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In 1964 the Philadelphia Phillies found themselves mired in the throes of one of the greatest collapses known to our national pastime. Many fans blamed manager Gene Mauch for over-using starting pitchers Jim Bunning and Chris Short down the stretch. Others blamed the loss of Frank Thomas to injury. In addition, there were rumors of […]

Two words: Señor Smoke. Hernandez/Lopez. Things Change. Take your pick of the trio of descriptions that defined Aurelio Lopez’s baseball career. Things change. That’s a truism that, in its pithy wisdom, fails to reveal that perceptions of the past — even the recent past — can vary so widely from those of contemporary observers. Ask […]

Rich Rollins’ 10-year career in the major leagues included two All-Star Game appearances and playing in the 1965 World Series with the Minnesota Twins. Richard John Rollins was born on April 16, 1938, in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. His father, a welder, was ambidextrous, and played baseball in coal mining leagues. The family later […]

“Career Performance” is a term that is quite often used, and for pitcher Casey Cox, his career performance came on July 7, 1969. Casey was pitching for Washington against the Cleveland Indians. The perennial second-division Senators were having a pretty good year and their victory that night put them within 3½ games of second place […]

Not since 1958 had the Boston Red Sox had a winning team, and they’d finished in ninth place in 1966, just a half-game ahead of the last-place Yankees. Under new manager Dick Williams, the ’67 Sox played .500 ball for three months, but after the All-Star break, they reeled off a ten-game winning streak that […]

The Minnesota Twins were fully aware of how, just one year before, the Philadelphia Phillies had blown a seemingly insurmountable lead with very little time remaining in the season. The Twins had been on the verge of clinching the pennant for about a week when they traveled to Washington in late September of 1965. They […]

The champagne was on ice while 15,443 waited to erupt after their Minnesota Twins defeated a Seattle Pilots team they had already beaten 11 times in 14 games, including eight of eight at Metropolitan Stadium. At 91-60 with an 11-game lead over the second-place Oakland A’s, the Twins saw that the clinching of the first-ever […]

Jim Kaat knew how to win ballgames. In 1971 Kaat would win at least 10 games for the 10th straight year. From 1964 to 1970, he won 35 more games than he lost. The Twins had taken the first two American League West titles in 1969 and 1970 but struggled in 1971, falling out of […]

As a September call-up in 1970, right-handed pitcher John Harold “Hal” Haydel joined the American League’s West Division’s first-place team, the Minnesota Twins. On September 7, the day after the 26-year-old Louisiana native reached the big leagues after nine minor-league seasons with five organizations,1 the Twins hosted the Milwaukee Brewers for a Labor Day doubleheader […]

Washington Senators outfielder Jim Lemon struggled offensively over the final five weeks of the 1958 season. In the Senators’ final 36 games, he didn’t hit a home run and drove in just three runs. After the season Lemon underwent surgery on his left knee. With his knee repaired and after receiving some advice in the […]

One year after his selection in the June 1969 amateur draft, 19-year-old pitcher Bert Blyleven was recalled from the minor leagues to start for the Minnesota Twins. When he took the mound at RFK Stadium in Washington on June 5, 1970, he became the youngest player in the major leagues and the first major leaguer […]

In their first home opener, before 24,606 fans at yet-to-be-completed Metropolitan Stadium, the Minnesota Twins played from behind the entire game before tying it, 3-3, in the bottom of the eighth inning and then losing it when the expansion Washington Senators scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning. Both starters, Joe McClain […]

It was a hot, humid Independence Day in Bloomington, Minnesota. Early-morning thunderstorms were a concern but by game time the skies had cleared. The announced crowd of 30,654 was the largest yet recorded for a Fourth of July game in Minnesota. The Oakland Athletics and the Minnesota Twins, who were fighting for first place in […]

“I’ll never pitch a no-hitter,” Paul Splittorff told reporters matter-of-factly in August 1975, and he was right.1 The bespectacled, high-kicking left-hander won 166 games and set enduring Kansas City Royals franchise records2 in his 15-season major-league career.3 But he never achieved a pitcher’s ultimate feat of skill and luck. Three complete-game one-hitters were as close […]

Unfortunately for the Minnesota Twins, there were no Jewish holidays that would prevent Sandy Koufax from pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game Seven of the 1965 World Series. As a result, he came. He pitched. He shut the Twins out, 2-0. That’s really all you need to know. Actually, there’s a little bit […]

In 1969 the Minnesota Twins ran away with the first American League West Division pennant by winning 97 games. In 1970 they showed no signs of slowing down. A month and a half into the season, the red-hot Twins sported a record of 24-10 and sought a sweep of a three-game series against the Kansas […]

This was the next-to-last home run Ted Williams ever hit. It was also the fourth game-winner in a row he had hit off Washington Senators right-hander Pedro Ramos, who was only 25 years old but had given up six home runs to Williams, with the four game-winners tying him (with Virgil Trucks) for first place […]

Two of the least likely home-run hitters both struck in the ninth inning to tie and then win the game. The 1961 season wasn’t going well for either the Chicago White Sox or the newly relocated Minnesota Twins. Both teams had losing records on June 18, and the Twins were several games behind the White […]

The Minnesota Twins occupied fifth place in the American League West Division when Labor Day weekend 1971 arrived in the Twin Cities. After spending most of June and early July in third place, the Twins dropped into fifth in a 13-15 August. Preseason prognostications placed Minnesota atop the AL West1 after winning both the 1969 […]

“The Grand Old Dame of 7th and Florida, familiarly known as Griffith Stadium, gave up the ghost quietly,” proclaimed sportswriter Bob Addie about the final baseball game in the storied history of the ballpark in the nation’s capital. “There were no eulogies, no ceremonies, no tears.” A sparse crowd of just 1,498 spectators showed up […]

Game One of the 1965 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins was as noteworthy for who didn’t play as it was for who did. New York Yankee pinstripes were nowhere to be found in the fall classic for the first time in six years. The Bombers finished sixth in 1965 […]

The conclusion of a three-game series in Minnesota the first weekend in 1967 featured two teams fighting for the top spot in the American League and two of the top pitchers in baseball. The Minnesota Twins, second-place finishers in 1966, had to go through a managerial change in June to climb into the race. The […]

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 […]

“There is no prettier sight in baseball than watching Oliva, when he is right, swinging the bat.”1   Coming into a June 29 doubleheader against the Kansas City Royals in 1969, Minnesota Twins outfielder Tony Oliva was on an eight-game hitting streak, having gone 17 for his last 36. “When I swing the bat like […]