game time, Bill Rigney, manager of the visiting Los Angeles Angels, quipped, “There goes the grounds crew.” A message on the scoreboard read: “WELCOME TO THE TWINS SKI LODGE.” The game began with a temperature of 33 degrees and a north by northwest wind blowing at 20-26 miles per hour.1 Pregame coverage in that day’s Minneapolis Star of April 14 noted that line drives might not bounce but might “get stuck in the mud.”2

The Twins were beginning their second season in Minnesota, having moved from Washington after the 1960 season. Owner Calvin Griffith was optimistic about the future of his team at the time of the move. After years of poor finishes, lowly attendance figures, and play in an antiquated ballpark, the Senators (not to be confused with the 1961 expansion team also known as the Washington Senators) placed fifth in 1960,3 their best American League finish since 1953. With young stars like future Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Jim Kaat, as well as Bob Allison and Camilo Pascual, Griffith anticipated a pennant in two or three years.4 A 13-game losing streak in late May and early June, resulting in the firing of manager Cookie Lavagetto a month after he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated,  ruined any chance of being a pennant contender in 1961.5

The Angels were in their second season as an AL expansion team. Cowboy actor and singer Gene Autry commanded an ownership group that took over the franchise after a group fronted by Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg dropped their bid. The 1961 Angels won 70 games, as of 2024 the most for a first-year expansion team, but lost 91 to finish in eighth place in the 10-team AL, a half-game behind the Twins and 38½ games behind the pennant-winning New York Yankees.

Angels general manager Fred Haney, always on the hunt for players who might improve his team, which had been stocked with castoffs from other teams in the expansion draft, engaged in 16 major-league transactions in 1961.6 Among AL teams, only the Kansas City Athletics used more players during both the 1961 and 1962 seasons. The expansion Angels tailored their roster to their 1961 home, the old Pacific Coast League Los Angeles Angels’ Wrigley Field, a bandbox with 345-foot power alleys. With veteran slow-footed sluggers like Ted Kluszewski, Steve Bilko, Earl Averill, and Bob Cerv, as well as 34-year-old Eddie Yost, a major leaguer since 1944, Sports Illustrated predicted that the Angels “will have trouble scoring anybody on less than a double.”7

In 1962, their home games moved to spacious new Dodger Stadium, which the Angels called Chavez Ravine. Kluszewski and Cerv were gone, and Averill, Yost, and Bilko played reduced roles as the Angels produced a younger, faster team. The Angels started 1962 splitting two games in Chicago against the White Sox.  

The Angels’ starter in this frigid opener, George “Red” Witt, had been picked up from the Pittsburgh Pirates in a minor-league transaction in October 1961. Witt was 30 years old and had bounced around the minor leagues for 10 years. He showed flashes of brilliance for the Pirates in 1958 with a 9-2 record and a 1.61 earned-run average. But elbow problems, which plagued him throughout his career, led to a 0-7, 6.93 season in 1959.8

Griffith was again optimistic about his Twins, predicting that a tighter defense and more depth would much improve his team.9 Only 15 of the 28 players on Minnesota’s 1961 Opening Day roster remained.10 The Twins began ’62 by winning two of three games in Kansas City. Manager Sam Mele, who had replaced Lavagetto, sent 23-year-old Jim Kaat to start the home opener. Kaat was 9-17, 3.90 in 1961, his first full year in the majors.

Kaat was in trouble early as he walked two and gave up a run-scoring single to Leon Wagner in the first. The Twins countered in the second with a two-run home run by shortstop Zoilo Versalles, a future AL MVP (1965). The Angels regained the lead with three runs in the top of the third on two-out singles by rookie catcher Bob “Buck” Rodgers and second baseman Billy Moran. Solo home runs by Twins Lenny Green in the third and Rich Rollins in the fourth tied it again, 4-4.

After Rollins’ shot, Witt walked pitcher Kaat and was relieved by 20-year-old Dean Chance, who got the final out in the fourth.11 Kaat was gone with two out in the top of the fifth after walking two in the inning and six for the game. Canadian journeyman Georges Maranda, a 30-year-old with 17 games of major-league experience, got the final out.

Maranda was not so fortunate in the Angels’ sixth. Walks to Albie Pearson12 and Lee Thomas and a single by Wagner loaded the bases for Yost, in the final season of an 18-year major-league career.13 Yost was hit by a pitch, and Rodgers cleared the bases with a two-out triple to left field for an 8-4 Angels’ lead.14

The score held until the eighth inning. Hard-throwing righty Ryne Duren, a former Yankee, had come on to pitch for the Angels in the fifth and held the Twins hitless for three innings. He ran into trouble in the eighth when he walked Allison and Earl Battey to start the inning. Another former Yankee, Tom Morgan, replaced Duren and quashed the rally, but Allison scored on Versalles’ force out to cut the Angels’ lead to 8-5.

The Angels put the game out of reach with more two-out heroics, this time off Ray Moore in the ninth. Joe Koppe’s single drove in a run and Lee Thomas hit a three-run home run, which made the final score 12-5. Duren took the win for the Angels, while Maranda was tagged with the loss. Twenty-one walks were issued. Rodgers was the star of the sloppy game, with five runs batted in.

Some Minneapolis sportswriters were likely happy they did not have to sit through the ordeal, as their papers had just gone out on strike.15 Long Beach Independent sportswriter Ross Newhan, who later penned a history of the Angels’ franchise, was at the game, and reported that Angels’ pitcher Joe Nuxhall carried a large container of coffee to the bullpen in the fourth inning. Newhan referred to the game as a “snowball fight” and compared the Angels’ bullpen to “Valley Forge.” He noted that the Angels would conclude their trip to the “North Pole” with a game on Sunday, April 15.16

The Associated Press described the weather in detail in its game account: “The game was played in numbing cold, and the bundled crowd of 8,363 was half frozen out by the time the 3-hour 26-minute marathon wound up.” The account noted that the temperature dropped to 32 degrees during the game, “probably one of the most frigid days on which a major league game was ever played.”17

The Sporting News weighed in on weather conditions in an editorial on April 25, illustrated by a photo of Metropolitan Stadium being cleared for this game. “Something must be done,” said the editorial, suggesting that regular-season games be played in “the South” until the weather warmed in Northern cities.18

The 1962 Angels attracted celebrities, including actress Marilyn Monroe, who less than two months before her death gave a speech on the field for the Multiple Sclerosis Society prior to the June 1 home game with the Yankees.19 Two rookie pitchers, Bo Belinsky and Chance, provided headlines on and off the field. Belinsky threw a no-hitter against the Orioles on May 5 and Chance won 14 games.20 The Beverly Hills police picked them up in June for a suspected assault on a woman, but no charges were filed. They hung out with gossip columnist Walter Winchell. Los Angeles Times sportswriter Braven Dyer speculated that their performances were hindered by their nightlife.21

But the Angels truly caught lightning in a bottle. After a 9-0 victory over Kaat at Minnesota on September 11, they were in second place, four games out of first. A six-game losing streak knocked them out of contention, but they finished third at 86-76, 10 games behind the Yankees, who won their third straight AL pennant, and five games behind the second place Twins – a remarkable achievement for a second-year expansion team. The Associated Press named Rigney AL Manager of the Year. Pearson led the AL with 115 runs scored, and Wagner and Thomas both topped 100 RBIs.22

The Twins’ 91-71 record (.562) in 1962 was the franchise’s best winning percentage since 1945. Killebrew led the AL with 48 homers and 126 RBIs, and Kaat,23 Battey, and first baseman Vic Power received Gold Gloves. Pascual won 20 games for the first of two consecutive years, led the AL with 206 strikeouts, and tied for the lead in shutouts with five, making him the Twins’ best player, according to Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Replacement metric. Calvin Griffith’s optimism was validated in 1965, when the Twins won the pennant before losing the World Series in seven games to the Dodgers.24

Author’s Note

The author attended this game as an 11-year-old with his grandmother and a younger brother. His brother received an autograph from Frank Leja of the Angels.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin. 

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1962/B04140MIN1962.htm

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Notes

1 Arno Goethel, “Flame-Thrower Helps Melt Snow on Minnesota Field, The Sporting News, April 25, 1962: 18.

2 “Snowless Weekend Seen: Sunday High May Reach 50,” Minneapolis Star, April 14, 1962: 1.

3 After the Senators moved to Minnesota, they were replaced in 1961 by an AL expansion franchise, also known as the Washington Senators. The second Senators franchise moved to Arlington, Texas, in 1972 and was rebranded as the Texas Rangers.

4 Cleon Walfoort, “Dark Picked Up Pointers from All of His Pilots,” The Sporting News, November 16, 1960: 10.

5 Sports Illustrated, May 15, 1961: Cover.

6 C.C. Johnson Spink, Paul A. Rickart, and Clifford Kachline, eds., Official Baseball Guide for 1962 (St. Louis: Charles C. Spink & Son, 1962), 147-50.

7 “A Look at the New Season,” Sports Illustrated, April 10, 1961: 88. A total of 248 home runs were hit at Wrigley Field in 1961, a record for a season’s homers in a ballpark that was not broken until 1996, when 271 home runs were hit at Coors Field.

8 Peter Bauck, “Red Witt,” SABR BioProject, accessed March 2, 2024, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/red-witt/.

9 Ray Gillespie, “Diamond Facts and Facets,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1962: 14.

10 Arno Goethel, “Camilo Breaks Off Fast Curves to Hike Win Log,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1962: 30. Baseball-Reference.com indicates that the Twins were the youngest team in the AL in 1962.

11  After going 1-1 with an 8.10 ERA in five games, Witt was returned to the Pirates and was out of baseball after 1963. He was a high-school teacher and coach for many years.

12 Pearson started in the major leagues with the Griffith organization in Washington in 1958, winning AL Rookie of the Year honors. After a slow start in 1959, he was traded to Baltimore for Lenny Green.

13 Yost was known as “The Walking Man.” His 1,614 career walks ranked fourth in big-league history when he retired. As of 2024, Yost ranked 11th all-time in walks. He played for the Griffith organization in Washington from 1944 to 1958.

14 Rodgers was a Twins coach for five years, later serving as a coach for San Francisco and Milwaukee. He managed Milwaukee and Montreal before managing the Angels for parts of four seasons, 1991-94.

15 “New Talks Urged as Driver Strike Halts Star, Tribune Issues,” Minneapolis Star, April 13, 1962: 1.

16 Ross Newhan, “Angels Rampage 12-5, Rodgers Sizzles in Frigid Battle,” Long Beach Independent, April 15, 1962: 29. Newhan noted that Long Beach native Witt had trouble throwing his curveball in the cold.

17 Lew Ferguson (Associated Press), “Mercury at 33 Degrees as Angels Trounce Twins,” Lima (Ohio) Citizen, April 15, 1962: 34. Ferguson noted that there were patches of snow on the warning track and puddles along the foul lines. It was an errorless game, and no line drives were “stuck in the mud.”

18 “No Game Today – Snow!” The Sporting News, April 25, 1962: 12.

19 “Major Flashes,” The Sporting News, June 16, 1962: 29.

20 Chance made his major league debut starting for the Angels in a 5-2 loss to the Twins the previous September. He was traded to the Twins before the 1967 season and won 20 games that year, including two no-hitters. The first was a 2-0 rain-shortened five-inning perfect game on August 6, witnessed by the author, at home against Boston. The second was a regulation nine-inning no-hitter in Cleveland on August 25, in the second game of a doubleheader, won by the Twins 2-1.

21 Braven Dyer, “Bo’s Slowdown on Slab Traced to Fast Pace in Night-Life Loop,” The Sporting News, June 23, 1962: 27. Belinsky’s career with the Angels ended abruptly when he punched Dyer in a hotel room in August 1964.

22 C.C. Johnson Spink, Paul A. Rickart, and Clifford Kachline, eds., Official Baseball Guide for 1963 (St. Louis: Charles C. Spink & Son, 1963), 101-03. Injuries and subpar years from key players in 1963 hurt the Angels, as they reverted to their inaugural season record of 71-91 and a ninth-place finish.

23 Kaat was 18-14 in 1962 and pitched 21 more years in the big leagues. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022.

24 Angels fans had to wait until 2002 for a World Series. The team, then known as the California Angels, defeated the San Francisco Giants in seven games. Autry was involved with the Angels until 1996, and died in 1998.