September 20, 1981: Twins’ Gary Gaetti hits first of 360 home runs in his first at-bat

On September 20, 1981, rookie Minnesota Twins third baseman Gary Gaetti unwrapped a pregame piece of Bazooka bubble gum and found an auspicious fortune on the wrapper: “Something magical will happen today.”1

And it did. In his first major-league at-bat against the Texas Rangers, Gaetti hit a two-run home run, making him the third player in the history of the Twins/Washington Senators franchise to go deep in their first at-bat.2 The homer didn’t win the game – the Twins dropped a 4-3 walk-off decision – but it launched a distinguished 20-season career marked more by blue-collar grit than magic.

Gaetti, an Illinois native, had been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in January 1978 and the Chicago White Sox in June 1978, but did not sign. Instead, he went pro when the Twins made him their first-round pick and 11th overall selection in the secondary phase of the June 1979 draft out of Northwest Missouri State University.3

Gaetti showed strong offensive potential in the minors, hitting 66 home runs and collecting 217 RBIs in his first three seasons.4 In 1981, his 30 homers and 93 RBIs for the Double-A Orlando Twins both ranked in the Southern League’s top five, earning him a spot on the league’s all-star team.5 He added four more homers and went 10-for-33 in the postseason as Orlando won a league title.6

The parent club in Minnesota had not planned to call Gaetti up that September, but his hot bat in the playoffs convinced team officials he could contribute.7 The 23-year-old reported to the Twins on Friday, September 18, at the start of a three-game series in Arlington, Texas, and he made his big-league debut on Sunday.8 The teams split the first two games of the series at Arlington Stadium.

In the first half of that strike-divided season, the Rangers and Twins had followed different paths. Don Zimmer’s Rangers went 33-22 to finish second in the American League West Division, trailing the Oakland Athletics by 1½ games. The Twins finished last in the AL West with a 17-39 record, and manager Johnny Goryl was replaced by Billy Gardner in late May. The teams were more closely matched in the second half of the season. Entering the September 20 game, Minnesota’s record of 19-20 put them in third place, 3½ games behind the eventual second-half champion Kansas City Royals, while Texas sat in fourth with a 16-20 record.

The Twins started 21-year-old rookie left-hander Brad Havens, who had also begun the season in Orlando. After posting a 6-2 record and a 3.53 ERA with the O-Twins, he’d been called up to make his major-league debut on June 5. He recorded two appearances before the strike carved a two-month hole out of the middle of the season. Havens entered the game on September 20 with a 3-4 record and a 3.87 ERA in 10 appearances with Minnesota. He’d claimed a small piece of club history on September 8 by pitching the last shutout in the history of Metropolitan Stadium, the suburban ballpark where the Twins were playing their final season.9

The Rangers started 33-year-old right-hander Charlie Hough, who was just beginning a professional renaissance.10 After working out of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ bullpen for much of the 1970s, knuckleballer Hough was sold to the Rangers in July 1980. Hough’s first 15 appearances of 1981 came in relief, but this game was the third of five straight starts he made at the end of the season. (He won four of them.) Hough converted to starting full-time in 1982, winning 16 games that season and becoming one of the AL’s workhorse starters for the remainder of the decade.11

Only 7,441 fans turned out for the Sunday afternoon rubber game of the series, which began with a scoreless first inning. In the top of the second, Hough struck out Glenn Adams and retired Tim Corcoran on an infield liner before running into trouble. Rookie right fielder Dave Engle walked, bringing seventh-place hitter Gaetti to the plate for his first big-league at-bat.

Hough’s third pitch to Gaetti was a knuckleball that didn’t flutter, and Gaetti belted it into the left-field stands for a 2-0 Twins lead. “I knew [Hough] wasn’t going to try to throw the ball by me, so I just tried to relax and wait for it,” Gaetti said later.12

The Rangers halved the lead in the third inning. Mark Wagner’s leadoff double and Bump Wills’ bunt single put the first two batters on first and third.13 Bill Stein then hit an unusual double-play sacrifice fly to center. While Wagner steamed home to score from third, center fielder Mickey Hatcher’s throw to first baseman Corcoran caught Wills off base.14 Wills’ out on the basepaths appeared costly when the next hitter, Al Oliver, doubled. However, Buddy Bell’s grounder ended the inning.

The Twins regained a two-run cushion in the fourth. Hatcher doubled and took third when Stein, making a rare appearance in left field, let the ball get past him for an error.15 After a walk to Adams, Corcoran’s grounder to third base brought home Hatcher for a 3-1 Minnesota lead and moved Adams to second. A passed ball by Rangers catcher Jim Sundberg allowed Adams to take third with one out. But Engle struck out and Gaetti, in his second plate appearance, fanned to end the frame. Gaetti also stranded a runner in scoring position in the seventh inning, when he flied out to left field after Engle doubled.

The score remained 3-1, Twins, until the bottom of the seventh inning. Rangers first baseman John Ellis, playing one of the last games of his 13-season major-league career, was hit by a pitch to start the inning; Nelson Norman ran for him.16 Billy Sample’s single moved Norman to second and ended Havens’ day. The Twins’ closer, Doug Corbett, replaced Havens.17 Corbett hadn’t allowed an earned run in his previous seven appearances, totaling 13⅔ innings.

One out later, Corbett walked Wills to load the bases. Stein grounded to Gaetti, who fired home for the force on Norman. Catcher Sal Butera hurried a throw to first, gunning for an inning-ending double play, but he threw wildly. Sample came home on the error to cut the Twins’ lead to 3-2.18 Oliver was intentionally walked to get to Bell. Although Bell led the 1981 Rangers with 10 home runs and 64 RBIs, he couldn’t come through here, striking out.

Corbett surrendered two singles to Texas in the eighth. But the Rangers didn’t capitalize, and the Twins carried a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth. Wills led off with a ground-rule double that bounced into the left-field stands.19 Stein tried to advance him with a bunt, but Corbett held Wills at second and retired Stein at first.20 Oliver drew a walk, and Wayne Tolleson, in his seventh big-league game, came in to run for him.

Wills and Tolleson broke for third and second, respectively, on a double steal when Bell grounded to Gaetti – the rookie’s third big-league fielding play. With the runners going, Gaetti had no opportunity for a game-ending double play and settled for retiring Bell at first.21 Leon Roberts chopped a weak grounder over Corbett’s head. The Twins’ 29-year-old rookie shortstop22 Ron Washington couldn’t make a play, and Wills scored to tie the game, 3-3. Catcher Sundberg, 0-for-4 to this point in the game, was up next. Sundberg popped a fly into short right, where Engle came up empty on an attempt to make a diving catch. Tolleson scored on the single to give the Rangers a 4-3 walk-off win. “I was about two inches too short,” Engle said later.23

Hough, who gave up only three hits after the third inning, went all the way to bring his record to 2-1.24 Corbett got the loss, falling to 2-5. He took the defeat hard, telling reporters, “I’ve got nothing to say.”25 Twins manager Gardner shared the frustration, saying: “The infield hit hurt. It just dribbled past the mound, but when it was hit I knew it would be trouble. It would have been a good game to win.”26

Gaetti, who never returned to the minor leagues, went on to collect 2,280 hits in a 20-season career in the majors. As of July 2024, his 360 career homers were the most of any player who went deep in their first at-bat.27 Gaetti hit 201 of his homers for the Twins, and at the time of writing, he ranked eighth in that category in the lengthy history of the Senators/Twins franchise.28

Gaetti was the Most Valuable Player of the 1987 American League Championship Series and won a World Series title with the Twins that same season.29 He earned four Gold Gloves during his stellar career, along with a Silver Slugger Award, and he made two All-Star teams. At the time Gaetti retired in 2000, only Brooks Robinson and Graig Nettles had played more games at third base in either American and National League history.30 Gaetti served as the Houston Astros’ hitting coach for parts of five seasons, and he managed six seasons in independent baseball. Gaetti was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame in 2007.31

Sources

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game. The author also consulted Gary Gaetti’s SABR Biography Project article, written by Bryan Lake.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TEX/TEX198109200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1981/B09200TEX1981.htm

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/gary-gaetti/

Photo credit: Gary Gaetti, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Jay Weiner, “Twins Bounced 4-3 by Texas,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 21, 1981: 1C.

2 Gaetti was preceded by Rick Renick on July 11, 1968, and Dave McKay on August 22, 1975. No players accomplished the feat during the franchise’s tenure in Washington, D.C. Ed Eagle, “Players with Home Run in First At-Bat,” MLB.com, updated June 26, 2024, https://www.mlb.com/news/home-run-in-first-at-bat-c265623820.

3 As of July 2024, Gaetti was one of five major leaguers to have attended Northwest Missouri State. The others were all pitchers: Bruce Berenyi, Todd Frohwirth, Tom Funk, and Dave Wehrmeister.

4 These totals might have been higher except that Gaetti played his first year, 1979, in the short-season Rookie-level Appalachian League, where his Elizabethton Twins had a 70-game season.

5 Jim Kimball, “Sports Notes from Here & There,” Mattoon (Illinois) Journal Gazette, September 3, 1981: 11.

6 Larry McCarthy, “O-Twins Win Southern Title,” Orlando (Florida) Sentinel Star, September 15, 1981: 1D. Orlando’s manager that season, former Twins player Tom Kelly, later managed the Minnesota Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. Other members of the 1981 Orlando team who played on the Twins’ championship teams were Frank Viola, Tim Laudner, and Randy Bush.

7 Sid Hartman, “Jottings,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 8, 1981: 2C; Sid Hartman, “Gaetti to Be Called Up,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 18, 1981: 2D.

8 “Minnesota Adds Gaetti to Roster,” Orlando Sentinel Star, September 17, 1981: 2D.

9 “Metropolitan Stadium Lasts,” Retrosheet, accessed July 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/ballparks/metropolitan_stad_last.htm. The Twins moved to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in 1982.

10 Hough made his first professional appearance on June 25, 1966, with the Ogden (Utah) Dodgers of the Rookie-level Pioneer League. At the time, Gaetti was seven years old.

11 Hough twice led the AL in starts during the 1980s and led the league once apiece in complete games and innings pitched. He made his only All-Star team in 1986.

12 Weiner, “Twins Bounced 4-3 by Texas”; Joe Stroop (Associated Press), “Rangers Still Eye Playoffs After Rally Thwarts Twins,” Minneapolis Star, September 21, 1981: 6C.

13 Wills’ hit is described as a bunt in “Twins Scorecard,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 21, 1981: 10C.

14 Newspaper accounts of the game do not describe the play. Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference have Wills being retired at second on a throw from Hatcher to Corcoran.

15 Jan Hubbard, “Rally in 9th Transfusion for Rangers,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, September 21, 1981: 1D. Stein made only 15 appearances in left field over the course of a 14-season, 959-game major-league career. Seven of those appearances were made in 1981.

16 Ellis appeared in only four more big-league games after this one.

17 Corbett led the AL in appearances (54) and games finished (45) in 1981.

18 Weiner, “Twins Bounced 4-3 by Texas.”

19 Hubbard, “Rally in 9th Transfusion for Rangers.”

20 As of July 2024, both the Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference summaries of this game said that Stein moved Wills to third on this play. But game stories by Hubbard and Weiner, cited above, both say that Wills was held at second on Stein’s bunt attempt. Some wire service reports of the game provided yet a third description of events, saying that Stein struck out trying to bunt Wills to third. “Sundberg’s Single Helps Rangers Rally Past Twins in 9th,” Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, September 21, 1981: C3.

21 Weiner, “Twins Bounced 4-3 by Texas.”

22 Washington had played 10 games with the 1977 Dodgers, then did not return to the majors until 1981, when he played 28 games with the Twins. He exceeded his rookie eligibility in 1982.

23 Weiner, “Twins Bounced 4-3 by Texas;” Stroop (Associated Press), “Rangers Still Eye Playoffs After Rally Thwarts Twins.”

24 Hough went on to post double-digit win totals in every season until 1991.

25 Stroop (Associated Press), “Rangers Still Eye Playoffs After Rally Thwarts Twins.”

26 Hubbard, “Rally in 9th Transfusion for Rangers.”

27 Gaetti was two homers ahead of Carlos Lee, who finished his career with 358. As of July 2024, Aaron Judge had 289 home runs at age 32; barring injury, he appeared to have a solid chance at surpassing Gaetti.

28 “Minnesota Twins Top 10 Career Batting Leaders,” Baseball-Reference, accessed July 2024, https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/leaders_bat.shtml.

29 Gaetti also handled the last out of the 1987 Series, fielding Willie McGee’s groundball and throwing him out at first to seal the Twins’ 4-2 defeat of the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Seven.

30 As of July 2024, Adrián Beltré had passed Nettles and moved into second place.

31 Joe Christensen, “Twins Ask Bonser to Lighten Up, Literally,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 20, 2007: C7.