May 18, 1969: Cesár Tovar, Rod Carew steal home in the same inning

The Minnesota Twins had grabbed first place in their division by the end of April 1969. They stayed atop the standings until May 15, when they lost to the Baltimore Orioles to fall behind the Oakland A’s. The team returned to Metropolitan Stadium in hopes of reclaiming the top spot in the AL West.

The Detroit Tigers beat the Twins in the first game of a two-game series when Tigers ace Denny McLain shut them out, 6-0. Twins manager Billy Martin told reporters, “We’re hurting ourselves by making too many physical and mental mistakes. Until we tighten up, we’re in trouble.”1

Despite their three consecutive losses, the Twins managed to remain just one game behind Oakland. The 20,778 fans who showed up for the Sunday afternoon game were hoping to see the team that had played so well in April when they went 13-7 and not the one that was struggling at the moment.

Martin started Dave Boswell. Boswell entered the game with a 4-3 record and had pitched well in his last start when he outdueled Orioles ace Mike Cuellar. (That was the last game the Twins won before going into their slide.)

Boswell struggled in the first inning. Mickey Stanley led off with a single and reached third when Al Kaline punched a single into the gap in right field. When Norm Cash hit a grounder in the gap between second and short, the only play was a force out at second as Stanley crossed the plate to give Detroit the lead.

Left-hander Mickey Lolich took the mound for the Tigers. Lolich had won his last game, 3-1 over the White Sox, striking out 10 batters. After Cesar Tovar led off with a double, Lolich struck out Rod Carew and then got the next two Twins to fly out and leave Tovar stranded.

Boswell appeared to get his rhythm going in the second when he got the first two batters to hit weak pop flies for easy outs. Singles by Bill Freehan and Lolich put runners at the corners, but Boswell got out of the inning by striking out Stanley.

Lolich gave up singles to the first two batters he faced in the second and then walked Rick Renick to load the bases with one out. But Boswell hit a groundball back to Lolich that led to an inning-ending double play.

Dick McAuliffe led off the Detroit third with a triple. It was his 57th triple with the Tigers. Kaline followed with a double to bring McAuliffe across the plate and make the score 2-0. Boswell limited the damage as he retired the next three batters to strand Kaline at third.

The Twins tied the score in their half of the inning. Tovar led off with a single. As he “danced off first base, drawing repeated throws from Lolich,” the Tigers starter committed a balk with Carew at bat.2

Lolich then walked Carew. With Harmon Killebrew at bat, the two speed demons pulled off a double steal. But Lolich struck out Killebrew and got Tony Oliva on a popup, for two outs.

“Tovar, in no mood to see the rally come to such an untimely end, caught Lolich in a double rocking motion,” a Detroit sportswriter commented.3 The speedy Tovar slowly stretched out his lead until he was almost halfway down the line when Lolich delivered. He easily beat the throw to the plate with a slide.

Carew stayed at second although he could have made it to third on Tovar’s play to home. “[He] preferred to earn his stolen base,” wrote Dave Mona of the Minneapolis Tribune.4 Two pitches later, he took off for third and stole it easily when he beat Freehan’s throw.

Lolich was clearly having trouble with the baserunners. With two outs, most fans expected Martin to play it safe and hope that Killebrew would hit Carew home. But Martin, “who thrives on the audacious, gave Carew the go sign” and Carew took off on the next pitch.5 He easily made it home to tie the game, 2-2.

The five stolen bases by Tovar and Carew were a team record for stolen bases in a game. It was the fourth time Carew had stolen home in four tries and the third time he had accomplished the feat in 1969.

Lolich was asked after the game if he was embarrassed about the basestealing. “I was flattered,” he said. “They were as much as telling me that they couldn’t hit me so they’d have to score another way. Actually, it bolstered my confidence.”6

Lolich said, “[N]obody likes to be run on.” When Tovar came to bat in the fourth, Lolich hit him on the first pitch. “I didn’t throw at Tovar when I hit him his next time up, although it may have looked that way. It was an inside pitch that just got away from me,” Lolich said later.7

When Detroit came to bat in the fifth, Boswell sent Kaline sprawling in the dirt with an inside pitch. As Kaline picked himself up, Boswell was warned by the umpire and given a $50 fine. After the game Martin defended his pitcher. He said there was no reason “to throw at Kaline when the score was tied 2-2 and every baserunner was important.”8

But the Twins didn’t savor their baserunning glory for very long. After pitching two scoreless innings, Boswell again struggled in the sixth. When Lolich popped out to third for the second out with two Tigers onbase, it looked as though the Twins might get out of trouble.

But on Stanley’s pop to short right field, Carew and Oliva collided as both tried to catch the ball. By the time the two players recovered, Stanley ended up on second and Freehan and Tommy Matchick had scored. Carew ended up with a sore back but remained in the game. Oliva left the game with a dislocated index finger.

Then McAuliffe singled and Stanley scored to give the Tigers a 5-2 lead. After Kaline walked, Martin replaced Boswell with Joe Grzenda. Grzenda walked Norm Cash to load the bases, then balked to bring home McAuliffe with the fourth Tigers run of the inning.

Martin went to the bullpen again. He brought in Ron Perranoski for his 18th appearance of the season. Perranoski struck out Gates Brown to end the inning.

Martin said later that he was worried about using Perranoski too frequently. He said he had been talking to Al Worthington, who had retired after the 1968 season, about returning to bolster the bullpen.

The Tigers got single runs in the seventh and eighth innings to make the final score 8-2. The Twins’ problems were not only on the mound; Lolich also shut down their offense. After surrendering the two runs in the third, he held Minnesota hitless the rest of the game. The Twins got four men on base, three of them on walks and one hit batter. The last time came in the ninth when Lolich walked Renick. But the game ended when pinch-hitter Frank Quilici hit into a double play.

Martin told reporters that “the pitching hasn’t been what we thought it would it be but we still have to admit that we’re beating ourselves.”9 He expressed his frustration with his players, saying, “We’re going to have to stop making the same old mistakes or else.”10

Martin also stirred up an eruption in the front office when he criticized several personnel moves, particularly the decision to send relief pitcher Charlie Walters down to the Double-A Charlotte Hornets.

“I may be old-fashioned but I thought that when you went from the big leagues, you go to Triple A,” Martin said. “How am I supposed to tell something like that to Walters?” Sherry Robertson, who ran the Twins farm system, termed Martin “totally out of line,” adding, “I don’t tell him how to manage his team. I don’t need him to tell me how to run the department.”11

As the feud played out in the press, the Twins won their next game, two days later, defeating Baltimore 3-2 in 13 innings, then lost three more games. They turned things around on May 24 when they won the first of four straight games. When the month ended, they had reclaimed first place in the division.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other pertinent material.

baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN196905180.shtml

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B05180MIN1969.htm

Notes

1 Dave Mona, “Careless Twins Lose to Detroit, Displease Martin,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 19, 1969: 29.

2 George Cantor, “Doesn’t Pay to Steal; Tigers 8, Twins 2,” Detroit Free Press, May 19, 1969: 1D.

3 Cantor, “Doesn’t Pay to Steal.”

4 Mona, “Careless Twins.”

5 Mona, “Careless Twins.”

6 George Cantor, “Mick Flattered by Steals,” Detroit Free Press, May 19, 1969: 5D.

7 Cantor, “Mick Flattered.”

8 Mona, “Careless Twins.”

9 “Lolich Mental Mistakes Keep Twins Skein Alive,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, May 19, 1969: 13.

10 Mona, “Careless Twins.”

11 Dave Mona, “Internal Combustion: Martin Blasts Farm Department,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 19, 1969: 29.