September 19, 1972: César Tovar’s walk-off home run completes the cycle

“He’s gonna trade me, I know it.”1

That’s what Minnesota Twins leadoff batter César Tovar told reporters before a September 19, 1972, game between the Twins and the Texas Rangers at Metropolitan Stadium. He was referring to Twins President Calvin Griffith. According to the Minneapolis Star, Tovar’s name had been “bounced around as Minnesota’s most lucrative trade bait.”2 On August 9, also against the Rangers, Tovar had been hit by a pitch, giving him a hairline fracture in his right shoulder. Now, almost six weeks later, he said, “It [used to] hurt to swing but now it doesn’t bother me anymore,”3 adding, “I’ll show Mr. Griffith I can still play.”4

And show him (and a Tuesday night crowd of 4,240) Tovar did. After the nearly-three-hour game was over, reporters were back interviewing Tovar, asking about his 4-for-5 performance in which the Venezuelan-born left fielder had hit for the cycle, including a walk-off two-run homer in the Twins’ 5-3 victory.

Tovar was in his seventh full season in the majors, all with Minnesota. On September 22, 1968, he became just the second major leaguer to play all nine positions in a game.5 When the Twins captured the first two American League West Division pennants in 1969 and 1970,6 Tovar batted .288 and .300, respectively, posting career-high OPS marks of .757 and .798. In 1970 he led all AL hitters with 36 doubles and 13 triples. As expected of a good leadoff hitter, he got on base and often got into scoring position, consistently finishing in the league’s top 10 in doubles, triples, and stolen bases.7

The 1971 season found the Twins finishing in fifth place in the six-team division, as the Oakland Athletics won their first of five consecutive AL West titles. Tovar led all batters in the junior circuit with 204 hits, batted .311, and tied his career high .356 on-base percentage. But many of his teammates declined, and the Twins had trouble winning.8

The Twins again struggled in 1972. By September 19, Minnesota was 12½ games out of first place with 14 to play in the regular season. Rumors of a Tovar trade became “spicier”9 since he came into the Texas series batting .256.10 Still, the 32-year-old Tovar’s .325 on-base percentage exceeded the AL average .311 OBP for leadoff batters. Despite his injured shoulder, he had missed only 12 of Minnesota’s 141 games.11

The two-game Minnesota-Texas series matched two franchises formerly based in Washington, DC. The Rangers were in their first season in Texas after moving west, 11 years after the Twins had left the nation’s capital. Under skipper Ted Williams, Texas was headed toward its first of two consecutive seasons of 100 or more losses. The Rangers at 52-89 were tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for the worst record in the majors, and they had lost five in a row and 15 of their past 18.12

A pair of right-handers started the game. For Minnesota, it was 27-year-old Dick Woodson. After two years of mainly being a reliever,13 this was his first season as a member of the Twins’ starting rotation. Sporting 13 wins and a 2.57 ERA, he was coming off a three-hit victory over the Kansas City Royals. Opposing Woodson was Dick Bosman (3.96 ERA), in his seventh season with the Senators/Rangers. The 28-year-old Bosman had made both the last start in Senators history14 and the first start in Rangers history. He had not earned a win for Texas since August 29.

Woodson retired the side to start the game. His teammates gave him a three-run lead in the bottom of the first. Tovar led off with a triple to right field. After Bosman struck out Rod Carew, Steve Braun’s infield single drove Tovar home. Harmon Killebrew followed with a single to left. Braun was thrown out trying to reach third, but Bobby Darwin’s 22nd home run, a two-run shot well over the left-field wall, made it a 3-0 game.15 

Woodson pitched two more three-up, three-down innings before the Rangers scored. In the top of the fourth, Dave Nelsonwalked and advanced to second on a Toby Harrah groundout. Back-to-back singles by Larry Biittner and Ted Fordresulted in Nelson scoring. An out later, Jim Mason singled and Biittner scored, cutting Minnesota’s lead to one run. But Woodson “choked off the rally,”16 striking out rookie Bill Fahey to end the inning.

In the bottom of the fifth with one out, Tovar (who had grounded out in the third) singled to center. Carew hit a single to left. The threat ended when Braun grounded into a double play.

Texas rallied again in the sixth. The Rangers alternated outs and hits, putting runners at first and second, on singles by Ford and Mason. Fahey got a little revenge on Woodson. His RBI single to right brought Ford home with the tying run and sent Woodson to the showers. Dave LaRoche was called in from the Twins’ bullpen to relieve Woodson. LaRoche, a southpaw, was already making his 10th relief appearance in September and 58th for the season.17 He struck out Vic Harris to end the inning and keep the score 3-3.

In the bottom of the seventh, LaRoche worked a one-out walk off Bosman. Tovar’s double to center, his third hit of the game, set up the Twins with runners on second and third for Carew, who was hitting .319 and headed for his second career batting title. Williams called on left-hander Paul Lindblad. Carew lined out to second and Braun flied out, stranding the runners in scoring position.

Neither team had another baserunner until the bottom of the ninth. Entering the potential final frame, Tovar was due up fourth. Danny Thompson flied out to center for the first out. Then George Mitterwald singled to center, and Tovar entered the on-deck circle. Lindblad struck out LaRoche, and Tovar got his fifth at-bat.

Fulfilling his pregame prediction, he showed the fans everything, blasting a home run to win the game. According to theMinneapolis Star Tribune, the home run, just Tovar’s second of the season, “carried 360 feet into the left-field bleachers.”18 The Twins had won in an exciting walk-off fashion, 5-3, and “the littlest Minnesota Twin carried the biggest stick,”19 as the 5-foot-9, 155-pound Tovar became the second Minnesota Twins player to hit for the cycle.20

LaRoche was credited with his fifth victory of the season. He had blanked the visitors without allowing a hit; he also struck out four. Woodson had allowed seven hits to the Rangers, all singles. That meant that Tovar had more total bases in this game (10) than the entire Rangers team. Lindblad was tagged with his eighth loss. Texas had now lost six games in a row.

Tovar’s performance marked the fourth time in 1972 that a batter had hit for the cycle, following San Francisco’s Dave Kingman (April 16), Houston’s César Cedeño (August 2), and the New York Yankees’ Bobby Murcer (August 29). Tovar was the first Twins player to hit for the cycle at Metropolitan Stadium.

Tovar finished the season batting .265 with those two home runs and just 31 runs batted in, his lowest total of his seven full seasons of play. He hit safely in 10 of his final 12 games of the season (of which the Twins won five), scoring seven runs. The Twins as a team were less productive than in prior years, as were many other clubs.21 They scored just 537 runs, down from 654 in 1971.22 They had blown leads in 34 games but had 29 comeback wins. The Twins finished the season with seven walk-off wins and seven walk-off losses.23

Despite his recent offensive surge, Tovar was indeed traded by the Twins on November 30, 1972, to the Phillies for Joe Lis, Ken Reynolds, and Ken Sanders. Over the next four years, he played for the Phillies, Rangers, Athletics, and New York Yankees, but he never had seasons as good as when he was with the pennant-winning Twins.24

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources  

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org and SABR.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN197209190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B09190MIN1972.htm

Notes

1 Dan Stoneking, “Tovar’s Cycle ‘Shows Mr. Griffith,’” Minneapolis Star, September 20, 1972: 77.

2 Stoneking.

3 Associated Press, “Tovar, Twins Take Win over Rangers,” San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times, September 20, 1972: 21.

4 Stoneking.

5 Oakland’s Bert Campaneris was the first. On September 8, 1965, he accomplished the feat in a 5-3 loss to the California Angels. In Tovar’s case, his Twins beat the A’s, 2-1.

6 With expansion after the 1968 season, the AL grew from 10 teams (without divisions) to 12 teams (two divisions of six teams each).

7 Tovar was in the league’s top 10 in doubles four times, in triples four times, and in stolen bases six times.

8 Harmon Killebrew had averaged 45 homers in 1969-1970, but he hit only 28 in 1971. Rod Carew had averaged a .349 batting average in 1969-1970, but in 1971 it fell to .307. Minnesota had batted .268 in 1969, scoring 790 runs. In 1970 both marks dropped to .262 and 744, but in 1971, the team batting average was .260, and the Twins scored only 654 runs. They had two 20-game winners in 1969 and one in 1970, but in 1971 Jim Perryled the team with 17 wins (and 17 losses). In 1971 the team ERA was 3.81, more than half a run higher than 1969 (3.24) and 1970 (3.23).

9 Stoneking.

10 Tovar was batting .275 in mid-July and then had just five hits in the month’s last 12 games, and his average dropped to .251. Thirty-seven games later (coming into the September 19 game), he was still batting only .256.

11 “Tovar, Twins Take Win over Rangers.”

12 Steve West, “Introduction,” The Team That Couldn’t Hit: The 1972 Texas Rangers (Phoenix: SABR, 2019), I-IV, https://sabr.org/journal/article/introduction-the-team-that-couldnt-hit-1972-texas-rangers/.

13 Woodson signed with Minnesota as a nondrafted free agent in 1965. After several minor-league seasons, he made it to the majors in 1969. He split the 1970 season between pitching for the Twins and their American Association affiliate, the Evansville Triplets. He spent all of 1971 with the Portland Beavers (Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League) and made the major-league roster in 1972.

14 With two outs in the top of the ninth on September 30, 1971, fans came onto the field at Washington’s Robert F. Kennedy Stadium and began “souvenir hunting”; bases were taken, causing police to enter the field. The game was forfeited to the visiting New York Yankees. Statistics from the game count, but there was no winning or losing pitcher since the Senators were ahead 7-5 at the time of the forfeit.

15 Darwin had converted from pitching to the outfield in 1970, and this was his first full major-league season. His 22 homers were second-best on the Twins, behind Killebrew’s 25. Killebrew ended 1972 with 26 home runs, while Darwin stayed at 22.

16 Harold McKinney, “Late Twin Homer Nips Rangers 5-3,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 20, 1972: 21.

17 LaRoche finished the 1972 season with 62 appearances, which tied him for sixth-most in the majors. The Rangers’ Paul Lindblad, who also pitched in this game, led the majors with 66 appearances.

18 Tom Briere, “Tovar Homer Wins for Twins,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 20, 1972: 27

19 “Cesar Conquers Rangers,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 20, 1972: 53.

20 The first Twins player to hit for the cycle was Rod Carew, who accomplished the rare feat on May 20, 1970. The Twins franchise began in 1901 as the Washington Senators, and from 1901 to 1960, the Senators and Nationals played in Washington. They relocated to Minnesota in 1961, becoming the Twins. While in Washington,  four players hit for the cycle: Otis Clymer (October 2, 1908), Goose Goslin (August 28, 1924), Joe Cronin (September 2, 1929), and Mickey Vernon (May 19, 1946).

21 Of the other big names in the lineup, Carew was the only Minnesota batter to finish the 1972 season with an average above .300. (But his .318 mark was enough to lead the American League.) After 18 seasons, Killebrew’s power numbers were diminished. (His 74 RBIs were down 45 from the previous season.) Darwin contributed 22 homers but led the majors with 145 strikeouts.

22 The American League earned-run average fell from 3.46 in 1971 to 3.06 in 1972, so many teams’ offensive stats went down. The seas\
on started with the players voting to strike, so the start of spring training was delayed to mid-March. Further, according to an article by Dayn Perry on CBSSports.com, “offensive outputs cratered to levels not seen since 1968.” This prompted American League owners to vote unanimously to implement the designated-hitter rule, which “allows a hitter to be ‘designated’ to bat for the pitcher while not playing a position in the field.” The DH rule took effect two seasons later. See Dayn Perry, “How Baseball Changed Forever in 1972: A Timeline of MLB’s Most Memorable Events, 50 Years Later,” CBSSports.com, January 18, 2022, https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/how-baseball-changed-forever-in-1972-a-timeline-of-mlbs-most-memorable-events-50-years-later/.

23 This includes a three-game sweep by the Oakland A’s near the end of the season (September 27-28), when all three games ended in walk-off losses for the Twins.

24 Tovar’s WAR averaged 4.2 from 1968 to 1971. It fell to 3.4 in 1972, his final season with the Twins. Over the next few seasons, his WAR continued to drop: 0.9 (1973, Phillies), 2.4 (1974, Rangers), -0.5 (1975, Rangers), 0.1 (1975, A’s), -0.4 (1976 A’s), and -0.3 (1976, Yankees).