1965 Minnesota Twins: Spring Training
This article was written by Stew Thornley
This article was published in A Pennant for the Twin Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins (2015)
Although the Grapefruit League is for players to get in shape, managers to figure out rosters and rotations, and snowbirds to escape the winter and watch baseball in the sun, the Minnesota Twins didn’t inspire confidence in their fans with a sputtering close to their preseason games. Coming off a second-division finish in 1964, the Twins weren’t anyone’s pick to win the pennant in 1965. A poll of six Minneapolis newspapermen had only one, Dwayne Netland, predicting that the team would finish as high as second.
Down in Orlando, Florida, much of the focus was on an addition to the coaching staff. Some people saw Billy Martin as a manager-in-waiting, ready to take over if the Twins started slowly and Sam Mele got fired. New York columnist Dick Young went so far as to write, “Everybody says Calvin Griffith hired Martin as coach so that Billy wouldn’t have to use such a long-bladed handle.” Martin handled the situation with humor; after a fishing outing in which Mele fell out of the boat, Martin said, “I threw him an anchor. It’s the only thing that was handy.”
A Twins press release at the time Martin was hired said he had been signed to “battle the umpires and put some life in the Twins on the field.” Martin’s greatest influence came with shortstop Zoilo Versalles. He flattered Zoilo, which gave him enough confidence to bring out talent that had remained largely hidden in past years. Versalles still had some rough spots and often pushed Mele’s patience. A week before the season opener, Mele pulled the shortstop from a game for “lackadaisical effort” and ordered him to stay in the dugout rather than retire to the clubhouse. “I will for Billy,” was Versalles’s reply. Mele fined him $100 and, as Versalles goaded him on, increased the penalty to $300.
The Twins finished spring training with 11 wins and 16 losses. As usual, the record wasn’t important. Improving the fundamentals while shaking out their rough spots, the Twins were ready for the season. Calvin Griffith had lamented a “lack of life” shown by the team in a loss to its Denver farm club. Martin remained upbeat and said, “This is only spring training. Wait until the season starts. They’ll hustle.”
He was correct.
STEW THORNLEY grew up in Minnesota and attended his first Twins game at Metropolitan Stadium in 1962. He worked in radio broadcasting as a sportscaster/sports director at radio stations in Missouri and central Minnesota in the 1970s before going to college at the University of Minnesota. In the 1980s he worked in sales and also began writing books. His first, On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers, received a baseball research award from Macmillan Publishing and the Society for American Baseball Research. He has since written more than 40 other books for adults and young readers. He has worked in training, communications, and media relations for the drinking-water program for the Minnesota Department of Health since 1993 while continuing to write and work in sports. He does official scoring for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association and is an official scorer for Minnesota Twins home games for Major League Baseball. He is also a member of the MLB Official Scoring Advisory Committee. Stew lives in the Twin Cities with his wife, Brenda Himrich.