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In early-season coverage of their third year in Minnesota, local newspapers often highlighted Twins or Met Stadium happenings that reminded readers how young the new franchise still was. Case in point: a late May Sunday-afternoon game against the Chicago White Sox that saw the Twins win their seventh in a row, the team’s longest winning […]

By the end of the 1960s, it seemed that the Major League Baseball All-Star Game had turned into an annual exhibition of National League dominance. The senior circuit had won 11 of 13 games during the decade (two games were played in 1960, 1961 and 1962; one game was tied when it was called because […]

The Wednesday afternoon game between the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins produced a modern-era major-league first when the Twins’ Bob Allison and Harmon Killebrew blasted first-inning grand slams in the 14-3 blowout victory.1 The same team hitting two grand slams in one inning has been matched only four times since Allison and Killebrew accomplished the […]

On October 4, 1969, nearly 40,000 fans filed into Memorial Stadium in Baltimore for the first-ever American League Championship Series. Beginning in 1969 the American and National Leagues were separated into two divisions, East and West. At the end of the season, each division winner would square off in a best-of-five series to decide who […]

On Saturday, September 30, 1967, as the thrilling American League pennant race neared its conclusion, the Boston Red Sox entered their final series of the season needing two victories against the Minnesota Twins — whom they trailed by one game — plus two Detroit Tigers defeats to make their Impossible Dream become reality.1 Left fielder […]

Bernie Allen was well-known in Minnesota, for bad and good reasons to fans in the state. In 1960 he was the quarterback, kicker, punter, and a defensive back for a Purdue team that upset the Minnesota Gophers and kept them from winning the Big Ten title outright. (The Gophers still tied for the conference championship […]

If Catfish Hunter was going to pitch a perfect game, Minnesota Twins manager Cal Ermer was going to make him earn every out.1 Hunter, a 22-year-old right-hander in his fourth season with the Athletics, had retired 24 straight batters going into the top of the ninth inning at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, on May 8, 1968, […]

As August 1966 was about to turn into September, the chase for the American League pennant had deteriorated into a race for second place behind the Baltimore Orioles. The White Sox hosted the Minnesota Twins in a Sunday doubleheader at Comiskey Park on August 28 that was attended by 21,576 fans who got more innings […]

Billy Martin preferred to make points with his fists, but the weapon of choice in his home opener as a major-league manager was The Blade. Martin had prepped all his life to be a big-league manager. He’d been a major-league player and coach, a minor-league manager and a student ready to learn from an assortment […]

The last Saturday in August of 1963 brought an afternoon match at the Met between the Minnesota Twins and the visiting Chicago White Sox. An announced crowd of 23,415 came out to the ballpark for this, the second of a three-game series. Minnesota, at 75-58, had won three in a row and six of its […]

Before the Athletics relocated to Oakland in 1968, they hadn’t enjoyed a winning season since 1952, when they still called Philadelphia home. After 13 years of losing in Kansas City, a move to the West Coast revitalized the flagging franchise. The A’s won 89 games in 1970 and 101 in 1971, reaching the postseason for […]

“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 […]

Minnesota Twins manager Bill Rigney had a plan for the game on Tuesday against the Kansas City Royals. With three games to go in the regular season and the American League West title already clinched, Rigney wanted to get his players ready for the playoff opener Saturday against the AL East champion Baltimore Orioles. His […]

A morning downpour threatened to postpone a Thursday afternoon game at Metropolitan Stadium, the Minnesota Twins’ home in their second season after moving from Washington. Cleveland, the visiting team, may have preferred not to play. It had lost its last six games and eight of its last nine, including a 14-3 drubbing the day before […]

Senator William Stuart Symington of Missouri was a fighter. A second lieutenant during World War I, he eventually became the first secretary of the Air Force, serving fellow Missourian Harry S Truman. After being elected to the Senate in 1952, Symington was a strong opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy, took on the Pentagon over wasteful […]

It was expected to be a glittering night of firsts. The 1968 All-Star Game was to be the first played on artificial turf, the first played indoors, and, if not the first played at night (the wartime games of 1943 and 1944 had been played under the lights), it was to be the first played […]

The slow climb of Gil Hodges’ Washington Senators teams had brought the 1967 squad to heights unknown: a 55-55 record after shutting out the Twins in Minnesota on August 7. None of the previous expansion Nats had reached .500 so far into the season. A month earlier, on July 8, Washington’s record stood at 34-47, […]

Rich Reese could deliver in the pinch. He had two important pinch-hit two-run homers within a two-week span in 1967, one off Fred Talbot to beat the Yankees in New York and the other against Moe Drabowsky in the last of the ninth for a 10-9 win over Baltimore. 1 In 1969 Reese started hitting […]

Several themes were evident for All-Star games played in the 1960s. First was the National League’s crushing superiority during the midsummer classics. Of the 13 games played (two games were played from 1960 through 1962) the National League took 11; the American League won only once (the second game in 1962 was a tie). Toward […]

A headache put Wally Pipp on the New York Yankees bench in June of 1925, opening the door for a young Lou Gehrig to take his position. For Kansas City Athletics shortstop Wayne Causey, it was an elbow injury that provided the opening for future star Dagoberto “Campy” Campaneris to ultimately take his.1 In the […]

The 1985 All-Star Game – a 6-1 National League win at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis – lacked drama. For the crowd of 54,960, that may have been disappointing. But for members of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which operated the stadium, it was a relief. In its fourth season as home of […]

On September 30, 1967, a Saturday afternoon, the Minnesota Twins played the first of a two-game season-ending series against the Red Sox at Boston’s Fenway Park. The Twins led the Red Sox and the Tigers (who had to play two doubleheaders) by a single game. A Twins victory would eliminate the Red Sox, while the […]

On October 14, 1965, the Minnesota Twins lost a heartbreaking World Series Game Seven to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-0. While the disappointment was palpable, there was every reason to believe the Twins would soon be back in the Series. The team had won the pennant convincingly with a record of 102-60, […]

If Rich Reese had as much success in baseball as he later did in business, perhaps his major-league résumé would have been filled with All-Star appearances, batting titles, MVP awards, and World Series triumphs. As it was, his path to such acclaim was hindered by a succession of higher-profile players who kept him from a […]