January 4, 2002 | Ron Gardenhire is named as the Minnesota Twins 12th manager, replacing the Twins winningest manager, Tom Kelly. |
January 4, 2010 | The Minnesota Twins offically take possesion of Target Field from Mortensen Construction, a full two months ahead of schedule. |
January 5, 2009 | Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad passed away at his Edina, Minnesota home at the age of 93. Pohlad bought the Twins from Calvin Griffith the teams original owner in 1984 for about $38 million. |
January 6, 2004 | Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley are named to the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers. Molitor, a Minnesota native, played for the Twins from 1996 through 1998. |
January 6, 1967 | Joe Haynes, who had been an all-star AL pitcher, brother-in-law of Twins owner Calvin Griffith and Twins vice-president passed away of a heart attack at the age of 49. |
January 7, 1982 | The Twins sent catcher Scotti Madison and pitcher Paul Voight to the Dodgers and acquired pitcher Bobby Castillo and outfielder Bobby Mitchell. |
January 7, 1983 | Houston sends pitcher Rick Lysander to the land of 10,000 lakes and receives pitcher Bob Veselic. |
January 7, 1986 | The Twins trade pitchers Bryan Oelkers and Ken Schrom to the Indians and get pitchers Roy Smith and Ramon Romero in return. |
| January 8, 1991 | Rodney Cline Carew becomes only the 22nd player in MLB history to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. |
January 9, 1961 | The new Minnesota Twins and the American Association finally agree on a $500,000 indemnity payment to the minor league for the Minneapolis/St. Paul territory, ending 2 months of negotiation. |
January 9, 1985 | The Twins and Expos hook up in a minor trade, The Twins receive outfielder Mike Stenhouse and Montreal gets pitcher Jack O’Conner. |
January 10, 1984 | Luis Aparicio, Harmon Killebrew, and Don Drysdale are elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA. |
January 12, 1990 | The Minnesota Twins reacquire outfielder Jim Dwyer from Montreal by sending pitcher Jim Davins to the frozen north country. |
January 16, 1975 | The Minnesota Twins release icon and future Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew who had played for the Senators and Twins since 1954. Harmon signs with the Kansas City Royals and plays one final season before hanging up his spikes for good. |
January 16, 1986 | The Twins trade 2B Tim Teufel and outfielder Pat Crosby to the Mets for outfielder Billy Beane and pitchers Bill Latham, and Joe Klink. They also trade catcher Dave Engle to the Tigers for infielder Chris Pittaro and outfielder Alex Sanchez. |
January 16, 2001 | In the first year of eligibility, Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett are elected to the MLB Hall of Fame. The former Twins are the fourth pair of teammates selected by BBWAA in the same year. |
January 30, 1962 | The Twins trade outfielder Dan Dobbek to the Reds and receive catcher Jerry Zimmerman. |
February 2, 2008 | In a blockbuster deal, Minnesota gets outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Kevin Mulvey, Philip Humber and Deolis Guerra but have to part with former Cy Young winner Johan Santana whom they could not afford to sign. |
February 3, 1979 | The Twins trade 7-time batting champion 2B Rod Carew to the Angels for outfielder Ken Landreaux, catcher Dave Engle, and pitchers Paul Hartzell and Brad Havens. |
February 3, 1987 | The Expos trade ace reliever Jeff Reardon and catcher Tom Nieto to the Twins for pitchers Neal Heaton, Yorkis Perez, Al Cardwood and catcher Jeff Reed. |
February 5, 1988 | The Twins trade for pitcher Fred Tolliver and send catcher Chris Calvert to Philly. |
February 5, 2002 | MLB owners postpone contraction until the 2003 season; a day after the Minnesota Supreme Court refuses to hear their appeal of the injunction that forces the Twins to honor their Metrodome lease for the 2002 season. |
February 6, 1998 | The Twins trade 2B Chuck Knoblauch to the Yankees and in turn received pitchers Eric Milton and Danny Mota along with shortstop Cristian Guzman and outfielder Brian Buchanan. |
February 11, 1974 | Forty-eight ML players invoke the new arbitration procedure established to settle contract differences. The first is pitcher Dick Woodson (seeking a contract for $30,000) and his team, the Twins (offering $23,000), who present their respective cases to Detroit lawyer and labor arbitrator Harry H. Platt, who must decide on one of the monetary amounts presented. Woodson wins. |
February 11, 1985 | Twins 1B Kent Hrbek signs a new contract that makes him the club's first $1 million player. |
February 12, 1979 | The Red Sox ship outfielder Dave Coleman to Minnesota and the Twins give up 3B Larry Wolfe. |
February 18, 2009 | The Minnesota Twins announced today that they have agreed to terms with free agent righthanded pitcher Luis Ayala on a one-year contract for the 2009 season. |
February 19, 1985 | The Twins send 1B Randy Johnson and outfielder Ron Scheer to the White Sox for shortstop Roy Smalley. |
February 20, 1987 | The Twins send pitcher Mike Shade to the Expos for 2B Al Newman. |
February 20, 2001 | William (Bill) Joseph Rigney, Thw Minnesota Twins fifth manager passed away at the age of 83 in Walnut Creek, California. |
February 24, 1988 | The Twins swap shortstops with the Tigers when they get Doug Baker and give up Julius McDougal. |
March 5, 2006 | Minnesota Twins great and Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett sufferes a massive stroke in his Scottsdale home. |
March 6, 1973 | In an exhibition game with the Pirates, the Twins Larry Hisle becomes the first designated hitter in ML history. Hisle makes the new AL rule look good by collecting 2 HRs and 7 RBI. |
March 6, 2006 | Twins star outfielder and MLB Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett passes away at the age of 45 from a stroke he suffered a day earlier. |
March 7, 1992 | The Twins trade for pitcher John Smiley and send outfielder Midre Cummings and pitcher Denny Neagle to Pittsburg as payment. |
March 12, 2006 | Cal Ripken Jr., Kent Hrbek and others share humorous anecdotes during a lighthearted ceremony at the Metrodome honoring the memory of Kirby Puckett. A crowd of 15,000 Twins fans pay their final respect to their beloved Hall of Fame outfielder who died last week at age 45 following a stroke suffered the day before at his home in Arizona |
March 14, 1960 | Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett is born in Chicago, Illinois. |
March 14, 1994 | The Twins sell catcher Lenny Webster to the Montreal Expos. |
March 20, 1989 | The Twins send pitcher Balvino Galvez to the Yankees and receive pitcher Steve Shields in return. |
March 21, 1970 | The Twins acquire outfielder Brant Alyea from Washington and part ways with pitcher Joe Grezenda and pitcher Charley Walters who will later become a St. Paul Pioneer Press sports writer. |
March 21, 1989 | 2B Steve Lombardozzi is sent packing to the Astros and the Twins acquire 2B Mica Lewis and outfielder Ramon Cedeno. |
March 22, 2010 | Catcher Joe Mauer officially signed his eight-year, $184 million contract extension (2011 - 2018) in a press conference at the Lee County Sports Complex. The contract is the 4th highest contract ever signed in MLB. |
March 24, 1988 | The Twins trade outfielder (and future Oakland A's GM) Billy Beane to Detroit for pitcher Balvino Galvez. |
March 25, 1983 | In a straight catcher for catcher trade, the Twins part ways with Sal Butera and acquire Stine Poole from the Tigers. |
March 26, 1989 | Pitcher Keith Atherton is sent to the Indians for outfielder Carmelo Castillo. |
March 26, 1993 | The Rockies send pitcher Brett Merriman to Minnesota and in return the Twins send pitchers Gary Wayne and Rob Wassenaar out west. |
March 27, 1973 | Twins' pitcher Jim Perry becomes the first player to use the '10 and 5 rule' when he okays his own trade to the Tigers for minor league pitcher Dan Fife and cash. |
March 27, 1985 | The Twins move pitcher Brad Havens to the Orioles and receive pitcher Mark Brown. |
March 27, 2005 | Bob Casey, the first and only Twins public-address announcer passed away. |
March 27, 2010 | The University of Minnesota Gophers lost to Louisiana Tech 9-1 in the first baseball game played at the Twins’ new home, Taget Fiield. More than 37,757 people came through the turnstiles after they opened in the morning for fans to take a look, sit in the seats and sample the food. Tickets were $2, with proceeds going to the team’s community fund. Former Gophers and Twins catcher Terry Steinbach threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Louisiana Tech’s Clint Ewing hit the ballpark’s first home run. |
March 28, 1973 | The Twins trade pitcher Ken Reynolds to Milwaukee and get 3B Mike Ferraro in return. |
March 28, 1983 | The Dodgers send outfielder Tack Wilson to Minnesota for shortstop Ivan Mesa. |
March 28, 1992 | The Twins send 1B Paul Sorrento to the Indians for pitchers Curt Leskanic and Oscar Munoz. |
March 28, 1996 | On the last day of training camp, Kirby Puckett wakes up and is unable to see out of his right eye. He was diagnosed with glaucoma, and four eye surgeries in a four-month span do nothing to improve his vision. |
March 29, 1971 | The Twins trade pitcher Bill Zepp to the Detroit Tigers and receive outfielder Mike Adams and pitcher Art Clifford. |
March 30, 1981 | The Twins trade outfielder Ken Landreaux to the Dodgers for outfielder-3B Mickey Hatcher, 1B Kelly Snider, and pitcher Matt Reeves. |
March 31, 1987 | Just before the Twins open their championship 1987 season they trade pitchers Bryan Hickerson, Ray Velasquez, and Jose Dominguez to the Giants for pitcher David Blakely and outfielder Dan Gladden. |
March 31, 1999 | The Twins send pitcher Dan Serafini to the Cubs and get cash for their coffers. |
March 31, 2003 | The earliest opening day in Minnesota Twins history takes place at the Twins beat the Tigers 3-1 in Detroit. |
March 31, 2010 | Twins outfielder Denard Span struck his mother, Wanda Wilson, in the chest with a foul ball while batting in the first inning on Wednesday at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa against the Yankees in a spring training game. Span was leading off the game against the Yankees' Phil Hughes when he fouled a 3-2 pitch directly to the left of the visitors' third-base dugout, where a group of friends and family members were settling in for the game. The ball struck his mother, who was sitting three rows from the field and wearing a Twins jersey with Span's name on it, with a thud that was audible to the players on the Minnesota bench. Span immediately dashed into the seating bowl, consoling her as help arrived. Luckily, Span's mother was not seriously hurt and after being checked out, watched the remainder of the game. |
April 1, 2007 | Herb Carneal, the Hall of Fame radio voice of the Minnesota Twins for all but one year of their existence, died in his home in Minnetonka at the age of 83, Minnesota after a long battle with a number of illnesses. The pressbox at the Metrodome was named in his honor. |
April 2, 1962 | The Twins trade pitcher Pedro Ramos to Cleveland for 1B Vic Power and pitcher Dick Stigman in what could be considered the Minnesota Twins first major trade. |
April 2, 1979 | The Twins trade for pitcher John Verhoeven and in turn send pitcher Johnny Sutton to the White Sox. |
April 2, 2002 | The Twins open the 2002 season with five home runs, including a three-run homer and a solo shot by Jacque Jones, to beat Kansas City 8-6. David Ortiz, Brian Buchanan and Torii Hunter also homered for the Twins. |
April 2, 2010 | Playing in Target Field for the first time, albeit in a spring training exhibition game, the Twins lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 8-4. Carl Pavano started for the Twins and was the losing pitcher. Kyle Loshe a former Twins pitcher started for the Cardinals and notched the first Target Field win. Twins outfielder Denard Span had the first hit (a triple). the first homerun, and the first run scored. The game started under cloudy skies and a temperature of 65 degrees. |
April 3, 1982 | The Twins beat the Philadelphia Phillies 5-0 in an exhibition game, the first event ever held in the new Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Pete Rose of the Phillies gets the first hit in the new stadium and Kent Hrbek hits the first two home runs in the Metrodome. |
April 3, 2000 | TC Bear is introduced as the Twins new mascot. The TC stands for Twin Cities. A case could be made that TC Bear bears some resemblence to the Hamm's Beer Bear, a mascot used in advertisements for Hamm's Brewery, an early sponsor for the Twins dating back to the early 1960's. |
April 4, 1989 | Forty-five-year-old Tommy John starts for the Yankees on Opening Day and sets a modern ML record by appearing in his 26th season. He also wins his 287th game 4-2 over the Twins. |
April 4, 1990 | The Twins receive pitcher Orlando Lind and catcher Junior Ortiz from the Pirates in return for pitcher Mike Pomeranz. Pomeranz is now a news anchor at Minneapolis TV station KARE 11. |
April 6, 1951 | Twins pitching great Rik Aalbert "Bert" Blyleven was born on this day in Zeist, Netherlands. Blyleven, now a Twins TV color commentator makes a big deal about his birthday and seems to mention his birthday on every Twins telecast and can tell you on any day of the year how many days it is until his next birthday. Bert is famous for useing his "telestrator" for circling Twins fans in the crowd who have brought their "circle me Bert" signs to the ball game. |
April 6, 1966 | The Twins swing a deal with the Red Sox and acquire catcher Russ Nixon and 2B Chuck Schilling and give up pitcher Dick Stigman and 1B Jose Calero. |
April 6, 1972 | For the first time in history, the major leagues failed to open because of a player strike, which started on April 1. The traditional season opener between Houston and Cincinnati was canceled and 86 games were lost before the strike was settled. |
April 6, 1973 | Tony Oliva hits the first home run ever by a designated hitter in AL history when he cranks one out against "Catfish" Hunter in Oakland in the Twins 8-3 victory. |
April 6, 1982 | The largest crowd ever to see a baseball game in Minnesota--52,279--turns out for the inaugural game at the brand-new Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Twins rookie 3B Gary Gaetti goes 4-for-4 with a pair of home runs, but Seattle wins 11-7. |
April 6, 2009 | The Twins open their 28th and final season at the Metrodome with a 6-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners. The Twins opponent in the first regular season game at the Metrodome on April 6, 1982 was also the Mariners and the Twins lost that game 11-7. |
April 7, 1970 | Outfielder Brant Alyea has 7 RBIs to back Jim Perry as the Twins win their opener. Alyea will have 21 RBI in his first 12 games, and in Perry's first 4 starts Alyea will drive in 19 runs. |
April 7, 1972 | The Twins trade pitcher Pete Hamm to the Reds for pitcher Greg Garrett. |
April 8, 1963 | Pitcher Bill Dailey was purchased from the Cleveland Indians. |
April 8, 1969 | The Royals play their first game in the history of the franchise and joins the winner circle along with the other three new clubs making their debuts today. Reliever Moe Drabowsky picks up the win as Kansas City beat the Twins in 12 innings, 4-3 in Kansas City Municipal Stadium. |
April 8, 1997 | The Twins send pitcher Scott Klingenbeck to the Reds for cash considerations. |
April 9, 2000 | In the Twins 13-7 win over Kansas City at Kauffman Stadium, Minnesota's Ron Coomer, Jacque Jones and Matt LeCroy hit consecutive home runs. The Royals' Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye and Mike Sweeney repeated the feat, marking the first time in major league history that both teams hit three consecutive home runs in the same game. |
April 10, 1982 | The Yankees trade relief pitchers Ron Davis and Paul Boris and shortstop Greg Gagne to the Twins for veteran infielder Roy Smalley and pitcher Gary Serum. |
April 11, 1961 | The Minnesota Twins win the first game in their history when Pedro Ramos shuts out the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium 6-0. |
April 12, 1965 | In Minnesota, the Yankees drop their second straight 11th inning opener, as the Twins win 5-4. Twins starter Jim Kaat, stranded because of the ice and snow, is brought to Metropolitan Stadium by helicopter. Kaat is matched by Jim Bouton, who goes five innings, giving up two earned runs. Bob Allison's wind-blown fly ball in the 11th drops untouched for a three-base error by Hector Lopez, one of eight errors the two teams combine for. Cesar Tovar's 2-out single scores the winner off Pedro Ramos. |
April 12, 1990 | The Twins and Rangers hook up on a deal and the Twins get 2B Fred Manrique and the Randgers receive pitcher Jeff Satzinger. |
April 12, 2002 | In their first sellout since winning the World Series in 1991, the Twins beat the Tigers in their home opener, 4-2, in front of 48,244 loud and enthusiastic fans at the Metrodome. The Minnesota franchise had been considered for elimination due to MLB's contraction plan proposed during the off-season. |
April 12, 2005 | The Twins beat the Tigers 5-4 when Shannon Stewart singles off Troy Percival in the bottom of the 9th and breaks a streak in which Percival had not allowed the Twins to score an earned run over 40 innings since 1995. |
April 12, 2010 | In the first regular season game at Target Field the Twins beat the Boston Red Sox 5-2 with starter Carl Pavano getting the win and Red Sox starter Jon Lester took the loss. Closer Jon Rauch recorded the first save at Target Field. The first hit was a single by Red Sox leadoff hitter Marco Scutaro who was later thrown out trying to steal 2B. The first Twins hit was a single by Orlando Hudson. The first homerun at Target Field was a 391 foot shot to right off the bat of Jason Kubel in the 7th inning. Game time temperature was 68 degrees with partly sunny skies. Attendance was 39,715, slightly over the capacity figure of 39,504. Paid attendance was 38,145. The game lasted 2:59. |
April 13, 1972 | The first players strike in baseball history ended after 13 days. |
April 14, 1983 | The Metrodome roof deflated due to a tear caused by heavy snow and the scheduled game with California was postponed. To this day it remains the only postponement in Metrodome history. |
April 15, 1962 | Jim Manning became the youngest Twins player to appear in a MLB game when he came in to pitch at the tender age of 18 years, 8 months and 25 days. Manning had been signed as a free agent prior to the 1961 season and pitched just 45 innings in 12 class D ball games in 1961 before make his major league debut on this date. Jim made four more appearances for the Twins before being sent down to the minors and he never made another big league appearance again. |
April 15, 1976 | New York opened the refurbished Yankee Stadium with an 11-4 rout of the Minnesota Twins. The Yankees beat the Twins 11-4 on 14 hits, but the only HRs are the 2 hit by Minnesota's Dan Ford. |
April 15, 2000 | Cal "Iron Man" Ripken became the 24th player to reach 3,000 hits when he lined a clean single to center off Minnesota reliever Hector Carrasco at the Metrodome. He reached the milestone with his third hit in a 6-4 victory over the Twins and became the seventh player in major league history to get 3,000 hits and 400 home runs. |
April 15, 2001 | Eric Milton struck out eight of the first 10 batters he faced Sunday as Minnesota beat the Chicago White Sox 4-3 for their sixth straight win and best start ever at 9-2. |
April 15, 2009 | Every player in the Twins/Blue Jays game today wore the number 42, as a matter of fact, all major league players, coaches, managers, and umpires wore the number 42 today in all games played today as a tribute to Jackie Robinson. It was kind of wierd watching the game in the Metrodome when ever player had the same number. |
April 16, 1961 | Outfielder Bob Allison hits the Twins first ever grand slam home run when he knocks one out of the park at Baltimore against Chuck Estrada in the first inning. |
April 16, 1963 | In a 13-inning, 11-10 loss at Minnesota, the Angels use 9 pitchers, tying the ML record for an extra-inning contest. |
April 17, 2009 | Jason Kubel hit for the cycle at the Metrodome against the Angels. Kubel became the ninth Twins player to hit for the cycle when he doubled in the first, singled in the third, and tripled n the sixth before clobbering a grand slam homerun in the 8th inning as the Twins rallied for an 11-9 win. The Twins claimed pitcher Juan Morillo on waivers from the Colorado Rockies. |
April 18, 2010 | Ray Barton the artist/designer who was commissioned by Twins team owner Calvin Griffith in 1961 to design a logo for the Minnesota Twins passed away at the age of 80 of cancer at his Little Canada home on April 18, 2010. The logo showed two baseball players (Minnie and Paul) shaking hands across the Mississippi River. Barton is paid $15 for the logo. |
April 19, 1988 | Twins pitcher Joe Niekro is called for 3 balks and sets a dubious Twins record as the Yankees beat the Twins 7-6 at the Metrodome and Niekro is saddled with the loss. |
April 21, 1961 | The Minnesota Twins played their inaugural home game at Metropolitan stadium but came away with a loss against Joe McClain and the Washington Senators. The Senators score 2 in the top of the ninth off reliever Ray Moore and pin a 5-3 defeat on the Twins. 24,606 fans attended the Twins first home game but team ownership was disappointed that the game was not a sell-out with about 6,000 seats sitting empty. |
April 21, 1967 | Tony Oliva of Minnesota lost a home run due to a base running blunder. Playing in Detroit in the third inning, Cesar Tovar was the runner at first base. Oliva hit the ball out of the park off Denny McLain, but then passed Tovar between first and second. He was credited with a single and one RBI for scoring Tovar. In the ninth inning Oliva hit another home run and this one counted. |
April 21, 1994 | Eddie Murray set a major league record with his 11th switch-hit home run (home run from each side of the plate) game as the Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins 10-6 at the Metrodome. |
April 21, 2004 | The Twins sell Brad Thomas to the Boston Red Sox. |
April 21, 2007 | The Twins had started the 2007 season with 19 consecutive stolen bases before Torii Hunter got caught in the 8th inning of their 17th game of the season. |
April 22, 1988 | In a real stunner, the Cardinals trade veteran 2B Tom Herr to the Twins for outfielder Tom Brunansky. This will go down in history as one of the Twins worst ever trades. |
April 23, 1980 | Angels pitcher Bruce Kison settles for a one-hitter when Minnesota's Ken Landreaux rips a double with one out in the 9th inning of California's 17-0 romp. For Landreaux, the hit marks the beginning of a 31-game hitting streak. |
April 24, 1956 | Metropolitan Stadium was opened. |
April 24, 1996 | Greg Myers and Paul Molitor each had five RBIs as the Minnesota Twins set a team record for runs and routed the Detroit Tigers 24-11. It was the most runs against the Tigers in 84 years, matching the mark set in a 24-2 loss to the Philadelphia Athletics on May 18, 1912. |
April 25, 1977 | Twins pitchers Mike Pazik and Don Carrithers were seriously injured in an automobile accident when their van collided with a car going the wrong way on an exit ramp in Bloomington, MN. Pazik suffered two broken bones in each leg and was out for the season. Carrithers, who was driving, suffered a compound fracture of his right knee, a partial rupture of the quadraceps tendon near his knee and a fractured right wrist and ended missing three months of the 1977 season. |
April 25, 1980 | Making his first appearance in Minnesota since his fight with a marshmallow salesman in the Fall of 1979, A's manager Billy Martin has to be restrained by umpires from attacking a fan who was pelting him with marshmallows during the Twins' 10-3 victory. |
April 26, 1986 | The game between the Angels and Twins is delayed for 9 minutes when strong 60 MPH wind gusts tear a hole in the Metrodome roof during a thunderstorm, causing suspended lights and speakers to sag toward the field and scare the wits out of 31,966 fans. The roof is reinflated and California rallies for 6 runs in the 9th to win 7-6. |
April 27, 1961 | The expansion Los Angeles Angels play their first home game bowing to the Twins at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, 4-2. The 74-year old baseball legend Ty Cobb, in his last-ever visit to a ballpark, throws out the first ceremonial pitch. |
April 27, 1969 | Camilo Pascual hits a grand slam home run off pitcher Stan Williams in a 11-1 Twins win over the Indians in Cleveland Stadium. Camilo pitches a complete game two hitter and strikes out five in the process. Pascual is the first and only Twins pitcher to hit a grand slam home run. |
April 27, 1969 | Harmon Killebrew hits his 400th HR, and the Twins take over first place in the AL West by beating Chicago 4-3. |
April 27, 1980 | The Twins score 10 runs in the first inning on their way to a 20-11 thrashing of the A's. Minnesota starter Geoff Zahn can't hold the 10-0 lead, allowing 8 runs in 4 1/3 innings, and Doug Corbett picks up the win in relief. |
April 27, 1994 | Scott Erickson, who allowed the most hits in the majors the previous season, pitched Minnesota's first no-hitter in 27 years and the Twins third no-hitter as the Twins beat Milwaukee 6-0 at the Metrodome. |
April 28, 1985 | Mickey Hatcher goes 4-for-5 as the Twins post their 8th consecutive win, 10-1 over Oakland. Hatcher was 5-for-5 the day before, giving him a club record 9 consecutive hits. |
April 28, 1988 | The winless Baltimore Orioles set an AL record with their 21st consecutive loss, a 4-2 loss to the Twins, breaking the record shared by the 1906 Red Sox and the 1916 and 1943 A's. |
April 28, 2010 | Rookie Luke Hughes hit a home run in his first major league at bat and in the process became the fifth Minnesota Twin to accomplish this feat. Hughes hit his homerun to right field off Detroit Tiger starter Max Scherzer in Detroit on a 2-2 count as he lead off the third inning. Actually Hughes was batting in the second inning when Delmon Young was caught stealing third base for the final out of the second inning so that at bat did not count. Hughes, who was born in Perth, Australia, is the eighth Aussie to hit a homer in the major leagues and the first to do so in his first at-bat in the bigs. Unfortunetly for Hughes and the Twins, they lost the game to the Tigers by an 11-6 score. |
April 29, 1962 | The Twins tied a ML record with 6 solo HRs against the Indians in the 2nd game of a Minnesota sweep. The Twins down the Indians 8-4 and 7-3. The home runs were hit by Lenny Green, Don Mincher, Zoilo Versalles, Bill Tuttle and Johnny Goryl hit two dingers. |
April 30, 1986 | The Twins receive pitchers Juan Agosto and Kurt Walker from the Cleveland Indians in return for pitcher Pete Filson. |
May 1, 2005 | Johan Santana losses to the Angels at the Metrodome 2-1 and suffers his first defeat in his last 20 starts going back to 2004. Santana had won 17 games without a loss. |
May 2, 1963 | The Twins trade pitcher Jack Kralick to Cleveland for pitcher Jim Perry. Perry makes a fine addition to the Twins and goes on to win the AL Cy Young award in 1970. |
May 2, 1964 | Minnesota becomes the 3rd club to hit 4 consecutive HRs in one inning. Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, and Harmon Killebrew do the damage in an 11th-inning explosion that gives the Twins a 7-3 win at Kansas City. |
May 2, 1967 | A number of Twins games were played in cold weather at Met Stadium but the coldest start to any game was 32 degrees when they beat the Yankees 13-4 in front of 8,171 fans in 2 hours and 29 minutes. |
May 2, 1992 | The Twins hit four home runs in the fifth inning at Yankee Stadium off Yankee hurler Scott Sanderson and eventually win the game 7-6. Shane Mack, Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, and Randy Bush hit the long balls in the fifth inning. Chili Davis hits another home run in the eighth inning which proves to be the winning run. |
May 2, 2001 | Metrodome fans pelted former Twins player Chuck Knoblauch with hotdogs (it was a "Dollar-a-dog" night) and other objects, causing umpires to pull the Yankees off the field for 12 minutes during Minnesota's 4-2 win. Twins manager Tom Kelly strolled out to left field to plead with the fans to stop. Over 40 Twins fans are ejected from the game. |
May 3, 1964 | The Kanas City Athletics sweep the Twins 7-4 and 8-7 at Municipal Stadium and KC reliever John Wyatt picks up the victory in both games. |
May 3, 1986 | Minnesota's Kirby Puckett hits a home run on the game's first pitch (from Walt Terrell) for the 2nd consecutive night, but the Twins lose to the Tigers 7-4. The night before Puckett hit Jack Morris’s first pitch for a home run to spark the Twins to a 10-1 victory. |
May 4, 1974 | Less then 3 months after pitcher Dick Woodson wins MLB’s first salary arbitration case, the Twins exile him to the New York Yankees for pitcher Mike Pazik. Owner Calvin Griffith swore he would never pay Woodson the money and he held true to his word. |
May 4, 1975 | The Minnesota Twins retired their first number ever, HOF Harmon Killebrew’s number 3. Harmon, playing for the Kansas City Royals, hit his first ever home run against the Twins and it was at Met Stadium in a Twins 6-3 win over the Royals. Vic Albury gave up the long ball to Harmon in the first inning. |
May 4, 1982 | Minnesota Twins' rookie outfielder Jim Eisenreich, who suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, removes himself, due to taunts from Boston Red Sox bleacher fans. |
May 4, 1984 | In the fourth inning of the Twins-A's game, Oakland’s Dave Kingman hit a ball into one of the Metrodome roof’s drainage holes and the ball never came back down. Kingman's pop-up had gone up 180 feet and into one of the seven inch drainage holes in the inner layer of the roof. The umpires gathered to discuss the event that had never happened before in a major league game and awarded Kingman a ground rule double. In the ninth inning Kingman homered for Oakland's only run and the Twins won 3-1. Before the game the next day, a Dome worker found the ball and let it fall on the field to waiting Twins outfielder Mickey Hatcher, he dropped it. |
May 4, 1999 | The Twins beat the Yankees 8-4 at the Metrodome as Mike Lincoln gets the win and the Twins get victory number 3,000. |
May 5, 2001 | Minnesota closer LaTroy Hawkins blew a save for the first time in 24 career chances as the Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 12-10 in 12 innings. Latroy sets a MLB record with 23 saves in 23 chances at the beginning of his closer career. |
May 5, 2005 | On 05/05/05, the Twins scored five times in the fifth inning en route to a 9-0 victory over the Indians at the Metrodome. |
May 7, 1978 | Roy Smally walks 5 times in a 15-9 Twins win over the Orioles in Memorial Stadium. |
May 7, 1989 | Twins outfielder Dan Gladden makes his second mound appearance for the Twins, this time at Cleveland Stadium in a 12-1 loss to the Indians. Gladden pitched one inning giving up a walk, two hits and one run. This is the fourth time that a Twins position player has towed the pitching rubber. |
May 7, 1995 | The Minnesota Twins lose to the Cleveland Indians 10-9 in 17 innings at Jacobs Field. The game lasts 6 hours and 36 minutes. |
May 7, 2000 | Tom Kelly became the 46th manager and first ever Twins manager to win 1,000 games as the Minnesota Twins beat the visiting Detroit Tigers, 4-0, behind a five-hitter from Joe Mays. |
May 7, 2005 | The Twins beat Tampa Bay 8-1 on the road for team win number 3,500 and Kyle Loshe picks up the victory. |
May 7, 2008 | Outfielder Carlos Gomez hits for the cycle against the White Sox in Chicago. After a long rain delay, Gomez leads off the game with a home run and then follows that with a triple, double, and a single going 4 for 6 for the day in a Twins 13-1 romp over the mighty whities. |
May 7, 2010 | It's the first rainout at the team's new Target Field, and the first rainout of a Twins home game since Sept. 20, 1980, at the old Metropolitan Stadium. The game was made up the next day in a day-night doubleheader. |
May 8, 1967 | Rod Carew becomes the first Minnesota Twin to get 5 hits in a single game at Metropolitan Stadium. |
May 8, 1968 | Oakland's "Catfish" Hunter pitches a perfect game against the Twins in front of only 6,298 fans at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum winning 4-0. The 22-year-old right-hander hurls the first AL regular season perfecto in 46 years. He strikes out 11 and drives in 3 of the A's 4 runs. |
May 8, 1979 | The Twins beat up on the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 16-6 at Met Stadium in front of only 3,126 home town fans and in the process set a team record of 12 extra base hits mixed in their total of 19 hits. Doubles were hit by Willie Norwood, Bombo Rivera hit 2, Ken Landreaux, Glenn Borgmann, and Bobby Randall. John Castino added a triple, while Roy Smalley and Craig Kusick each hit two home runs and Kenny Landreaux contributed one home run to the cause. |
May 8, 1984 | Minnesota's Kirby Puckett became the 9th player in history to collect four singles in his first major league game as the Twins beat the California Angels 5-0. Kirby goes on to become a Twins legend and a MLB Hall of Famer. |
May 9, 1961 | Jim Gentile becomes the 4th player to hit grand slams in consecutive innings. (Tony Lazzeri in 1936, Jim Tabor in 1939, Rudy York in 1946 are the others) when he belts one off Pedro Ramos in the first and adds another off Paul Giel in the 2nd. His 8 RBI in consecutive innings set a ML record. Gentile also tacks on a sacrifice fly to give him 9 RBI in the 13-5 drubbing of the Twins at Met stadium. |
May 10, 1962 | Minnesota's Lenny Green and Vic Power hit back-to-back HRs off Cleveland's Jim Perry to start the game, tying a ML record. Cleveland comes back to win 9-4. |
May 10, 1982 | Gary Ward hits the first Twins Metrodome grand slam off of Boston’s Mike Torrez. |
May 10, 2000 | In their biggest come from behind victory ever, the Twins storm back from an 8-1 deficit at the Metrodome and beat the Indians 10-9. |
May 11, 1982 | The Twins trade ace reliever Doug Corbett and 2B Rob Wilfong to California for outfielder Tom Brunansky, pitcher Mike Walters and cash. |
May 12, 1972 | The Brewers edge the Twins 4-3 in a 22-inning marathon at the Met that lasts for 5 hours and 47 m inutes. A day later the two teams will tangle for another 15 innings, with the Twins coming out on top 4-2. |
May 12, 1982 | In their 2nd major trade in as many days, the Twins deal catcher Butch Wynegar and pitcher Roger Erickson to the Yankees for infielder Larry Milbourne and minor league pitchers John Pacella and Pete Filson, and cash. The Twins' frugal owner, Calvin Griffith, is roundly criticized for the deals, in which he appears to be unloading high-salaried veterans at the expense of a winning ball club. |
May 12, 2002 | In a game they would rather forget, the Twins score three times in the top of the 14th at Yankee stadium to take a 13-10 lead, Jason Giambi hits a one-out grand slam off reliever Mike Trombley to give the Bronx Bombers a one-run victory. |
May 12, 2008 | Michael Cuddyer who fancies himself as a magician, pulls off a magical catch off of Red Sox 2B Dustin Pedroia’s fly ball at the dome when the ball pops out of Cuddyer’s glove, bounced off his head, rolled down the bill of his cap before Mike grabbed it for the out. |
May 13, 1985 | UGLY, just plain UGLY is the only way to describe this game. Trailing 8-0 after 2 innings, the Yankees rally to beat Minnesota 9-8 on Don Mattingly’s 3-run home run off closer Ron Davis with 2 out in the bottom of the 9th at Yankee stadium. |
May 13, 1989 | Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins hits four doubles against the Blue Jays at the Metrodome in a 10-8 Twins win. He became the 35th player to hit four doubles in a game, the first since Toronto's Damaso Garcia in 1986. |
May 14, 1972 | Jim Kaat hits a 2 run home run off Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Skip Lockwood in the third inning at Met Stadium in a Twins 4-2 victory. It turns out that this is the last home run that a Twins pitcher has hit in a home game. |
May 14, 2006 | On a Mothers Day nationally ESPN broadcast game from the Metrodome the Twins lose 9-7 to the White Sox in a crazy game after scoring 7 runs in the bottom of the first inning and taking a 7-3 lead. White Sox Mark Buehrle became only the second ML pitcher to win a game after giving up 7 runs in the first inning. In the sixth inning, Twins 2B Luis Castillo hit into a triple play. |
May 15, 1991 | Milwaukee Brewer Paul Molitor hits for the cycle at the Metrodome and goes 5-5 against Twins pitcher Kevin Tapani. |
May 16, 1928 | Billy Martin was born in Berkeley, California. Billy played in the majors for 11 seasons with the New York Yankees, Kansas City A's, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Braves and finished his career with the Minnesota Twins in 1961. Billy managed the Twins in 1969, the Tigers in 1971-1973, the Texas Rangers in 1973-1975, the New York Yankees from 1975-1979, 1983, 1985 and again in 1988, and the Oakland A's from 1980-1982. Bill died on December 25, 1989. |
May 16, 1984 | The Twins sell 51,863 tickets to their 8-7 loss to the Blue Jays, but only 6,346 fans show up for the game. The skewed numbers are the result of a massive ticket buyout plan organized by Minneapolis businessman Harvey Mackay to keep the Twins in Minnesota; if the club does not sell 2.41 million tickets this season it can break its lease with the Metrodome. Taking advantage of reduced prices on the Family Day promotion, Mackay pays $218,718 for 44,166 tickets. |
May 16, 2010 | Jason Kubel hit a stunning grand slam off Mariano Rivera with two outs in the eighth inning Sunday, and the Twins snapped a nine-game losing streak against the Yankees with a 6-3 victory. Kubel’s third homer of the season and sixth career slam snapped a string of 51 straight converted save opportunities for Rivera at home, tying the major league record set by Eric Gagne with the Dodgers. Nick Blackburn (4-1) allowed three runs and nine hits in seven innings for Minnesota, which picked up its first win against New York since Aug. 13, 2008. The Twins had lost 12 straight overall against New York, counting the sweep in last year’s AL division series. |
May 17, 1963 | Outfielder Bob Allison becomes the first Twin to ever hit 3 home runs in a single game when he bangs out 3 against the Indians in Memorial Stadium in Cleveland. |
May 17, 1998 | David (Boomer) Wells pitched the 13th perfect game in modern major league history as the New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins 4-0 at Yankee Stadium in front of nearly 50,000 fans on Beanie Baby Day. |
May 18, 1969 | Rod Carew steals 2B, 3B, and home in the 3rd inning of Minnesota's 8-2 loss to the Tigers at the Met. Cesar Tovar also steals 3rd and home that inning to tie a ML record. Detroit's Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan are the embarrassed battery. |
May 19, 1961 | Outfielder Dan Dobbek hits the Twins first grand slam home run at Metropolitan Stadium off of KC hurler Ed Rakow. |
May 19, 1990 | Twins outfielder John Moses makes his second appearance as a Twins pitcher in Fenway Park in a 13-1 loss to the Red Sox. John pitched one inning allowing two hits and one run. This is the sixth time that a Twins position player has turned pitcher. Red Sox RF anf former Twins player Tom Brunansky has a huge day going 5 for 5 with a double and 2 home runs, scoring three times and knocking in 7 more. |
May 19, 2008 | The Twins beat the Texas Rangers 7-6 in 12 innings at the Metrodome. After blowing a lead, the Twins scored one in the bottom of the 9th inning to tie the score at 6 apiece. The Twins give up their DH in the 10th inning and Twins reliever Bobby Korecky is forced to hit in the bottom of the 11th and delivers a single in what turns out to be the only time that a Twins pitcher has had a base hit in the Metrodome. The Twins end up scoring on a walk-off double by Howie Clark in the 12th inning. Korecky also gets the victory, his first major league win. |
May 20, 1962 | The Twins split a double header at Yankee Stadium losing the first game 4-3 and winning the second game 4-2. Twins reliever Ray Moore becomes the first Twins pitcher to lose and win a game in the same day. |
May 20, 1970 | Rod Carew becomes the first Twins player to hit for the cycle when he accomplishes that rare feat in a 10-5 win over the Royals in Kansas City. |
May 20, 1984 | Boston's Roger Clemens strikes out 7 batters in 7 innings en route to his first ML victory, 5-4 over the Twins. |
May 20, 1986 | The Twins trade pitcher Eric Broersma to Oakland for pitcher Keith Atherton. |
May 20, 1989 | Danny Gladden ties a major league record when get gets 7 official at bats against the Texas Rangers in a 9 inning game. Randy Bush ties a Twins record with 8 RBI's in a 19-3 win at Arlington Stadium. |
May 20, 1995 | Minnesota Twins Marty Cordova ties a rookie record of homeruns by hitting home runs in five consecutive games. |
May 20, 2005 | In an amazing pitching performance, Carlos Silva beats the Brewers 7-1 at the Metrodome with a 74 pitch complete game win in a game that lasted 2 hours and 27 minutes.. |
May 20, 2009 | Pitcher Craig Breslow was claimed off waivers by the Oakland Athletics. |
May 21, 1999 | The Twins trade pitchers Rick Aguilera and Scott Downs to the Cubs to get pitchers Kyle Loshe and Jason Ryan. |
May 22, 1981 | Coach Billy Gardner replaces the fired John Goryl as manager of the Twins. Minnesota (11-25) had lost 8 consecutive games, but shuts out Kansas City 7-0 in Gardner's managerial debut. |
May 22, 2002 | Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura approves a financing framework for a $330 million open-air stadium. The bill is the result a seven-year effort by the Twins to secure help from the state, but the plan has only tepid support from the club because team officials are unsure if they'll be able to find $120 million for a required down payment and get a guarantee from major league baseball that a team will play in Minnesota for at least 30 years. When all the smoke clears the plan expires and nothing happens. |
May 22, 2009 | Right fielder Michael Cuddyer goes 4 for 5 and hits for the cycle to become the second Twins player in the 2009 season to accomplish the rare feat. The Twins whip the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3 in this inter-league game at the Metrodome. |
May 22, 2010 | The Twins blew a four-run lead in the top of the ninth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Target Field but won in 12 innings, 8-7. It was only the second Twins home game since moving to Minnesota in 1961 in which they blew a four-run lead in the ninth inning but went on to win. The other time was on September 2, 2001, when the Angels came back from a four-run deficit in the ninth, before Denny Hocking's walk-off homer in bottom of the ninth. |
May 23, 1991 | Kirby Puckett bangs out 6 hits including 5 singles and a triple against the Texas Rangers at the Metrodome but the Twins still lose 10-6 in 11 innings. |
May 23, 1997 | The Minnesota Twins along with all the other teams in MLB retire Jackie Robinson’s number 42. |
May 23, 2009 | Anthony Swarzak became the first pitcher in Twins history to start a game and toss 7 scoreless innings in his major league debut. |
May 24, 1964 | Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins hit the longest home run in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, a 471-foot shot to left-center off right-hander Milt Pappas in the 8th inning of a 7-6 loss to the Orioles. |
May 25, 1981 | Texas utility man Bill Stein drives in the winning run with a pinch single in the bottom of the 9th inning of a 4-3 win over Minnesota. It is Stein's 7th consecutive pinch-hit, a new AL record. |
May 25, 1997 | The Twins retire HOF Kirby Puckett’s number 34. |
May 25, 1977 | Outfielder Lyman Bostock has 12 putouts in the 2nd game of a doubleheader, tying the ML mark, as the Twins sweep the Red Sox. |
May 25, 2010 | The Twins and their fans witnessed Target Fields first suspended game. The opener of a three-game series between the Yankees and Twins was suspended due to rain with the scored tied 0-0 after five innings, the game was resumed where it left off the next afternoon. It was the first rain delay at an outdoor Twins home game since a contest against the Rangers on Sept. 26, 1981. That delay lasted 48 minutes in front of 4,959 fans. |
May 26, 1968 | Billy Martin leaves the Twins coaching ranks to take over as manager of the AAA Denver Bears of the Pacific Coast league. Martin replaces Johnny Goryl who was let go several days earlier. Billy plans to gain some managerial experience in hopes of landing a big league managing job. The Bears end up with a 73-72 record and Billy Martin is named the Minnesota Twins manager in October of 1968 replacing Cal Ermer. |
May 26, 2006 | Governor Tim Pawlenty signs the Twins ballpark (Target Field) legislation into law on the Metrodome field prior to the Twins-Mariners game. |
May 27, 1961 | Shortstop Zoilo Versalles becomes the first Twin to get 5 hits in a game when he hits 2 doubles and 3 singles against Washington on the road. |
May 27, 1983 | Twins reliever Rick Lysander becomes the first Twins pitcher to lose both games of a double header at the Tigers beat the Twins 7-4 and 2-1 at Tiger Stadium. |
May 27, 2010 | Jason Kubel became the first Twins player with a two-homer game at Target Field in the Twins 8-2 win over the Yankees. Kubel hit a solo homer in the sixth, a three-run shot in the seventh and had an RBI double for the Twins, who had gone eight games and 349 plate appearances without a home run before the lefty broke the skid. |
May 28, 1968 | The AL announced that the league will be split into two divisions: an East division of Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Washington; and a West division of California, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland and Seattle. |
May 28, 2009 | In the seventh inning of a Twins versus Red Sox game at the Metrodome that we attended, home plate umpire Todd Tichenor throws out Twins catcher Mike Redmond (first ejection in 12 major league seasons) after a close call at the plate and proceeds to throw out Twins manager Gardenhire after a brief "discussion" of the issue. In the bottom of the same inning, Tichenor ejects Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek (who had hit two home runs earlier) for arguing ball/strikes. Red Sox manager Terry Francona runs out to protect his player and promptly becomes the fourth ejection of the game. The Twins end up losing the game 3-1. |
May 29, 1959 | President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his White House staff attend a Washington Senators game. He gets slugger Harmon Killebrew's autograph for his grandson David on a HR ball, as Washington defeats the Red Sox 7-6. |
May 29, 1962 | The Twins acquire pitcher Jim Donohue from the LA Angels in turn the Twins give up pitcher Don Lee. |
May 29, 1981 | The Executive Board of the Players' Association voted unanimously to strike on May 29th due to the unresolved issue of free-agent compensation. The major issue behind the strike was the issue of free agent compensation, or, in other words, what compensation teams would receive if one of their star players was signed as a free agent by another team. The owners wanted a system whereby teams would receive a player of similar value, while the players were opposed, seeing that this would void their newly-acquired right to become free agents after playing out their contract. The resulting compromise was the Free agent compensation draft, which functioned for the next four years. The deadline was extended briefly, however, after the Players' Association's unfair labor complaint was heard by the National Labor Relations Board. At 12:30 A.M on June 12th, union chief Marvin Miller announced the player's strike beginning the longest labor action to date in American sports history. By the time the season finally resumed on August 10th, seven-hundred six games (38 percent of the Major League schedule) had been canceled. Due to the two-month strike, Major League owners elected to split the 1981 season into two halves, with the first-place teams from each half in each division meeting in a best-of-five divisional playoff series. The second half of the season began with the All Star Game on August 9. |
May 29, 1982 | Sal Butera sets a Twins record when he throws out 4 base runners in a game against the Yankees. Ken Griffey Sr., Graig Nettles, Bobby Murcer, and Willie Randolph were the victims that day, Nettles and Murcer were thrown out as part of a Twins’ triple play, the first ever at the Metrodome. |
May 30, 1970 | All-Star voting is returned to the fans, as computerized punch-card ballots appear in stores and ballparks coast to coast. Since 1958 the All-Star squads had been selected by managers, coaches, and players. |
May 30, 1986 | Roy Smalley hits a home run from each side of the plate against the Red Sox at the Metrodome and becomes the first Twins batter to ever do so. |
May 30, 1990 | The Twins acquire pitcher Ed Gustafson from San Francisco and in turn pitcher Francisco Oliveras becomes the property of the Giants. |
May 30, 1992 | Detroit's Rob Deer popped out to shortstop Greg Gagne in consecutive at-bats with both balls richocheting off the Metrodome ceiling. |
May 30, 2010 | The Twins played errorless ball, as usual, in their 6-3 win over the Rangers. Minnesota's total of 12 errors this year is the lowest for any team in major-league history through its first 50 games of a season, shattering the previous record of 17 by the 2006 Red Sox and 2009 Phillies. |
May 31, 1976 | With trade rumors running rampant due to how poorly salary negotiations had progressed, Bert Blyleven walked off the mound at the Met in front of 8,379 fans trailing the California Angels 3-1. A number of fans were on Blylevens' case shouting and singing "bye-bye Bertie" and Blyleven angrily looked up at the hecklers and flashed them the "one finger salute". That was the final straw for Twins management and Bert was traded to Texas the next day. |
May 31, 1980 | Outfielder Ken Landreaux goes 0-for-4 in Minnesota's 11-1 loss to the Orioles Scott McGregor, ending his hitting streak at 31 consecutive games. It is the longest streak in the AL since Dom DiMaggio’s 34-game streak in 1949. Ken’s streak started on April 23rd. |
June 1, 1961 | In the Twins first ever trade, the Twins trade 3B Reno Bertoia and pitcher Paul Giel to Kansas City for outfielder Bill Tuttle. That very same day they acquire 2B Billy Martin from the Milwaukee Braves in exchange for shortstop Billy Consolo. |
June 1, 1976 | The Twins trade pitcher Bert Blyleven and shortstop Danny Thompson to the Rangers for pitchers Bill Singer and Jim Gideon, shortstop Roy Smalley, 3B Mike Cubbage and $250,000. |
June 1, 2005 | A good day for Torii Hunter when he goes 5 for 5 with a grand slam home run, two doubles, amd 2 singles and knocks in all 6 runs as the Twins whip the Indians 6-2 at the Metrodome. |
June 3, 1967 | Harmon Killebrew hit the longest home run ever hit by a Twin, estimated at 520 feet. The Killer crushed this 3 run blast against Lew Burdette of the Angels. The ball landed in the sixth row of the upper deck at Metropolitan Stadium. The ball cracked the seat, which was later painted orange to commemorate the event and the seat eventually found its way to the Hall of Fame. |
June 3, 2010 | The Seattle Mariners and pitcher Felix Hernandez beat the Twins 4-1 at Safeco Field. In the eighth inning, Hernandez struck out 4 batters. After Denard Span and Matt Tolbert went down swinging on strikes, Joe Mauer struck out but reached first on a wild pitch, that allowed King Felix as he is often called to face another batter and he proceeded to blow a fastball clocked at 95 MPH by Justin Morneau for strike three. |
June 4, 1976 | Larry Hisle becomes the third Twins player ever to hit for the cycle as he does so in Baltimore in a 10 inning Twins 8-6 victory. |
June 4, 1982 | Brad Havens and Terry Felton combine to shut out Baltimore 6-0, snapping the Twins' club-record 14-game losing streak. The last-place Twins were 3-26 in the month of May. |
June 4, 2002 | In its 23-2 win over Cleveland at the Metrodome, Minnesota had four players with four hits, four players with at least three RBIs and four players with at least three runs scored. In the seventh inning, the Twins set a franchise record with 10 runs in the frame -- Minnesota batted around before making an out. The Twins had a franchise-record 25 hits. The Twins also set a team mark for their largest margin of victory at 21 which broke the mark of 19 set May 20, 1994 in a 21-2 victory over the Red Sox. The Indians matched their most lopsided loss in history -- 21-0 to Detroit on Sept. 15, 1901. |
June 5, 2001 | The Minnesota Twins had to look no further than their own backyard to find the first overall pick in Tuesday's 2001 First Year Player Draft, catcher Joe Mauer. The three-sport star from Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, Minn., was selected over USC pitcher Mark Prior, Georgia Tech first baseman Mark Teixeira and Middle Tennessee State pitcher Dewon Brazelton. |
June 6, 1961 | Twins manager Cookie Lavagetto is given a week's vacation by owner Calvin Griffith. Coach Sam Mele temporarily replaces Lavagetto. On June 23, Cookie is fired as Twins manager. |
June 6, 1983 | The Twins select pitcher Tim Belcher with the first pick in the annual June free-agent draft, but Belcher will reject their $125,000 signing bonus offer and pitch for Team USA in the Pan American Games instead. He is the only first-rounder who doesn't sign. The Reds take Kurt Stillwell with the 2nd pick. Roger Clemens is taken with the 19th pick. |
June 6, 1987 | The Yankees trade knuckleballer Joe Niekro to the Twins for catcher Mark Salas and Niekro becomes the Twins first Knuckleball pitcher. |
June 6, 2002 | The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission agrees to drop its lawsuit against the Twins and Major League Baseball. The deal settles a lawsuit blocking baseball's contraction plan and removes the Minnesota Twins from consideration for elimination for the 2003 season. |
June 6, 2004 | Local boy Joe Mauer hits his first major league home run, a 3 run shot off Esteban Yan and the Tigers in a 6-5 win at the Metrodome. |
June 8, 1965 | The first ever free agent draft for high schoolers and college age players takes place and the Twins select University of Arizona shortstop Eddie Leon but Leon didn't sign, instead waiting until the Indians drafted him in the second round of the secondary phase of the draft in 1967. |
June 8, 1978 | Bob Horner, the College Player of the Year, is selected first in the free-agent draft by the Braves. The Blue Jays make Lloyd Moseby the 2nd selection. Kent Hrbek lasts until the 17th round. |
June 8, 1995 | The Twins move 1B Dave McCarty to Cincinnati and receive pitcher John Courtright. |
June 9, 1966 | Minnesota rocks Kansas City with the first 5-HR inning in AL history. Rich Rollins, Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Don Mincher, and Harmon Killebrew connect in the 7th inning to give the Twins a 9-4 victory at Met stadium. |
June 9, 1967 | Cal Ermer, who played only one game in the majors, replaces Sam Mele as manager of the Twins. |
June 9, 1975 | The Twins were playing the Indians in Cleveland and Minnesota manager Frank Quilici gave the wrong lineup to the Press Box and evidently to the players. Dan Ford, Danny Thompson and Glenn Borgmann were listed officially as batting seventh, eighth and ninth. However, Ford and Thompson batted in reverse order until the ninth inning. In the first, Thompson made the last out of the inning. Ford and Borgmann, who was also out of order now, both grounded out to start the second. In the fourth, Thompson singled but no runs scored in the inning. Thompson popped out to end the fifth. Ford tripled to start the sixth and eventually scored but Cleveland manager Frank Robinson did not object. In the seventh and eighth innings, all three batters made outs. In the ninth inning, the Twins finally batted in the proper order. Ford and Thompson both hit run-producing groundouts. The Twins won in the eleventh inning, 11-10, when Thompson drove in the game-winner with a single to center field. The Twins batted out of order four times and in the correct order twice in the game. |
June 9, 1984 | Greg Luzinski becomes the 10th player in ML history to hit grand slams in consecutive games when he connects off the Twins Mike Walters in the 7th inning of an 8-4 White Sox victory. The previous day, Luzinski sparked the Sox to a 6-1 win with a first-inning grand slam off Frank Viola. |
June 9, 2000 | Bobblemania hits Minnesota. The Twins had their first Bobblehead give-away and Twins fan's went gaga for the little figurines. The first Bobble head given away was of Hall of Famer Harmon Killerbrew and there were 5,000 given away that day with Mountain Dew as the sponsor. Fans lined up outside the Metrodome hours before the gates opened to get an opportunity at the give-away and with-in 5 minutes of the gates opening the statue's were all gone. The Twins continued the Bobblehead give-aways annually and they are still treasured give-aways to this day. |
June 11, 1964 | The LA Angels trade outfielder Frank Kostro to the Twins for 1B Vic Power and outfielder Lenny Green. Certainly not one of the better trades in Twins history.... |
June 11, 1965 | The Twins sweep the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium by a 5-4 score in both games with the first game going 10 innings and the second game going 12 innings. Tiger reliever Terry Fox takes the loss in both games. |
June 11, 1972 | Jim Kaat hits a home run off Cleveland pitcher Vince Colbert in a Twins 5-3 victory at Cleveland Stadium. This now stands as the last home run that has been hit by a Twins pitcher. |
June 11, 2010 | Francisco Liriano ties a team record when he strikes out 7 consecutive Atlanta Braves batters in a 2-1 win at Target Field. Liriano used his slider to strike out Martin Prado and Jason Heyward to end the third inning. He struck out Chipper Jones on a slider, Troy Glaus on a change-up and Bian McCann on a slider to get through the fourth. Liriano opened the fifth by striking out Yunel Escobar on a slider and Omar Infante with a change-up. Jim Merritt also accomplished this feat on July 21, 1966 against the Washington Senators. |
June 12, 1981 | The Executive Board of the Players' Association voted unanimously to strike on May 29th due to the unresolved issue of free-agent compensation. The major issue behind the strike was the issue of free agent compensation, or, in other words, what compensation teams would receive if one of their star players was signed as a free agent by another team. The owners wanted a system whereby teams would receive a player of similar value, while the players were opposed, seeing that this would void their newly-acquired right to become free agents after playing out their contract. The resulting compromise was the Free agent compensation draft, which functioned for the next four years. The deadline was extended briefly, however, after the Players' Association's unfair labor complaint was heard by the National Labor Relations Board. At 12:30 A.M on June 12th, union chief Marvin Miller announced the player's strike beginning the longest labor action to date in American sports history. By the time the season finally resumed on August 10th, seven-hundred six games (38 percent of the Major League schedule) had been canceled. Due to the two-month strike, Major League owners elected to split the 1981 season into two halves, with the first-place teams from each half in each division meeting in a best-of-five divisional playoff series. The second half of the season began with the All Star Game on August 9. |
June 12, 2009 | In the eighth inning of the Twins/Cubs game at Wrigley Field Joe Mauer batted with one out and runners on first and third and hit a flyball to right that was caught by Cubs right fielder Milton Bradley for out number two. Nick Punto scored from third and Brendan Harris advanced to second. Bradley, who lost track of the number of outs casually flipped the ball into the bleacher seats and Harris advanced to third but was stranded there. An embarassed Bradly was charged with an error. |
June 14, 1961 | The Twins acquire pitcher Danny McDevitt from the Yankees in exchange for 2B Billy Gardner. |
June 14, 1975 | The Brewers send outfielder Johnny Briggs to the Twins and take outfielder Bobby Darwin in return. |
June 15, 1964 | Cleveland sends pitcher Jim Grant to Minnesota for pitcher Lee Stange and 3B/outfielder George Banks. The “Mudcat” will go on to star for the Twins in their 1965 World Series season. |
June 15, 1980 | Cleveland's Jorge Orta goes 6-for-6 (5 singles and a double) in a 14-5 rout of the Twins at Cleveland Stadium tying the AL record for hits in a 9-inning game. |
June 15, 2006 | The Twins send shortstop Juan Castro to Cincinnati for outfielder Brandon Roberts. |
June 15, 2008 | Scott Baker became the first pitcher in Twins’ history to record four strikeouts in one inning in his start against the Brewers in Milwaukee. Baker struck out Ryan Braun, then struck out Prince Fielder who reached on a wild pitch and went on to strike out Russell Branyan and Mike Cameron. |
June 16, 1982 | Twins rookie left-hander Frank Viola allows one run in 7 innings to record his first ML win 5-2 over the Royals in Kansas City. |
June 17, 1993 | Baseball owners voted 26-2 in favor of expanding the playoffs for the first time in 25 years, doubling the teams that qualify to eight starting in 1994. The wild card has been in effect since 1995, although it was first intended to be used in 1994 when the playoffs were canceled due to the players strike. |
June 17, 2008 | Cecil Cooper (Astros) and Ron Gardenhire (Twins) become the first two managers to be fined by Major League Baseball for failing to comply with pace of game regulations during contests played over the weekend. Last month, clubs were told to help enforce existing rules in an effort to speed-up the time it takes to complete a game. |
June 19, 1954 | Harmon Killebrew is signed by the Washington Senators as an amateur free agent (bonus baby). |
June 19, 1968 | Harmon Killebrew becomes the first Twins player to get 1,000th career RBI's in a game versus the Washington Senators at Met stadium. |
June 19, 1988 | Bert Blyleven wins his 250th career game as Minnesota beats Seattle 3-1. Jeff Reardon picks up his 20th save of the season, giving him 7 straight 20-save seasons. |
June 19, 2007 | On the bus ride to Shea Stadium to take on the Mets in an inter-league contest, Twins' color commentator Bert Blyleven says he will have his head shaved if the Twins starter Johan Santana, throws a complete-game shutout. The left-hander from Venezuela shaves the broadcaster's head after going the distance in Minnestoa's 9-0 victory over New York's National League team. |
June 19, 2010 | The Twins trailed by five runs through eight innings, but showed some remarkable resolve against the Phillies by rallying for five runs in the ninth inning to tie the game 9-9. Jim Thome hit a monstrous pinch-hit homer to center (career number 570) in the ninth off Jose Contreras, closing the gap to 9-6. Jim Thome has now homered off all 30 Major League clubs. Denard Span added an RBI single and Mauer dealt the clutch blow with a two-run homer to center off Phillies closer Brad Lidge, tying the game at 9. Drew Butera slammed a pinch-hit homer (first career home run for Butera) to left off Chad Durbin to open the 10th. But the Phillies were far from done, though, as pinch-hitter Ross Gload hammered a solo home run just over the right-field wall off Twins closer Jon Rauch with two outs in the bottom of the 10th and the score was again tied at 10-10. Delmon Young delivered the game-winning run when he hit an infield single to shortstop, scoring Joe Mauer for a stunning 13-10 victory in 11 innings before a sellout crowd of 45,254 at Citizens Bank Park. The teams combined for 29 hits and nine home runs, four by the Twins (Morneau, Thome, Mauer and Butera). There was a total of 392 pitches in the game, 176 by the Twins and 216 by the Phillies. |
June 20, 1965 | The largest crowd to ever watch the Twins play on the road, 71,245 New York fans watched their beloved Yankees get swept by the Minnesota Twins 6-4 and 7-4 in a doubleheader as the Twins marched towards their first ever World Series. |
June 20, 1986 | The Twins trade pitcher John Butcher to the Indians and get pitchers Neal Heaton and Kevin Trudeau in return. |
June 21, 1954 | Harmon Killebrew is signed by Washington Senators' scout Ossie Bluege and is given a signing bonus of $30,000. |
June 21, 1969 | Minnesota scores a club-record 11 runs in the 10th inning at Oakland. Minnesota's 11 match the New York Yankees' 12th inning of July 26, 1928, for most runs for one club in extra innings. The Twins win 14-4. |
June 21, 1983 | The Twins receive outfielder Randy Kunz from the windy city Sox and part ways with 3B Mike Sodders. |
| June 21, 1985 | Twins manager Billy Gardner is fired and replaced by Baltimore pitching coach Ray Miller. |
June 22, 1970 | In the fourth inning of the Twins game against the Milwaukee Brewers in County Stadium Rod Carew suffers a serious knee injury with torn cartilage and torn ligaments when Brewers 1B Mike Hegan rolls in to Carew at 2B trying to break up a double play. According to Rod Carew in his book "Carew", my leg snapped back and went crack! He goes on to say that 2B umpire Jake O'Donnell had heard the crack and vomited. Carew was hitting .376 at the time under went surgery and ended up in essence missing the rest of the season. Rod did return for 5 at bats late in September but did not get a hit. Carew had only 2 plate appearances against the Orioles in the ALCS with no hits. |
June 22, 1984 | In a teary home plate ceremony before the Twins-White Sox game at the Metrodome, Calvin Griffith and his sister, Thelma Haynes, sign a letter of intent to sell their 52 percent ownership of the Twins to Minneapolis banker Carl Pohlad for $32 million (some reports state it was $36 million) ending the longest family ownership of a team in baseball history. Griffith and his sister had been involved with the franchise since 1922, when they were adopted by owner Clark Griffith when the team was the Washington Senators. |
| June 23, 1961 | Cookie Lavagetto is fired as manager of the Twins. Sam Mele takes control of the club. As a coach, the Astoria, New York native filled in as the skipper of the club while Lavagetto took a seven-game leave of absence earlier in the month. |
June 23, 1987 | The Twins acquire pitcher Dan Schatzeder from the Phillies in return for pitcher Danny Clay and 3B Tom Schwarz. |
June 24, 1955 | Harmon Killebrew hit his first major league homer, off Billy Hoeft at Griffith Stadium, but the Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators 18-7. |
June 24, 1977 | Ralph Garr of the White Sox homered off Minnesota’s Paul Thormodsgard in Minneapolis. It came in the third inning with two men on and no one out. Jim Essian, the runner on first, thought the ball might be caught by the Twins’ right fielder, Dan Ford, so he retreated towards first base. Garr was watching the flight of the ball and passed Essian after rounding the bag. He was credited with a single and two runs batted in. |
June 24, 1984 | 2B Tim Teufel gives the Twins a 3-2 win over the White Sox with a three-run inside-the-park walk off home run with one out in the bottom of the ninth at the Metrodome. |
June 24, 1989 | Twins outfielder John Moses is asked to pitch at Fenway Park in an 11-2 loss to the Red Sox. John threw one scoreless inning giving up a walk but only faced 3 batters with the team turned a double play behind him. John is the fourth Twins player to pitch and this is the fifth occurrence of a Twins position player pitching for the Twins. |
June 25, 1964 | Rod Carew signs as a free agent by scouts Herb Stein and Monroe Katz. |
June 26, 1964 | Gerry Arrigo pitches the Twins first ever one hitter when Mike Hershberger singles to right leading off the ninth inning and breaks up Arrigo’s no hit bid but the Twins prevail 2-0 over the White Sox at Met Stadium. |
June 26, 1968 | The ML Executive Council decides that both the AL and NL will play 162-game schedules starting in 1969 and operate two 6-team divisions. |
June 26, 1977 | Carew scores 5 runs and teammate Glenn Adams drives in 8 as the Twins beat the White Sox 19-12. |
June 26, 1985 | Minnesota's Ken Schrom one-hits Kansas City at the Metrodome, but needs a 2-run single from Roy Smalley in the bottom of the 9th to secure the 2-1 victory. Willie Wilson's 3rd-inning single is the only Royals hit. The is the first one-hitter that a Twins pitcher has thrown in the Metrodome. |
June 27, 1973 | Just twenty days after pitching his high school team to a state championship, David Clyde, a $125,000, 18-year-old bonus baby with the Texas Rangers, pitched five innings, struck out eight, walked seven, and allowed one hit in his first major league start. Texas beat the Minnesota Twins 4-3 before 35,698 fans, the Rangers' first home sellout at Arlington Stadium as Clyde is credited with his first major league victory. |
June 27, 1988 | Twins outfielder Dan Gladden takes the mound at Anaheim Stadium in a 16-7 Twins defeat. Dan pitched a scoreless 8th inning facing just three batters and throwing 9 pitches. This is the third occurrence of a Twins position player pitching. |
June 28, 2005 | Jesse Crain pitches 1 2/3 innings of relief against the Royals and turns out to be the winning picher in a 11-8 victory. Crain improves his record to 7-0 this season and sets an AL record for relievers by going 10-0 to start a career. In the same game, Twins 3B Glenn Williams runs his hitting streak to 13 games getting a hit in every single game of his short career after spending 12 years in the minors. Unfortunately, he seperates his shoulder and goes on the Disabled list. Williams never plays in another major league basball game. |
June 28, 2007 | Frank Thomas hits a three-run homer off Twins hurler Carlos Silve in the first inning of the Blue Jay's 8-5 loss at the Metrodome to become the 21st major leaguer to hit 500 home runs. The 'Big Hurt', who has hit 50 homers (10% ) against the Twins, also hit his first home run of his career in Minnesota in 1990. |
June 29, 1936 | Hall of Famer Harmon Clayton Killebrew is born in Payette, Idaho. |
June 29, 1970 | At game time at Met Stadium the thermometer said it was 97 degrees when the Twins took the field to take on the Kansas City Royals. 14,600 fans did everything they could to stay cool as the Twins beat the KC Royals 5-4. This game is suppposedly the hottest game tempeature at Met Stadium at the start of a Twins game. |
June 29, 1984 | Twins rookie Andre David hits a 2-run home run off Jack Morris at Tiger Stadium in his first ML at bat to spark Minnesota to a 5-3 win over Detroit. It is the only home run David will ever hit in the big leagues. David is the fourth Twin to home in his first ML at bat. |
June 29, 1989 | The Twins acquire pitcher Greg Booker for the Padres and send pitcher Fred Tolliver to San Diego as payment. |
June 29, 2010 | Twins outfielder Denard Span ties a modern major league record when he hits three triples in a 11-4 win over the Detroit Tigers at Target Field. Span ended up going 4 for 4 (also walked) with 2 runs scored and 5 RBI's. Denard becomes the second Twins player to accomplish this rare feat. Outfielder Ken Landreaux was the first to accomplish this feat for the Twins at Met Stadium on July 3, 1980. |
June 30, 1995 | Eddie Murray of the Cleveland Indians became only the second switch-hitter and the 20th player in baseball history to reach 3,000 hits when he singled against the Minnesota Twins. Murray joined Pete Rose, the career hits leader with 4,256, as the only switch-hitters with 3,000 or more hits. |
July 1, 1960 | A first-refusal option for chief minority stockholder H. Gabriel Murphy to buy the holdings of Washington owner Calvin Griffith expires. Murphy will lose 2 court decisions in efforts to keep Griffith from moving the Senators to Minnesota. |
July 2, 1972 | The Twins split a twin-bill at White Sox Park winning the first game 6-4 and losing the second game 2-1. The big story here was in game one. Jim Kaat (9-2) and the AL leader in ERA was facing knuckleballer Wilbur Wood (12-7). The Twins were leading 5-2 after 5 innings. In the top of the 6th inning Kaat reached based on a fielders choice and was forced at 2B on Tovar's groud ball to the shortstop. Sliding into 2B Kaat jammed his left wrist but stayed in the game and pitched into the 8th inning before his swollen hand prevented him from going any further. After the game it was determined that Jim had broken the navicular bone in his pitching wrist and he was out for the rest of the season. Wow, pitchers were tough in those days. When I asked JIm about it, his response was "Adrenalin is an amazing hormone"! |
July 2, 1982 | The Twins trade 2B Larry Milbourne to the Indians and in turn the Indians send Outfielder Larry Littlejohn to the Twins. |
July 2, 2007 | With skipper Joe Torre watching from Yankee dugout, Roger Clemens, throws eight innings of two-hit ball in a 5-1 win over the Twins, becomes the eighth pitcher to record 350 career victories. The New York manager was the catcher for Warren Spahn's 350th win making him a participant of the only two occasions that a pitcher has reached the milestone since 1928. |
July 3, 1968 | Luis Tiant registers 19 K's in 10 innings, as Cleveland beats Minnesota 1-0. Tiant sets two modern ML records-- most strikeouts in a 10-inning game; 32 strikeouts in consecutive games--and ties the modern ML record of 41 strikeouts in 3 successive appearances. He will top the AL in ERA in 1968 with a 1.60. |
July 3, 1973 | Minnesota's Tony Oliva hits 3 solo HRs during a 7-6 loss at Kansas City. |
July 3, 1980 | Ken Landreaux ties the modern ML record with 3 triples in Minnesota's 10-3 win over Texas at Met Stadium. Landreaux ended the game going 3 for 5 with 2 runs scored and 1 RBI. |
July 3, 2000 | Minnesota's David Ortiz walked with the bases loaded and hit two sacrifice flies, giving him three RBIs without an official at-bat in an 11-8 loss to Boston. |
July 4, 1961 | Julio Becquer becomes the first Twin to pinch hit a grand slam homerun when he blasts one out at the Met against the White Sox. |
July 4, 1969 | The Twins and White Sox strike a deal and the Twins send pitcher Jerry Crider packing and pick up 1B Cotton Nash. |
July 4, 1976 | The Twins and Angels split a double header at Met Stadium with the Angels beating the Twins 5-3 in the opener and the Twins beating the Angels 9-5 in the second game. What was very unusual about the second game was that both teams had more runs then they did hits. The Angels had 5 runs on 2 hits and 2 errors while the Twins had 9 runs on 8 hits and 0 errors. This is the only instance in Twins history when this has happened. |
July 4, 2010 | MLB announces that catcher Joe Mauer and 1B Justin Morneau have been named as starters for the All-Star game in Anaheim. Mauer is this years leading vote getter with 5,372,606 votes, the third higest total all time behind Ken Griffey Jr, with 6,079,688 in 1994 and Albert Pujols 5,397,374 in 2009. Minnesota native Joe Mauer joins Hall of Famer Rod Carew (1975, 1977-78) as the only other Twin ever to lead all of Major League Baseball in votes. A few days later Justin Morneau gets kneed in the head in a game in Toronto and withdraws from the all-star game. |
July 5, 1965 | Minnesota takes an AL lead it will not give up as Dave Boswell and Jim Perry pitch the Twins to a 6-2 and 2-0 sweep of the Red Sox. |
July 5, 1992 | With the Twins trailing the Orioles 1-0 in the sixth inning, Twins DH Chili Davis hit a towering fly ball to right field off Orioles pitcher Rick Sutcliffe that everyone in the Metrodome thought was a game tieing home run. However; the ball bounced off a speaker in play and was caught by 2B Mark McLemore for the out to rob Davis of a sure home run. The Twins scored 2 in the bottom of the ninth to eek out a 2-1 victory. |
July 5, 2003 | The Indians rout the Minnesota Twins 13-2 at the Metrodome. Former Twin Casey Blake has a monster day going 5 for 5 with 2 doubles and 2 home runs while scoring 3 runs and knocking in 7 more. |
July 5, 2004 | As gesture to honor local military personnel, the Twins give away a G.I. Joe action figures to the first 5,000 children attending the Royals game. The team, in an effort to appease protesting peace groups, who see the promotion as glorifying war, asks Hasbro, the toy’s maker, to remove the customary gun from G.I. Joe’s side, but the hand grenades remain visible. Brad Radke pitches a 4 hit complete game shutout and the Twins "bomb" the Royals 9-0. |
July 6, 1972 | The Twins fire manager Bill Rigney, promoting 33-year-old coach Frank Quilici to take his place. |
July 6, 1995 | The Twins trade ace closer Rick Aguilera to the Red Sox for outfielder JJ Johnson and pitcher Frankie Rodriguez. |
July 6, 2007 | Justin Morneau becomes just the fourth Twins player to hit 3 home runs in a single game. This is the first time a Twins player has accomplished this feat since Tony Oliva did so in 1973. |
July 7, 1971 | Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announces that players from the Negro Leagues elected to the Hall of Fame will be given full membership in the museum. It had been previously announced that they would be honored in a separate wing. |
July 7, 1995 | The Orioles send outfielder Kimera Bartee and pitcher Scott Klingenbeck to Minnesota and in turn receive pitcher Scott Erickson. |
July 7, 2001 | Jim Kaat and Herb Carneal are inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame. |
July 7, 2004 | Blanking the Royals, 12-0, Twins' hurler Kyle Lohse helps to establish a club record throwing the team's third consecutive shutout. Johan Santana (Royals, 4-0) and Brad Radke (Royals, 9-0) started the streak of 27 scoreless innings, also a franchise record. |
July 7, 2010 | We happened to be in Toronto on one of our Twins road trips and were at the game at Rogers Centre when Twins first baseman Justin Morneau was accidentally kneed in the head by Toronto shortstop John McDonald during a takeout slide into second base trying to break up a double play in the eighth inning on a ball hit by Mike Cuddyer. Morneau sat there for a few minutes while he was tended to by team personnel and then he walked off the field shaking his head. The Blue Jays ended up beating the Twins 6-5. Morneau ended up with a concussion and has not played for the Twins since. Morneau was put on the DL on July 16 retroactive to July 8. On the day that he was injured, Morneau ranked second in the American League with a .345 batting average. His .437 on-base percentage led the league and his .618 slugging percentage was second behind Detroit's Miguel Cabrera. |
July 8, 1969 | The Red Sox send pitcher Darrell Brandon to the Twins in return for 3B Ron Clark. |
July 8, 1971 | The Twins trade catcher Paul Ratliff to Milwaukee for catcher Phil Roof. |
| July 9, 1968 | Harmon Kilebrew ruptures hamstring in right leg in his eighth American League All-Star appearance at the Houston Astrodome and was disabled July 10-August 31. Killebrew was streching for a throw from shortstop Jim Fregosi and the clay gave way and Harmon said "he could hear it split like a rubber bad". The NL eneded up winning the game 1-0. |
| July 10, 2008 | Justin Morneau goes 5-5 with two doubles and a homerun in an 11 inning 7-6 win over the Tigers on the road. |
July 11, 1961 | Harmon Killebrew becomes the first Minnesota Twin to appear in an All-Star game and he doesn’t disappoint when he pinch-hits a home run off Mike McCormick at Candlestick Park. |
July 11, 1968 | Minnesota rookie Rick Renick is the 16th AL player and first Minnesota Twin to hit a HR in his first ML at bat as he goes long against Mickey Lolich . The Twins go on to beat the Tigers 5-4 at Met Stadium. |
July 11, 1987 | Billy Ripken, 22, joins his brother Cal in the Orioles starting lineup in Baltimore's 2-1 loss to the Twins. Oriole’s manager Cal Ripken, Sr. is the first to manage 2 sons in the majors. |
July 11, 2005 | The Mariners send 2B Bret Boone and some cash to Minny as part of a conditional deal but the Twins release him a couple of weeks later. |
July 11, 2009 | Pitcher Brad Radke and Minor League farm director George Brophy are inducted in to the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame. |
July 12, 1972 | The Twins win their 1,000th game as Bert Blyleven shuts down the Milwaukee Brewers 7-1. Bert would also win the Twins 2,000th game a number of years later. |
July 12, 1996 | In a sad day in Minnesota Twins history, Kirby Puckett, wearing a white patch over his right eye, announced his retirement from baseball. He was 36 years old. "I was told I would never make it because I'm too short," the 5'8" Puckett said at his retirement press conference. "Well, I'm still too short, but I've got 10 All-Star games, two World Series championships, and I'm a very happy and contented guy. It doesn't matter what your height is, it's what's in your heart." Kirby passed away from a stroke on March 6, 2006. |
July 12, 2001 | The Twins hit seven home runs on their way to a 13-5 romp over the Milwaukee Brewers. In the process, they tied a Major League record -- three players hitting two home runs each in a single game. Torii Hunter hit two. Corey Koskie hit two. Jacque Jones hit two, one of them a grand slam. Doug Mientkiewicz hit only one, but was not widely regarded as a slacker. |
July 13, 1965 | Willie Mays’s HR, 2 walks, and 2 runs scored pace the NL to a 6-5 All-Star Game victory in Metropolitan Stadium. Juan Marichal pitches 3 scoreless innings to earn game MVP. The NL took the lead over the AL for the first time since the All-Star series began, winning 6-5 in Minnesota. The Twins had 6 players that participated in the game, Earl Battey, Mudcat Grant, Jimmie Hall, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, and Zoilo Versalles. It just so happens this was the first major league game that I ever attended and there were more future Hall of Famers in this game then you can shake a stick at. |
July 13, 1971 | In an All-Star Game featuring HRs by Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Reggie Jackson, Frank Robinson, and Harmon Killebrew, the AL triumphs at Detroit 6-4. It is the only AL All-Star victory between 1962 and 1983. Jackson's HR goes 520 feet. |
July 13, 1976 | Catcher Butch Wynegar becomes the youngest Minnesota Twins player to ever appear in an All-Star game when he appears as a pinch hitter for Luis Tiant in the 7th inning at the age of 20 years and 121 days at Veterans stadium in Philadelphia. Wynegar gets walked by John "The Count" Montefusco. The NL beat the AL 7 to 1. |
July 13, 1993 | Minnesota's Kirby Puckett homered and doubled to win the MVP award in the AL's 9-3 victory in the All-Star game at Camden Yards in Baltimore. In a game which will be best remembered for John Kruk's "non at-bat" against fireballer Randy Johnson, in which the Phillies' first baseman flails at the Big Unit's fastballs in a comical manner. |
July 14, 1991 | The Twins retire Tony Oliva’s number 6. |
July 14, 2008 | Twins first baseman Justin Morneau wins the All-Star Homerun Derby by beating Texas Ranger outfielder Josh Hamilton in the finals. Josh Hamilton, who at one point goes deep 13 consecutive times, hits a record-setting 28 home runs in the first round of the Home Run Derby, but falls short in finals losing to Twins first baseman Justin Morneau, 5-3. With 71-year-old former coach Clay Counsil pitching, the Rangers outfielder breaks Bobby Abreu's mark of 24 set in 2005. |
July 15, 1964 | Jim "Mudcat" Grant pitches a complete game and shuts out the Washington Senators 6-0 at Met stadium and strikes out 6 in the process. However; what makes this game unique is that Grant gives up 13 hits (all singles) and a walk and still manages to pitch a complete game shutout. |
July 15, 1989 | Jeff Reardon saves his 250th game as the Twins beat the Red Sox 3-2. |
July 15, 2008 | Justin Morneau scores the winning run in the bottom of the 15th inning at Yankee Stadium as the AL wins 4-3 for their 12th consecutive All-Star win. Joe Mauer is the AL starting catcher and Joe Nathan also pitches in the game. |
July 16, 1969 | Rod Carew steals home for the 7th time, as the AL-West leading Twins sweep a twin bill, winning 9-8 and 6-3 from the White Sox. Carew ties Pete Reiser’s 1946 record for steals of home in a season. |
July 16, 1985 | The NL beats the AL 6-1 at Minnesota's Metrodome for its 13th win in the last 14 All-Star Games. San Diego's LaMarr Hoyt allows one unearned run in 3 innings and is named MVP. Tom Brunansky is the lone Twins player in the game. |
July 16, 2000 | Minnesota trades outfielder Butch Huskey and 2B Todd Walker to Colorado for cash and 1B Todd Sears. |
July 16, 2003 | The Twins send outfielder Bobby Kielty to the Blue Jays and receive outfielder Shannon Stewart and pitcher Dave Gassner. |
July 17, 1964 | Playing the Los Angeles Angels at Met Stadium and trailing 1-0, Twins catcher Earl Battey hits what appears to be a clean single to right field in the home half of the fifth inning but Angels outfielder Lou Clinton quickly fields the ball and fires to first baseman Joe Adcock to get the slow footed Battey for out number 2. The Twins end up losing the game 1-0. |
July 17, 1969 | At Metropolitan Stadium Gold Glove pitcher Jim Kaat commits three errors. The 30-year old right-hander still gets the victory when the Twins beat the White Sox, 8-5. Kaat goes on to win 16 Gold Gloves (including 12 in a row) in his 25 year career. |
July 17, 1990 | The Twins pull a major league first--2 triple plays in the same game. Both are started on grounders to Gary Gaetti, who had started 5 of the Twins' last 6 triple killings. The Red Sox win anyway 1-0. |
July 18, 1962 | Minnesota is the first AL club to hit 2 grand slams in one inning when Bob Allison and Harmon Killebrew connect in a club-record, 11-run first inning, against Cleveland. The Twins coast home 14-3. |
July 18, 1990 | The Red Sox hit into 6 double plays, while the Twins ground into 4 for an ML record, as the Red Sox win 5-4. |
July 19, 1962 | Vic Power becomes the first Twins player to steal home in the 5th inning of the Twins 8-0 rout of the Cleveland Indians. |
July 19, 1969 | The Twins and the Seattle Pilots play for 16 innings and the game is deadlocked at 7-7 at Sick's Stadium and the game is suspended by league curfew and resumed the next day (July 20). I believe there was also a 20 minute delay in the game for the moon landing. |
July 19, 1975 | Yankee catcher Thurman Munson’s first-inning single and RBI against the Twins are nullified because the tar on his bat handle exceeds the 18-inch limit. Catcher Glenn Borgmann gets the putout. |
July 19, 1982 | Tom Brunansky accomplishes a rare feat when he hits an inside-the-park grand slam home run at the Metrodome against the hated Milwaukee Brewers in a 6-4 Twins win. Jerry Augustine is the unlucky hurler who has several errors committed behind him before the home run and all four runs turn out to be unearned. Brunansky is the first and only Twins player to accomplish this feat. |
July 19, 1987 | The Twins retire HOF Rod Carew’s number 29. |
July 19, 1989 | Cleveland's Joe Carter hits 3 home runs in a game for the 2nd time this season in a 10-1 win over Minnesota. It is his 4th career 3-HR game, tying Lou Gehrig's AL record, and also gives him a ML-record-tying 5 homers in 2 games. |
July 20, 1969 | The Twins and Seattle Pilots resume play in the 17th inning. The pitchers in the 17th inning are todays scheduled starting pitchers, Jim Perry for Minnesota and John Gelnar for Seattle. After a scoreless 17th inning, the Twins break through for 4 runs in the top of the 18th and win the game 11-7. The teams end up stranding 44 base runners. Gelnar was pulled after pitching 1 1/3 innnings and was the loser. In the regularly scheduled game, Jim Perry again faced off against John Gelnar and Perry pitched a complete game shutout with the Twins winning 4-0 and Gelnar took the defeat. So in reality, Jim Perry won two games on this date and John Gelnar lost both games on this date. |
July 20, 1975 | The Twins lose both games of a double header to the New York Yankees at Met Stadium. In a real oddity in game one of the DH, Yankee 2B Sandy Alomar Sr. scores 3 runs without officially reaching base. Alomar twice reached base on errors and scored and also scored after reaching base on a fielders choice. Alomar reached base on a second fielders choice but was stranded. |
July 20, 1987 | Don Mattingly ties another ML record, this time in the field, as he makes 22 putouts in the Yankees 7-1 win over the Twins. The feat was last accomplished in the AL by Hal Chase in 1906. |
| July 20, 2009 | The Twins blow their second 10 run lead in their history on their way to a 14-13 loss to the A's in Oakland. A's starter Gio Gonzalez lasts just 2 2/3 innings and gives up 11 earned runs. Going into the bottom of the 3rd inning the Twins lead 12-2 but Nick Blackburn and 4 relievers can't hold the lead, when the smoke clears the Twins are on the short end of a 14-13 score. Each team had 4 home runs with a grand slam for each side. Justin Morneau has 7 RBI's with a grand slam and a 3 run homer. |
July 21, 1966 | Minnesota pitcher Jim Merritt beats the Washington Senators 1-0 at D.C. Stadium sets a team record and ties an AL mark with 7 straight strikeouts. Merritt struck out Ken Harrelson, Frank Howard, Don Lock, Paul Casanova, Ken Hamlin, Eddie Brinkman, and Jim Hannan. Francisco Liriano ties Merritt's record when he strikes out 7 consecutive batters on June 11, 2010. |
| July 21, 1988 | Minnesota Twins manager Tom Kelly confirmed a confrontation occurred between 2B Steve Lombardozzi, who sported a black eye and outfielder Dan Gladden, who suffered a cracked bone in his right ring finger. Apparently Gladden was not a big fan of Lombardozzi and felt that Lombo put himself ahead of the team after Lombo got upset that manager Tom Kelly had pinch hit for him the night before and Lombo stalked out of the dugout and into the clibhouse. |
July 22, 1990 | Boy, what a day. The Twins lose to the Yankees at the Metrodome 10-6. But what a strange game, all of the Yankees 10 runs are unearned due to 5 Twins errors (Gagne, Newman, Gaetti, Hrbek, and Mack), every member of the infield had an error. At the end of 8 innings the Twins actually were beating the Yankees 6-5 in spite of 3 errors. In the ninth however, the roof caved in on Rick Aguilera who had come in to get the save. Leyritz led off with a single, Kelly reached on an error by Gaetti, Tolleson reached on a Hrbek throwing error and Leyritz and Kelly scored, putting the Yankees up 7-6. Aguilera regtired Sanders for the first out but Sax doubled inTolleson. Mattingly was intentionally walked and Aguilera was replaced by Jack Savage who got Barfield to ground out for out number 2 but then Savage gave up a single to Geren and Sax and Mattingly scored and the Twins threw Geren out at 2B finally retiring the side. The Twins went down meekly in the bottom of the 9th and when the smoke had cleared, the Yankees beat the Twins 10-6 with all the runs being unearned. |
July 22, 1993 | Kirby Puckett hit a ball just to the left of the end of the "baggy" hung over the Metrodome's right field fence. It was ruled in play, even though replays showed that it was a home run. |
July 23, 1964 | A's rookie Bert Campaneris sends Minnesota to defeat 4-3 with 2 HRs in his ML debut. The first comes on the first pitch thrown to him by Jim Kaat. The 21-year-old Cuban joins Bob Nieman as the only player since 1900 with 2 HRs in his first ML game. |
July 23, 2006 | In a 3-1 victory over the Indians at Jacobs Field, Francisco Liriano and four Twins relievers establish a club record with 17 strikeouts in a nine inning game. The Minnesota starter reached double-digit whiffs (10) for the third time this season with Pat Neshek, Dennys Reyes, Juan Rincon and Joe Nathan adding seven more punch outs over the last four innings. |
July 24, 1961 | Tony Oliva is signed by scout Joe Cambria upon recommendation of former outfielder in club's system, Roberto Fernandez. |
July 24, 1976 | Lyman Bostock hits for the cycle (the second Twins to do so in less then 3 weeks) in Chicago and leads the Twins to a 17-2 victory. Bostock is the Twins fourth player to hit for the cycle. |
July 25, 1964 | The Twins tie an AL record by using 9 pitchers in a 13-inning game they lose 6-5 to the White Sox. Gerry Fosnow is the loser; Don Mossi the 5th Chicago pitcher--is the winner. |
July 25, 2009 | The Twins allowed nine runs on 10 hits to the Angels in the fourth inning yesterday in a 11-5 road loss. It marked the first time in Twins history that they allowed at least nine runs and 10 hits in the same inning. |
July 26, 1967 | Twins pitcher Jim Merritt sets a team record when he pitches the first 13 innings of an 18 inning 3-2 win over the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. |
July 26, 2010 | The Twins pummel the KC Royals 19-1 at Kauffman Stadium. Twins hitters pounded out 20 hits including 11 extra base hits. The 11 extra base hits was just one shy of the team record dating back to May 8, 1979 against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Met. Joe Mauer was 5 for 5 with a home run and 7 RBI's, Danny Valencia was 4 for 4 with a grand slam home run, 4 runs scored and 4 RBI's, Delmon Young added 4 hits, and Francisco Liriano got the win with 7 innings of 3 hit pitching. One of those extra-base hits came from Twins rookie Danny Valencia in the first inning when he knocked his first career home run -- a grand slam over the fence in right field -- with two outs. With the grand slam, Valencia became the first Twin to ever record a grand slam as his first career home run. The unfortunate Royals starter and loser was Zach Greinke, last years Cy Young award winner. Mauer's performance was only the third time in major-league history that a catcher recorded at least five hits and seven RBIs in the same game. The other backstops to do so were Walker Cooper for the Reds on July 6, 1949 against the Cubs (6 hits, 10 RBIs) and Victor Martinez for the Indians in Seattle on July 16, 2004 (5 hits, 7 RBIs). |
July 27, 1978 | Mike Cubbage hits for the cycle at Met Stadium against the Blue Jays during a 6-3 victory and becomes the fifth Twins player to accomplish this rare feat. |
July 27, 1983 | Milwaukee's Ben Ogilvie hits a 481 foot shot to the second deck in right field off Brad Havens in the fifth inning in what remains today as the longest home run ever hit at the Metrodome. The Brew crew went on to win the game 13-9. |
July 27, 1990 | The Twins send pitccher John Candelaria to the Blue Jays and receive 2B Nelson Liriano and outfielder Pedro Munoz. |
July 27, 2010 | Twins 3B Danny Valencia goes 4 for 5 against the KC Royals in Kauffman Stadium and in the process becomes the first Twins rookie to have back-to-back four hit games. Valencia was 4 for 4 the night before against the Royals. The Twins banged out 19 hits in their 11-2 victory over the Royals on July 27th. That marked the third consecutive game that Minnesota has registered at least 10 runs and 19 hits (10 runs, 19 hits vs. Baltimore on July 25; 19 runs, 20 hits vs. Kansas City on July 26). Over the last 100 years, only two other teams have scored at least 10 runs with at least 19 hits in three consecutive games in a single season: the Giants in August of 1933 and the Pirates in August of 1928. |
July 28, 1967 | Dean Chance finally gets a base hit and ends the Twins longest hitless streak at 53 at bats without a hit. This unlucky streak started on April 9. |
July 28, 2001 | The Twins and Tigers swap pitchers, the Tigers get Mark Redman and the Twins get Todd Jones. |
July 28, 2009 | Mark Buehrle, making his first start since pitching a perfect game against the Tampa Rays just five days earlier, was perfect through the first five and two-thirds innings at the Metrodome but then he walked Alexi Casilla on a 3 and 2 pitch, Denard Span got the Twins first hit and Joe Mauer followed with a ground rule double to left and all of a sudden Buehrle's perfect streak, no hitter, and shutout were over and the Twins had tied the score 1-1. The Twins scored four more runs off Buehrle in the 7th on their way to a 5-3 victory. Buehrle did set an all-time major-league record by retiring 45 consecutive batters over his last three starts. We were at the Dome and it was a fun game, any time the Twins beat the Mighty Whities, it is a good thing. |
July 28, 2009 | The Minnesota Twins, in conjunction with Wendy’s Restaurants, announced the All-Metrodome Team as part of the team’s ongoing celebration of the franchise’s 28th and final season playing in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Voting for the Twins All-Metrodome Team was split into three phases, including the fans, the Upper Midwest media and a veteran’s committee made up of Twins alumni, front office representatives and team historians. In total, more than 100,000 votes were cast by the fans at twinsbaseball.com. The 18-man All-Metrodome Team is as follows: Manager - Tom Kelly, Infielders - Kent Hrbek, Justin Morneau, Chuck Knoblauch, Greg Gagne and Gary Gaetti, Catcher - Joe Mauer, Outfielders - Tom Brunansky, Kirby Puckett, Torii Hunter and Dan Gladden, Designated Hitter - Paul Molitor, Starting Pitchers - Bert Blyleven, Brad Radke, Johan Santana and Frank Viola, Relievers - Rick Aguilera and Joe Nathan. |
July 28, 2010 | The Twins have 86 hits over their last five games (July 24-28), all on the road when they beat the Orioles twice and the Royals three times. The last major-league team to have that many hits over a five-game span was the 1950 Red Sox, who had 90 hits over five games from June 4-8. The Twins have won five straight games, all on the road, and scored at least six runs in all of them. It's only the second time since this team moved to Minnesota in 1961 that they have had such a streak. They also had a five-game streak in September of 2009. |
July 29, 2005 | While leaping to catch a long drive hit by David Ortiz, Twins gold-glove center fielder Torii Hunter catches his spikes in the padded fence in Boston's Fenway Park and suffers a broken ankle and torn ligaments that sideline the Twins star for the rest of the season. |
July 29, 2010 | The Twins trade one of their top prospects, catcher Willie Ramos along with LHP Joe Testa to the Washington Nationals for closer Matt Capps. |
July 30, 1966 | The Twins shutout the Baltimore Orioles 7-0 at Met Stadium. Earl Battey and Harmon Killebrew hit home runs and Dave Boswell throws a complete game 1 hitter. The only hit that Boswell gave up was a single to right leading off the top of the seventh by outfielder Russ Snyder. Boswell ended up striking out 11 and walking one batter. |
July 30, 2001 | The Twins acquire pitcher Rick Reed from New York but have to give up outfielder Matt Lawton. |
July 30, 2007 | Minnesota sends 2B Luis Castillo to the Mets for catcher Drew Butera and outfielder Dustin Martin. |
July 31, 1972 | Dick Allen becomes the first player since 1950, and the 7th in history, to hit two inside-the-park homers in a game. Minnesota's Bert Blyleven was the unlucky victim that day in Met Stadium. The WSox end up beating the Twins 8-1. |
July 31, 1987 | The Indians trade fading veteran and future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton to the Twins for a player to be named later who turns out to be Jeff Perry. |
July 31, 1989 | The Twins trade AL Cy Young winner Frank Viola and outfielder Loy McBride to the Mets for 5 players, including pitchers Rick Aguilera, David West, Kevin Tapani, Jack Savage and Tim Drummond. Viola is the first Cy Young winner to be traded during the following season. |
July 31, 1990 | John Moses, Twins outfielder takes the mound at the Metrodome in a 13-2 loss to the California Angels. John pitched one inning walking 2, giving up 3 hits and 2 runs. This pitching appearance makes Moses the all-time Minnesota Twins leader in games and innings pitched by a position player with a total of 3 innings in 3 games. This was the only occurrence of a Twins position player pitching in the Metrodome. This is the seventh occurrence of a Twins position player pitching. |
July 31, 1995 | In a six player trade with the Dodgers, the Twins part ways with pitchers Mark Guthrie and Kevin Tapani and receive pitchers Jose Parra, Greg Hansell, along with outfielder Chris Latham and 3B Ron Coomer. |
July 31, 1998 | The Twins send P Greg Swindell and OF Orlando Merced to Boston and get OF John Barnes and pitchers Matt Kinney and Joe Thomas. |
July 31, 2003 | The Twins beat the Orioles dramatically 10-9 in a 10 inning four hour and 8 minute game at the Metrodme in what could arguably be one of the strangest games in their history. The Twins entered the 9th inning trailing 9-7. With closer Jorge Julio pitching, Luis Rivas singled and Doug Mientkiewicz walked which put runners on first and second. Two outs later, AJ Pierzynski singled, which scored Rivas. Michael Restovich then struck out swinging for what appeared to be the final out, but the ball eluded the Orioles catcher. Restovich hesitated for several seconds and took off for first base and was safe when the catcher threw wildly to first and Doug Mientkiewicz scored the tying run from second. The Twins won the game in the 10th inning when Jacques Jones hit a single over the head of the first baseman with the bases loaded as the Orioles played a five man infield trying to cut the winning run down at the plate. |
July 31, 2004 | The Twins acquire pitcher Justin Jones from the Cubs and send 1B Doug Mientkiewicz to Chicago. |
July 31, 2006 | The Reds and the Twins exchange pitchers, the Twins get Zach Ward and the Reds get Klye Loshe. |
July 31, 2008 | A five-minute fan outburst mars a 10 - 6 Twins win over the Chicago White Sox at the Metrodome. After a called strike on Denard Span, manager Ron Gardenhire comes out to argue with umpire Marty Foster. Gardenhire than kicks his hat over his head and fans throw dozens of hats and a few baseballs onto the field. WSox manager Ozzie Guillen pulls his club off the field while the Metrodome staff warn their fans of the risk of a forfeit loss. After the game settles down, Minnesota wraps up its win to move within a half-game of Chicago in the AL Central. |
July 31, 2009 | The Twins make a deal with the Oakland A's getting shortstop Orlando Cabrera and cash and give up minor league infielder Tyler Ladendorf their 2nd round pick in the 2008 first year player draft. |
August 1, 1983 | The Twins play their first double header at the Metrodome and come away with a split against the California Angels in front of 18,368 fans. |
August 1, 1985 | The Indians trade veteran pitcher Bert Blyleven back to the Twins for outfielder Jim Weaver, pitchers Curt Wardle and Rich Yett, and shortstop Jay Bell. |
August 1, 1986 | Bert Blyleven pitches a 2-hitter and strikes out a then club-record 15 batters to become the 10th pitcher with 3,000 career strikeouts. Kirby Puckett hits for the cycle as the Twins romp 10-1 over the A's and in the process becomes the first Minnesota Twin to accomplish this remarkable feat at the Metrodome. |
August 1, 1994 | Baltimore's shortstop Cal Ripken became only the second major leaguer to play 2,000 straight games as the Orioles beat Minnesota 1-0 in the land of 10,000 lakes. Ripken is hitless in the game. |
August 1, 2007 | Rather than send almost 25,000 fans back out onto crowded highways, the Twins decide to play the game against the Kansas City Royals after a moment of silence in memory of victims of the nearby 35W bridge collapse that had taken place just an hour or so earlier. |
| August 2, 1965 | Harmon Killebrew suffers a dislocated left elbow in a collision with Baltimore's Russ Snyder in the 6th inning while playing 1B at Met Stadium. The Twins slugger ends up missng 48 games. Killebrew was leading the AL in homers with 22 and RBIs at 70. |
| August 2, 2007 | The Twins postpone their afternoon game against the Kansas City Royals due to the 35W bridge collapse not far from the Dome that took place just a day earlier. |
| August 3, 1969 | Pinch-hitter Rich Reese hit a grand slam to power the Minnesota Twins to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles and ends Dave McNally's 15 game winning streak. His two victories at the end of 1968 had given him 17 straight wins. |
| August 3, 1987 | One of my favorite moments in Twins history occurs when Twins pitcher Joe Niekro is caught with a file on the mound at Anaheim Stadium and is ejected during the 4th inning of Minnesota's 11-3 win over California. He was suspended for 10 games by AL president Bobby Brown, who doesn't buy Niekro's story that he had been filing his nails on the bench and stuck the file in his back pocket when the inning started. |
August 3, 1999 | The Astros and Twins swap catchers, Houston gets George Williams and Minnesota gets Josh Dimmick. |
August 4, 1985 | In a day of milestones, Tom Seaver becomes the 17th pitcher to win 300 games and Rod Carew becomes the 16th player ever to collect 3,000 career hits. Seaver pitches the White Sox to a 4-1 six-hit victory on Phil Rizzuto Day at Yankee Stadium as 54,032 New Yorkers cheer him on, while Carew bloops a single to left off Frank Viola in the 3rd inning of the Angels 6-5 win over the Twins in Anaheim Stadium. Carew is the first 3,000 hit member that was born in a foreign country. |
August 4, 1987 | In the fourth match up of 300-game winners since 1900, Angels’ hurler Don Sutton (317) allows four hits in six innings to beat Steve Carlton (328) and the Twins, 12-3 at Anaheim Stadium. The 645 combined victories is the largest number of wins ever accumulated by pitchers starting the same major league game. |
August 4, 1993 | Kent Hrbek became the second Twins player to reach 1,000 career RBI's in a Minnesota uniform in a game against the Red Sox at the Metrodome. |
August 4, 1994 | Twins 1B and fan favorite Kent Hrbek announces his retirement effective at the end of the season. The Twins first baseman, who played his entire 14-year career in Minnesota, ranks in near the top in virtually every team offensive category. |
August 4, 1997 | Brad Radke of Minnesota posted his 12th straight victory tieing a team record as he pitched seven strong innings in the Twins' 9-3 win over Toronto. Greg Colbrunn's pinch-hit grand slam off Chris Carpenter was the big blow. Radke is only the 3rd pitcher since 1950 to win 12 consecutive starts. Bob Gibson of St. Louis did it in 1968 and Pat Dobson did it with Baltimore in 1971. |
August 5, 1967 | Dean Chance pitched an abbreviated five perfect innings against Boston on Aug. 5. |
August 5, 2001 | Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield and Bill Mazeroski were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Also enshrined was the late Hilton Smith, a Negro League pitcher overshadowed by teammate Satchel Paige. Los Angeles Times baseball writer Ross Newhan received the J.G. Taylor Spink award for writers, while Rafel "Felo'' Ramirez, who has broadcast games in Spanish since the 1940s, received the Ford C. Frick award for broadcasters. A power outage in the Minneapolis area causes the Dome's air conditioning to shut down, heating up the inside of the Dome to 91 degrees as the wilted Twins lost to the Royals 10-5. |
| August 5, 2010 | With two outs and runners on the corners, Jason Kubel launched a high fly ball that bounced off the A-ring catwalk -- just the second fair ball to hit the closest catwalk to the Tropicana Field roof in the stadium's 13-year history -- and fell to the pitcher's mound. Tampa Bay shortstop Jason Bartlett was hustling to get under the ball after it took a sharp downward turn upon hitting the walkway, which is suspended approximately 190 feet above the field, but he couldn't get to it in time, allowing Jason Repko to score the tie-breaking run. The Twins ended up scoring another run and won the game 8-6 and gained an important series split after losing the first two games in Tampa. |
| August 6, 1967 | Dean Chance throws a perfect game through five innings against the Boston Red Sox at Met Stadium and wins 2-0 but the game was shortened due to rain and under MLB rule revisions in 1991, it is not recognized as an official no-hitter or a perfect game. Chance will throw a no-hitter that does count on August 25th. |
August 6, 1969 | Twins manager Billy Martin punches out his pitcher Dave Boswell after a scuffle between Boswell and teammate Bob Allison. Boswell is hospitalized and requires 20 stitches. |
August 6, 2010 | The Twins lose to the Indians 7-6 when Matt LaPorta hits a walk-off home run off reliever Matt Guerrier in the bottom of the ninth. But there is more to this story, the Twins were trailing 6-4 after eight innings but had a runner on base in the top of the ninth when pinch-hitter Jim Thome appeared to have hit a game tieing two run home run, but the umpires ruled it a double. The play was reviewed and although TV replays seemed to clearly show that it was indeed a home run, the umpires still ruled it a double which cause manager Gardenhire to come on to the field to argue and was automatically ejected for arguing a reviewable play. Alexi Casilla ended up hitting a double that knocked in two runs to tie the score at 6-6 but the Twins could do no more and in the bottom of the ninth LaPorta hit his dramatic walk-off blast for an Indians win. |
August 7, 1907 | Washington Senators' hurler Walter Johnson wins his first major league game beating the Indians, 7-2. The 'Big Train' will tally 417 victories during his 21-year HOF career. |
August 7, 2002 | Major leaguers agree to be checked randomly for illegal steroids starting next year. The proposal, which addresses a major issue in the current contract talks, ends the players decades-old opposition to mandatory drug testing. |
August 7, 2005 | 40,982 fans at the Metrodome saw Twins outfielder Shannon Stewart give the ball to a fan after making a catch off the bat of Alex Cora, unfortunately, there were only two outs and the Red Sox scored 5 runs in the top of the first inning and ended up winning the game 11-7. |
August 7, 2009 | The Twins, in need of pitching help agree to send the Clevland Indians "a player to be named later" and acquire pitcher Carl Pavano. |
August 7, 2010 | Both teams wore throwback uniforms at Jacobs Field, honoring the Negro Leagues, with the Twins wearing the 1909 St. Paul Gophers uniforms, and the Indians dressed like the 1946 Cleveland Buckeyes. The old Gophers uniforms are navy blue, with long, baggy sleeves and baggy pants. The shirts had a huge open collar that made them look kind of strange. The hats were white with short blue brims ans StPG logo. Carl Pavano and the Twins won 7-2. |
August 8, 1974 | The Royals - Twins game at Royals Stadium is briefly interrupted by President Nixon's resignation speech. The speech is broadcast after it begins and the next inning is delayed until the conclusion of the speech. The Twins prevail over the host Royals‚ 3 - 2 in 14 innings when Tony Oliva's sacrifice fly drives home Rod Carew. Bill Campbell pitches 7 innings of relief for the win. |
| August 8, 1987 | The Twins beat the Oakland A's 9-2 at the Metrodome as Twins pitcher Steve Carlton wins the 329th and final game of his Hall of Fame career. Carlton pitches 8 2/3 innings giving up 2 runs while striking out two batters. |
August 8, 1998 | Paul Molitor stole his 500th base in Minnesota's 6-3 loss to Baltimore to become only the fifth player ever with 3,000 hits and 500 steals. Molitor joined Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins and Lou Brock. |
August 8, 2004 | The A's beat the Twins 6 - 5 in 18 innings. It is the second-longest game in the 23-year history of the Metrodome. With the score tied 3 to 3, the A's score 3 in the top of the 18th off Terry Mulholland to take a 6-3 lead. The Twins come back with 2 in the bottom of the 18th with a Morneau home run but leave Matthew LeCroy stranded on first when Koskie and Cuddyer flyout to end the rally and the Twins hope of a huge comeback victory. The game lasts 4 hours and 57 minutes. |
August 8, 2005 | One time Minnesota Twins manger (1976-1980) Gene Mauch passes away at the age of 79. Mauch was the seventh manager in Twins history. I think one of my favorite Gene Mauch quotes was "I'm not the manager because I am always right, but I am always right because I am the manager". |
August 8, 2009 | The Twins third manager, Cal Ermer passed away at the age of 85 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Ermer replaced the fired Sam Mele in June 1967 with the Twins in sixth place with a 25-25 record. The Twins went 66-46 the rest of the season but lost the American League pennant on the final day of the season. Ermer was fired after the Twins finished in seventh place in 1968 with a 79-83 record. |
August 9, 1967 | The Twins lose 9-7 to the Washington Senators after plaiyng for 20 innings and 5 hours and 40 minutes at Met Stadium. The Twins had a 7-0 lead after 6 but the Senators scored 7 in the top of the 7th to tie the score. The Senators Ken McMullen hit a home run in the top of the 20th inning to win the game. Al Worthington the Twins fourth pitcher threw 8.2 innings of 2 hit relief with 8 strikeouts but Jim Roland who pitched the last 4 innings took the loss. Darold Knowles, the 5th pitcher used by Washington threw 10 innings of 3 hit relief while striking out 10 Twins, but Dave Baldwin who pitched the last 3 innings got the victory. I guess this was back in the days when relief pitchers were tough! |
August 10, 1969 | For the second time this season, Twins' Cesar Tovar breaks up a no-hit bid by an Oriole pitcher with a ninth inning single. Mike Cuellar is the victim this time. Mike Cuellar's (15-9) string of 35 straight batters retired is ended by Cesar Tovar, who also spoils Cuellar's no-hit bid in a 2 - 0 win against the Twins at Memorial Stadium. Tovar has the only hit in a game for the third time, and the second time this season. |
| August 10, 1971 | Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins hit his 500th home run in the first inning off Baltimore's Mike Cuellar at Met stadium to become the 10th player with at least 500. Killebrew also hit No. 501 off Cuellar, but the Orioles won 4-3. |
| August 10, 1979 | The Oakland A's and the Twins split a twin bill at Met Stadium and Oakland reliever Dave Heaverlo wins the first game and loses the second game. |
August 10, 1990 | The Minnesota Twins first manager, Harry Arthur “Cookie” Lavagetto died in his sleep at his home in Orinda, California at the age of 77. |
August 10, 1994 | In the final game of the 1994 season, the Twins beat the Red Sox 17-7 at the Metrodome. Kirby Puckett is 2 for 3 with 4 runs scored, two home runs, and seven RBI's. Kent Hrbek takes off his major league uniform for the last time after going 1 for 5 with 1 run scored and 3 RBI's. |
August 10, 2000 | Twins catcher Danny Ardoin hits a homerun for his first major league hit against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. |
August 11, 1982 | Twins Terry Felton (0-11) is the losing pitcher in 6-3 loss to California, dropping his career record to 0-14, the worst individual start in ML history. Felton will never win a ML game, finishing his career with an 0-16 record. Terry owns two dubious major league records, most losses (16) in a career with zero wins and most losses in a single season without a win with 13 in 1982. |
August 11, 2001 | Put this down in your list of strange and unusual. In a 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Tropicana Field Minnesota 1B Doug Mientkiewicz makes all 3 putouts in the bottom of the 2nd without touching first base. The Devil Rays have Toby Hall on third base and Randy Winn on first with no outs in the inning when Aubrey Huff hits a weak grounder to Mientkiewicz. The first sacker crosses the diamond to chase Hall back to third, then tags out Winn who had run all the way around from first. Mientkiewicz then catches Hall wandering off the base to complete an unassisted double play. The next Rays' batter‚ Jared Sandberg‚ hits a towering foul pop-up that Mientkiewicz catches for the third out. |
August 12, 1984 | Harmon Killebrew, Rick Ferrell, Don Drysdale, Pee Wee Reese, and Luis Aparicio are inducted into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York. |
August 12, 2000 | The Twins All-Time Team took part in an on the field pre-game ceremony and a poster depicting the All-Time Team was given to the first 10,000 fans in attendance. In addition, Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Kent Hrbek, Kirby Puckett, and Calvin Griffith were inducted as charter members into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame. |
August 13, 1970 | For a record-tying 4th time, Cesar Tovar has the Twins' only hit, a single. This time Washington Senators DIck Bosman is the pitcher, winning 1 - 0 at RFK Stadium. Jim Kaat who gave up the single unearned run is the tough luck loser. |
August 13, 1986 | The Twins part ways with pitchers Ron Davis and Dewayne Coleman and receive shortstop Julius McDougal, and pitchers George Frazier and Ray Fontenot from the Cubs. |
August 13, 1995 | The Twins retire Kent Hrbek’s number 14. |
| August 14, 1981 | The last double header played at Met Stadium draws a crowd of only 5,630 baseball fans as the Twins and Seattle Mariners split the twin bill. |
August 14, 1997 | The Twins send 1B Greg Colbrunn to the Atlanta Braves for outfielder Mark Lewis. |
August 15, 1993 | The Twins trade 3B Mike Pagliarulo to the Orioles and receive a player to be named later that turns out to be pitcher Erik Schullstrom. |
August 15, 2007 | Colorado sends 3B Matt Macri to Minnesota for pitcher Ramon Ortiz. |
August 15, 2010 | In a game I attended at Target Field, Twins pitcher Kevin Slowey had a no hitter for 7 innings against the Oakland A's. The Twins were leading 1-0 going into the bottom of the 7th inning and Jim Thome hit a 3-run home (his 580th) to right field and the Twins had a 4-0 lead. At that point, manger Ron Gardenhire made a gutsy move and pulled Slowey from the game and killed Slowey's chance at pitching immortality. To that point Slowey had walked 3 batters, hit one, and had a runner reach first on a throwing error by shortstop Alexi Casilla. Reliever Jon Rauch came in to the game and retired the first batter in the 8th but then allowed back-to-back doubles and the no-hitter and the shutout both went by the wayside. The Twins ended up winning the game 4-2. Gardy's reasoning for pulling Slowey while he still had a no-hitter going was that Slowey had been skipped in the pitching rotation a few days earlier due to a twinge in his elbow and the fact that he had thrown 106 pitches. |
August 16, 1975 | In a 9 - 1 win over Cleveland at Met Stadium, the Twins set a ML mark with nine batters getting 2 or more hits. The Twins hitters that day were Lyman Bostock, Danny Ford, Rod Carew, John Briggs, Tony Oliva, Eric Soderholm, Steve Braun, Jerry Terrell and Phil Roof. Pitcher Jim Hughes is the recipient of the largesse. |
August 16, 1990 | Was Tom Kelly bored on this day? In a 7 - 5 loss to the Indians at Celeveland Stadium, the Twins' Kirby Puckett starts off in RF and then moves to SS, 3B, and 2B all in the 8th inning. Al Newman switches from 3B to SS back to 3B in the frame. Cleveland fails to score. |
August 17, 1999 | Jesse Orosco set a major league record by pitching in his 1,072nd game, breaking a tie with Dennis Eckersley atop the career list. The 42-year-old Orosco took the mound with two outs in the seventh inning of Baltimore's victory over Minnesota. |
August 17, 2008 | During the fifth inning of a 11-8 loss to the Twins at the Metrodome, Mariners' right-hander (and future Minnesota Twins pitcher) R. A. Dickey throws four wild pitches tying a major league record for wild pitches in one frame. Seattle backstop Kenji Johjima is also charged with a passed ball on another pitch thrown in the infamous inning. |
August 17, 2010 | Let me set the stage, the Twins are up by 3 games in the AL Central standings over the Chicago White Sox and the mighty whitey's come to Target Field for 3 crucial games starting today. The Twins take a 4-0 lead after one inning but the whitey's come back with three of their own in the second. After four innings the score is tied 4-4. The Twins go ahead 5-4 in the fifth on a long home run to left by Delmon Young but Sox Alexei Ramirez ties the game again with a home run to left off closer Matt Capps in the top of the ninth. The White Sox scrape together three singles in the top of the 10th to take the lead 6-5. Then in the botton of the 10th inning Delmon Young singles and Jim Thome hits the first walk-off home run at Target Field deep to right off lefty reliever Matt Thornton and the Twins take a four game lead in the AL Central. |
August 18, 1966 | The Twins turn their first ever triple play in the second inning of a game against the Angels. Frank Malzone was the unlucky hitter when Rollins-Tovar-Killebrew turned the play at the Met. |
August 18, 1986 | Tom Seaver, pitching for the Boston Red Sox wins the 311th and final game of his Hall of Fame career in a 3-1 win over Minnesota in the Metrodome. Seaver pitches 3 hit ball over 8 2/3 innings and strikes out seven. |
August 19, 1974 | The Twins and A’s swap 1B, the Twins give up Jim Holt and the A’s send Pat Bourque to Minnesota. |
August 19, 1984 | The Twins trade pitcher Jay Pettibone to the St. Louis Cardinals for shortstop Chris Speier. |
| August 19, 2007 | The Twins beat the Texas Rangers 1-0 at the Metrodome and in the process Johan Santana sets a new team game strikeout record when he whiffs 17 Rangers in 8 innings. Michael Cuddyer provides the game's lone run with his 12th homer of the season. Michael Young, the All-Star shortstop, leads the K crowd by striking out all four times against Santana. |
August 20, 1962 | The Twins trade pitchers Jackie Collum and Georges Maranda to Cleveland for pitcher Ruben Gomez. |
August 21, 1965 | The Beatles played a concert at Metropolitan Stadium. |
August 21, 1968 | Minnesota's Jim Merritt loses his shutout in the 9th when Mickey Mantle hits a pinch homer, but Merritt wins 3-1. It is Mantle's 534th HR, tying him with Jimmie Foxx for 3rd on the all-time list at that time. |
August 21, 1997 | The Twins acquire pitchers Joe Mays and Jeromy Palki from the Mariners when they give up outfielder Roberto Kelly. |
August 22, 1975 | The Twins Dave McKay homers in his first ML at bat during an 8-4 win over the Tigers, Vern Ruhle gave up the long ball at Met Stadium. McKay becomes the second Twins player to hit a homerun in his first at bat. |
August 22, 1981 | The Twins and Tigers swapped 1B, the Twins acquired Tim Corcoran and gave up Ron "Papa Jack" Jackson. |
August 22, 2008 | Outfielder Carlos Gomez sets a Minnesota rookie record with his 27th steal of the season in Anaheim, breaking a record previously held by Luis Rivas. |
August 23, 1966 | The Twins hit a milestone with win number 500 in Washington when Jim Kaat gets the victory. |
| August 23, 1977 | Minnesota native Dave Goltz pitches a one hitter and the Twins beat the Boston Red Sox 7-0 at Met Stadium. Jim Rice's lead off single to left in the top of the fourth inning was the only base hit off Goltz. Goltz walked 3 batters and struck out 10. The Twins hitters beat up on Fergie Jenkins and Bob Stanley for 14 hits including a home run by Rod Carew. Every hitter in the Twins line-up had at least one hit. |
August 23, 2005 | The Twins beat the White Sox at the Dome (we were there) 1 to 0 and the Twins only had 1 hit in the game, a 8th inning home run by Jacques Jones off tough luck loser Freddy Garcia. Johan Santana who had pitched 8 innings and himself only gave up 3 hits was credited with the win. Joe Nathan pitched a hitless 9th for the save. This was only the second time in Twins history that they have won a game while only getting one hit. |
August 23, 2009 | Michael Cuddyer hit a pair of home runs during an eight-run seventh inning for the Twins in their 10-3 win at Kansas City. Cuddyer is the only player to homer twice in an inning for Minnesota since the franchise left Washington, D.C. after the 1960 season. The only player to do that for the old Senators was Jim Lemon against the Red Sox at Griffith Stadium on Sept. 5, 1959. Cuddyer also becomes the first major leaguer in baseball history to hit for the cycle (May 22) and hit two home runs in one inning during the course of the same season. |
August 24, 1980 | Twins manager Gene Mauch resigns following a 3-2 loss to the Tigers, he was replaced by John Goryl. |
August 24, 1981 | In his first ML game, Kent Hrbek homers in the 12th inning off pitcher George Frazier to give the Twins a 3-2 win over the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. The 21-year-old 1B grew up in Bloomington, MN, less than a mile from Metropolitan Stadium and jumped directly to his hometown club from Class-A Visalia (California League), where he was hitting .380 with 27 HRs and 112 RBI. |
August 25, 1967 | Dean Chance pitches the second no hitter in Twins history and defeats the Indians 2-1 in the second game of a double header at Cleveland Stadium. The Indians actually scored first in this game when Chance walked Lee Maye and Vic Davalillo in the bottom of the first. Chance then struck out Chuck Hinton but Tony Horton reached on an error by SS Jackie Hernandez to load the bases. With Max Alvis batting, Chance threw a wild pitch and Maye scored the Indians first and only run. Chance then struck out Alvis and Joe Azcue flew out to end the threat. Chance then completed the game with out allowing an Indian hit while striking out eight and walking a total of five batters. The Twins went on to score two runs and win this unusual no-hitter. |
August 25, 1970 | A bomb scare at Met Stadium delayed the Boston Red Sox vs Minnesota Twins game forty-three (43) minutes. According to the Sporting News, a bomb scare forced a 43-minute delay in the fourth inning, but the only bomb that exploded was the homer by Tony Conigliaro off of Tommy Hall in the eighth giving Red Sox 1-0 victory over Twins. A crowd of 17,697 evacuated the stands after announcement over public address system stated that a telephoned warning had been received that bomb was due to go off. The evacuation was orderly and without panic with about 2,000 fans, players, police and vendors gathered in the center-field area. The rest milled about in the parking lot. The bomb was supposed to go off at 10:30 PM so after a 27 minute wait, the game was resumed at 10:57 PM. The Sox end the game with a double play, a 1-6 force at second base, then a throw home to nab Tony Oliva trying to score. Ken Brett is the winner in relief over Tommy Hall. |
August 25, 1978 | Major League umpires stage a one-day strike in defiance of their union contract. Semipro and amateur umps are pressed into service until a restraining order forces the strikers to return. At Toronto at Exhibition Stadium, the Blue Jays beat the Twins 7 - 3, with two amateur umpires and two coaches officiating: Toronto coach Don Leppert was at 2B and Twins coach Jerry Zimmerman was at 3B. Since 1910, this was just the 5th time this century, and the first time since 1941, that active players or coaches have umpired.The umpires will walk out again at the beginning of the 1979 season. |
August 25, 1998 | The Twins like many teams before them, send pitcher Mike Morgan packing, this time to the Cubs and pitcher Scott Downs heads to Minnesota. Morgan pitched for 12 different ML teams (13 if you count that he was traded to the Cubs twice) between 1978 and 2002 before he finally calls it quits. |
| August 25, 2008 | The Twins make a deal with the Texas Rangers and reacquire relief pitcher Eddie Guardado and send pitcher Mark Hamburger to Texas. |
August 26, 1962 | 23,224 Twins fans get to see the Twins first no-hitter ever at Met stadium as Jack Kralick no-hits the A's and wins 1-0 on Lenny Green’s sacrifice fly off Bill Fischer. A 3 - 2 walk to George Alusik with one out in the 9th spoils the bid for a perfect game. Alusik had beaten Kralick with a 2-run home run back on August 8th. Kralick struck out 3 batters in his complete game effort. |
August 26, 1996 | The Twins receive pitcher Brian Looney from the Red Sox for pitcher Pat Mahomes. |
August 27, 1975 | The Twins Craig Kusick ties the ML record by being hit with pitches 3 times in one game, an 11-inning 1-0 win over the Brewers. Bert Blyleven goes the distance for the win. |
August 28, 1981 | Tim Laudner becomes the 2nd Twins player in 4 days to homer in his first ML game, a 6-0 win over the Tigers at Met Stadium. Tiger Dave Rozema gives up the long ball. |
August 28, 1988 | The Twins deal pitcher Doug Kline to Baltimore for outfielder Jim Dwyer. |
August 28, 1989 | One year to the day after outfielder Jim Dwyer is acquired, he is sent to the Expos for outfielder Alonzo Powell. |
August 28, 1993 | The Giants and Twins make a deal. The Twins get pitchers Greg Brummett, Aaron Fultz, and infielder Andres Duncan while the Giants get pitcher Jim Deshaies. |
August 28, 2008 | MLB implemented instant replay for the first time but the policy only applies to homerun balls. The Twins game in Oakland was one of the first games played under instant replay rules. |
August 28, 2009 | The Minnesota Twins announced today that they have acquired righthanded pitcher Jon Rauch from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for cash. |
August 29, 1963 | What a power packed day. In a double header with the Washington Senators in DC Stadium the Twins sweep both ends. In the first game the Twins win 14-2 and hit 8 home runs in the process. Jimmie Hall, Rich Rollins, Bernie Allen, and Bob Allison each hit one out while Vic Power and Harmon Killebrew each hit two out of the park. The Twins win the second game 10-1 and hit 4 more home runs. This time Zoilo Versalles, Jimmie Hall, Bernie Allen, and Harmon Killebrew hit'em out. |
August 29, 1984 | The Twins send 2B Carson Carroll packing to Seattle and receive 1B Pat Putnam. |
August 29, 1990 | Shortstop Greg Gagne goes 2 for 4 with a home run and three steals, including home, in a 6 - 1 win over the White Sox at the Metrodome. Mark Guthrie goes the distance for the win. |
| August 29, 1992 | A power outage in the Metrodome during the third inning caused a 23-minute delay vs. New York. |
August 29, 1996 | The Twins trade 3B Dave Hollins to the Mariners and receive 1B David Ortiz. |
| August 29, 2009 | The Minnesota Twins signed lefthanded pitcher Ron Mahay to a Major League contract. Mahay was designated for assignment on August 24, and released on August 26 by the Kansas City Royals. |
August 30, 1963 | The Twins' power surge continues in a 5-3 win over the White Sox. Minnesota has 19 HRs in the span of 5 straight games, tying the ML record set by the Giants in 1954. |
August 30, 1981 | The White Sox send outfielder Randy Johnson, shortstop Ivan Mesa, and pitcher Kevin Flannery to Minnesota for pitcher Jerry Koosman. |
| August 30, 1983 | With the Twins trailing the Tigers 4-3 in the top of the 8th inning at Tiger Stadium, Tiger pitcher Dan Petry hits Twins outfielder Gary Ward in the face with a fastball. Battered and bruised, Ward returns to the lineup just six days later and goes 4 for 4 against the Rangers at Arlington Stadium. Gary Gaetti was quoted as saying " I've been hit in the head", but I'd never seen anything like that before. His face was broken". |
August 30, 1987 | Kirby Puckett goes 6-for-6 with 2 home runs, 2 doubles, and 2 singles in Minnesota's 10-6 win over Milwaukee, tying the AL record for hits in a 9-inning game. His 14 total bases are most in club history. Combined with the previous days 4-for-5, two-HR performance, Puckett has a ML-record-tying 10 hits in 2 games. |
August 30, 1997 | In a deal with the Brewers, the Twins get pitcher Michael Fieldbinder and give up outfielder Darrin Jackson. |
August 30, 2002 | The MLB owners and the players union reaches an oral agreement on a contract through 12/19/2006, setting a deal 3 ½ hours before the first game due to be affected by strike. As part of this agreement, contraction is put off until after 2006. |
August 30, 2007 | The MInnesota Twins and many dignitaries hold the official ground breaking for the Twins new stadium which eventually will be called Target Field. The ground breaking was postponed from earlier in the month due to the collapse of the 35W bridge. |
August 31, 1987 | In their seventh trade of the season, the Twins acquire outfielder Don Baylor from the Red Sox for pitcher Enrique Rios. |
August 31, 1992 | The Twins send pitcher Bill Krueger to the Montreal Expos for outfielder Darren Reed. |
August 31, 1993 | The Twins finally win the longest game in their history when Pedro Munoz hits a walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the 22nd inning to beat Jason Grimsley and the Cleveland Indians 5-4 in 22 innings after playing ball for 6 hours and 17 minutes at the Metrodome. Brett Merriman picks up the win. |
August 31, 1994 | The Twins sell future HOF outfielder Dave Winfield to the Cleveland Indians. Because of the strike, Winfield won't play for his new team until 1995. |
August 31, 2000 | The Twins send outfielder Midre Cummings to Boston for shortstop Hector De Los Santos. |
August 31, 2003 | The Twins and Yankees swap pitchers and the Twins get Jesse Orosco and part ways with Juan Padilla. |
August 31, 2005 | At Kauffman Stadium against the Royals the Twins get 13 hits, 2 walks and a hit batsman and still manage to lose the game 1-0. Matt Guerrier was the loser in relief of Kyle Loshe and Mike MacDougal picked up the win. This was one hit short of a ML record for hits in a 9 innings shutout loss. |
August 31, 2006 | The Twins acquire 1B/DH Phil Nevin from the Chicago Cubs and give up pitcher Adam Harben. |
September 1, 1971 | The St. Louis Cardinals trade outfielders Dan Ford and Fred Rico to the Twins and in turn the Twins send pitcher Stan Williams to the Cards. |
| September 1, 1972 | Rod Carew swipes home with 2 out in the 10th inning to give the Twins a 5 - 4 victory over the Indians at Mt Stadium. Carew will steal home 17 times in his career‚ seven times stealing alone. The Twins score their first 4 runs as Bobby Darwin drives them all in on 4 hits‚ including 2 homers. |
| September 1, 1992 | At Tiger Stadium, Rick Aguilera pitches a scoreless ninth inning to notched his 35 save of the season in Minnesota's 5-4 victory over Detroit. It is the right-handed reliever's 109th save making him the Twins' all-time saves leader. Aguilera ended his Twins career with 254 saves. |
September 1, 2002 | The A’s take a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth as they try for win number 18 in a row to set a franchise record. The Twins Matt LeCroy and Cory Koskie hit back to back homeruns leading off the bottom of the 9th to tie the game and Michael Cuddyer unloads with 2 out for the 3rd homerun of the inning and a 5-4 lead. But alas, the lead is short lived as Eddie Guardado gives up a walk, a single and a homerun to Miguel Tejada and the A’s win their 18th straight in a 7-5 heart breaking loss for the Twins. |
September 1, 2004 | Twins pitcher Terry Mulholland goes 6 innings and allows 2 runs in the Twins' 4 - 2 win over Baltimore at the Metrodome. Mulholland and catcher Pat Borders‚ who was obtained the previous day from Seattle for BJ Garbe are the first pair of 40-something batterymates since a couple of Dodgers did it in 1945. |
September 1, 2009 | The Minnesota Twins announced today that right-handed pitcher Kevin Mulvey has been assigned to the Arizona Diamondbacks on a waiver claim for cash considerations. |
September 2, 1958 | Minneapolis announces a $9 million bond issue to expand Metropolitan Stadium to 41,000 seats. City alderman Byron Nelson predicts it is a "dead cinch" that Washington will move here. |
September 2, 1965 | A tough day at the old ballpark today as the Detroit Tigers beat the Twins 5-4 at Met Stadium. Twins outfielder Bob Allison really had a bad day when he tied a major league record by striking out 5 time in 5 at bats against Tiger hurlers Joe Sparma (4 times) and Orlando Pena (once). |
September 2, 1999 | Keep your "Wells" straight. Blue Jays pitcher David Wells pitched a complete game and beat the Twins 6-1 at the Skydome in Toronto. Twins pitcher Bob Wells pitched in relief and struck out Blue Jays outfielder Vernon Wells. |
September 3, 1971 | Twins rookie Eric Soderholm hits a homerun in his first game as a Twin when he hits one out against the Oakland A's and pitcher Diego Segui at Met Stadium. |
September 3, 2006 | While taping what he thought was a pre-game show, Twins TV color analyst Bert Blyleven messed up something and muttered "We're going to do this fucking thing over again, cuz I just fucked up". When told that they were on the air and live, Bert said, "Oh, we're live", "I didn't know that". Bert apologized during the game profusely but after the game Twins managemnt suspended Blyleven. While suspended, Twins fans chanted "free Bert" and very quickly Twins managemnt relented and Bert was back on the air. |
September 4, 2009 | The Twins defensive meltdown at Cleveland not only contributed to a 5-2 loss, it also ended one of the most impressive (if little-known) defensive streaks in major-league history. The Twins committed four errors in Friday's game, the most errors they have committed in a game since June 21, 2000, when they were charged with four errors in a 7-5 loss at Texas. (Pitcher Bob Wells made two of those errors, Cristian Guzman and Butch Huskey the others.) Minnesota's streak of 1,519 games without a game of four-or-more errors was by far the longest in the history of the major leagues-nearly 400 games superior to the second-longest such streak, 1,136 games by the Rockies. |
September 5, 1978 | The Twins Danny Ford costs his team a run during a 4-3 loss to the White Sox at Met Stadium. Trailing 4-0 in the seventh, Ford is on third with the bases loaded when Bombo Rivera singles, Ford backpedals homeward, signaling Jose Morales who was on second to follow him home. Morales arrives there ahead of Ford, and is called out for passing Ford on the bases. |
September 5, 1997 | The Atlanta Braves send 1B Steve Hacker to the Twins for catcher Greg Myers. |
September 6, 1954 | On this day in the year of 1954 the Washington Senators played a black ballplayer for the first time. His name was Carlos Paula and he was from Havana, Cuba. The 26 year-old Paula started in left field for the Senators seven years after Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut. |
September 6, 1964 | The Twins only manage to get one hit off Red Sox starter Bill Monbouquette at Met Stadium but they make it count and get a 2-1 victory and in the process win their first game ever when the team only gets one hit. With the Twins trailing 1-0 with 2 outs in the 6th inning, Rich Rollins reaches 2B on an error by Red Sox Tony Horton and then Zoilo Versalles steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park. Gerry Arrigo is credited with the win and Al Worthington gets a 3 inning save. The tough luck loser is Monbouquette. |
September 6, 2002 | The Twins ended The Oakland A’s historic winning streak at 20 games when they shut out the A’s at the Metrodome 6-0 behind Brad Radkes' complete game six-hitter. The A’s came up 1 game short in their attempt to match the second longest winning streak in baseball history. For the first time in 11 years, the Homer Hanky made its return to the Metrodome in Minneapolis in hopes of halting the A' record-setting 20-game winning streak. Minnesota, who went 8-0 in World Series games (1987 and 1991) at the home as the waving towels became the trademark of Twins fans saw the magic continue as Minnesota blanked Oakland. |
September 7, 1970 | In game 1 of a double header at Met Stadium against the Milwaukee Brewers, outfielder Brant Alyea goes 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored and 2 home runs and knocks in all 7 Twins runs in a 7-6 Twins win. Alyea sets a Twins team RBI record in the process. In game 2 of the double header Twins rookie pitcher Hal Haydel hits a home run in his first major league game when he hits one out against Milwaukee Brewers hurler Al Downing at Met Stadium in his second at bat, Haydel had doubled in his first at bat and the Twins won the game 8-3. Haydel remains the only Twins pitcher in history to hit a homerun in his first ML game. Haydel had relieved Luis Tiant who was taken out of the game after one inning, and pitched 5 innings to get his first major league victory. Brant Alyea had two more RBI's in the second game. |
September 8, 1958 | In a special meeting of American League owners in Chicago, Washington owner Calvin Griffith succumbs to pressure from other AL owners and that night advises Minneapolis officials that he is staying in Washington DC. |
September 9, 1984 | Kent Hrbek hits the longest home run ever by a Twins player at the Metrodome when he crushes one 480 feet to right field off knuckle baller Charlie Hough in a 9-3 loss to the Texas Rangers. |
September 9, 1998 | Corey Koskie becomes the 500th Twins player when he debuts at 3B in the 7th inning of a game at Anaheim against the Angels. |
September 9, 2003 | The San Diego Padres send infielder Alex Garcia to Minnesota and the Twins send 1B Todd Sears to the west coast. |
September 10, 1961 | Julio Becquer becomes the Twins first position player to pitch in a regular season game when he pitches 1 and 1/3 innings against the Kansas City Athletics at Municipal Stadium in a 13-1 loss and gives up 3 earned runs in the process. Julio also pitched in a game as a Washington Senator in 1960. |
September 10, 1990 | In the first head-to-head match up of pitchers named Abbott, Jim's Angels beat Paul's Twins 3-1. Minnesota's Carmen Castillo pinch hits late in the game to complete the successful "Abbott and Castillo" revival. |
September 10, 2000 | Pitcher Hector Carrasco is sent to the Red Sox for outfielder Lew Ford. |
September 10, 2003 | Twins third base coach Al Newman is strickened with a life-threatening brain hemmorhage in Chicago during a game against the White Sox. Newman recovers but misses the rest of the season. |
September 11, 1972 | The Twins take two from the Oakland A's by 2-1 and 3-2 scores in front of only 8,506 fans at the Met and pin two defeats on future Hall of Fame relief star Rollie Fingers. |
September 11, 1974 | Harmon Killebrew's final home run as a Minnesota Twins is a walk-off 2 run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning off Darrell Knowles as the Twins beat the Oakland Athletics 5-3 at Met Stadium in front of only 3,982 fans. Killebrew had entered the game in the bottom of the 8th inning as a pinch hitter for DH Tony Oliva. |
September 11, 1999 | Eric Milton pitches a no-hitter against the Anaheim Angels at the Metrodome and wins the game 7-0. This is the fourth no-hitter thrown by a Twins pitcher in team history. There are just 11,222 fans to see the game, the third smallest crowd to witness a no-hitter in the majors since 1986. The 11:05 a.m. start time is to accommodate a University of Minnesota football game at the Metrodome and the Twins offer free admission to anyone attending the game in their pajamas. |
September 11, 2001 | Due to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, all baseball games were postponed through 9/16/2001. |
September 12, 1986 | The Twins fire manager Ray Miller and replace him with coach Tom Kelly. The Twins beat Texas 4-2 in Tom Kelly's debut as the Twins manager. |
September 12, 2003 | Catcher Joe Mauer is named as Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year and becomes the first Minnesota Twins player to ever win this award. |
September 13, 1986 | Texas hit a club record seven home runs, including two each by Darrell Porter and Ruben Sierra, as the Rangers beat the Minnesota Twins 14-1. The Rangers rocked starter Bert Blyleven for five home runs, raising his season total to 44 and breaking an American League record. Blyleven goes on to give up 50 homeruns in 1986 and sets a ML record. |
September 13, 1994 | The Minnesota Twins name Terry Ryan as their General Manager. |
September 13, 2004 | The Twins beat the Detroit Tigers 5-3 at Comerica Park and in the process complete their first ever four game sweep of the Tigers, home or away. |
September 13, 2007 | After 13 years on the job, Terry Ryan announces his resignation as Twins general manager will be effective at the end of the month. The 53-year-old, who will serve as the team's as senior advisor to the GM, saw his team win the AL Central last season for the fourth time since 2001. |
September 14, 1967 | Walt Bond, who played for the Indians, Astros, and Twins, dies of leukemia at 29. This gigantic 6'7" 235-lb Kansas City Monarch and minor-league slugger battled leukemia as a player. During a four-year remission, he put together one productive major-league season, for the 1964 Colt .45's (20 HR, 85 RBI). Bond began 1967 with the Twins, but died in September. |
September 14, 1987 | Ernie Whitt hit three of Toronto's major league record 10 home runs as the Blue Jays rolled to an 18-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles at Exhibition Stadium. Baltimore shortstop Cal Ripken had his consecutive-inning streak stopped at 8,243 when he was replaced at shortstop by former Twins infielder Ron Washington in the eighth inning. |
September 14, 1989 | Jeff Reardon saves Minnesota's 2-0 win over Toronto to become the first pitcher ever to record at least 30 saves in 5 consecutive seasons. |
September 14, 1994 | The baseball season, already shut down by a month-long labor dispute, was canceled along with the World Series in a vote of league owners. |
September 14, 2002 | The Twins AAA team the Edmonton Trappers win the PCL championship with a 3-1 win over the Salt Lake City Stingers and in the process become the first Twins AAA team to ever win a championship. |
September 14, 2003 | Playing in Jacobs Field, Clevland shortstop Jhonny Peralta hit a fly ball to right field, Twins outfielder Mike Ryan loses the ball in the sun and the ball hits him in the head, centerfielder Dustan Mohr backing up the play caught the ball before it hit the ground for the out. |
September 15, 1961 | At Cleveland Stadium, 22-year-old Sudden Sam McDowell makes his major league debut and pitches six scoreless innings, striking out 7. He leaves after one out in the 7th with a 2-0 lead after his hard throwing causes him to breaks two ribs. With two out in the 9th, the Twins score three to win, 3 - 2. Lee Stange, in relief, gains his first majoe league win. |
September 15, 2002 | In spite of a 67 minute rain delay, the Twins clinch the 2002 AL Central Division championship with a 5-0 win over the defending champion Cleveland Indians and a White Sox loss to the Yankees. This marks the earliest date that the Twins have ever clinched a title. Minnesota, which will making its first playoff appearance since 1991, was almost eliminated during the off season due to contraction. |
September 16, 1970 | Pitcher Clyde Wright becomes the California Angels second ever 20 game winner when he beat the Twins and Bert Blyleven 5-1 at Met Stadium. Bert Blyleven, a 19-year old rookie, ties an AL record by striking out the first six batters (Sandy Alomar, Tony Gonzalez, Jim Fregosi, Alex Johnson, Ken McMullen, and Jay Johnstone). He strikes out 10 in 6 2/3 innings. |
September 16, 1983 | Minnesota's Tim Teufel goes 5-for-5 with a triple and the first 2 home runs of his ML career in an 11-4 win over the Blue Jays and in the process becomes the first Twin to get 5 hits in a single game at the Metrodome. Tuefel becomes the only Twins player to ever get 5 hits and score 5 runs in a game. Teufel ends up with 13 total bases for the game. |
September 16, 1993 | Dave Winfield of the Minnesota Twins became the 19th player in major league history to get 3,000 hits with a single off Oakland's Dennis Eckersley at the Metrodome in a 13 inning 5-3 Twins win. |
September 16, 1996 | Paul Molitor gets his 3,000th career hit, becoming the 21st major leaguer to reach the mark and the first to do it with a triple (off Jose Rosado) while the Twins were on the road in Kansas City. The 'Ignitor' reaches this milestone in the same season in which he also collects 200 hits, making him the only player to accomplish both feats in the same campaign. The Twins end up losing the game 6-5. |
September 17, 1988 | Jeff Reardon became the first pitcher to save 40 games in both leagues as the Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox 3-1. Reardon, who saved 42 games for the Montreal Expos in 1985, pitched the ninth inning for his 40th save in 47 opportunities. |
September 17, 2002 | The Twins announce that they will move their AAA team from Edmonton in the PCL to Rochester, NY in the International League for the 2003 season. |
September 18, 1975 | Harmon Killebrew hits his 14th and final home run of 1975 which turns out to be the final home run in the Hall of Famers wonderful career. The ironic twist of fate is that Harmon hits this home run as the DH for the Kansas City Royals at Met Stadium in front of 3,201 Minnesota fans off Twins pitcher Eddie Bane as the Royals beat the Twins 4-3. |
September 18, 1980 | Gary Ward becomes the sixth Twins player to hit for the cycle when he does so against the Brewers in Milwaukee in a Twins 9-8 loss. Ward is the first Twins player to hit for the cycle in a Twins defeat. |
September 18, 2002 | Eddie Guardado saved his 43rd game of the season and in the process set a new Twins save record. Eddie will end the season with 45 games saved in 2002, his first season as a closer. |
September 19, 1972 | Cesar Tovar became the first Twin to hit for the cycle at Metropolitan Stadium when he accomplished this feat against Texas in a 5-3 win. Cesar became only the second player in major league history to have hit a game-ending home run while hitting for the cycle in the same game, Ken Boyer did it in 1961. Since Tovar accomplished the feat, it has been done by George Brett in 1979, Dwight Evans in 1984, and Carlos Gonzalez in 2010. Brett's homer was the only one of the five that did not "complete" the cycle (he had homered earlier in the game). |
September 19, 1975 | The Twins lose to the California Angels 1-0 at Anaheim Stadium despite getting 12 hits and 4 walks. Bert Blyleven was the loser after giving up only 3 hits and 2 walks. A lead off walk by Mickey Rivers in the fourth inning proved to be Bert's downfall. Rivers stole 2B, moved to 3B on a ground out and scored on a single by Dan Briggs. Briggs was then caught stealing for the final out of the inning but the damage was done. |
September 19, 2002 | Twins rookie 0utfielder Mike Ryan gets 2 hits in the first inning of his major league debut in Comerica Park against the Detroit Tigers. In what was a nine-run first inning for Minnesota, Ryan singled in his first two big league at-bats, and drove in two runs. But the glow of the feat was short lived when his hits and Minnesota's 9-0 lead were wiped out when rain forced the game to be called before the top of the third inning. |
September 19, 2008 | Major League Baseball's new instant replay system produces its first reversal when Tampa Bay Rays' Carlos Pena had a two-run double changed to a three-run homer during the fourth inning against the Minnesota Twins. The initial umpire call was based on fan interference, which the video replay showed was not the case. Boof Bonser gives up the long ball in relief of Nick Blackburn. |
September 19, 2009 | The Twins beat the Tigers, 6 - 2 thanks to their quirky ballpark. Trailing 2 - 1 in the 8th against Detroit ace Justin Verlander in one of the last-ever regular-season games to be played in the Metrodome, Orlando Cabrera hits a routine fly ball that LF Don Kelly loses against the roof and lets bounce for a double. Two batters later, Jason Kubel hits a two-run single as Minnesota rallies for five runs to win the game and reduce the Tigers' lead in the AL Central to 2 games. |
September 20, 1965 | Just 537 fans paid to watch the Kansas City A's Jim "Catfish" Hunter beat Jim "Mudcat" Grant 8-2 at Met Stadium in a makeup game in a cool 52 degree drizzle. Don Mincher hits two homeruns. It is the smallest paid crowd to watch the Twins play at home. |
September 20, 1981 | Rookie 3B Gary Gaetti hits a home run in his first ML at bat off knuckleballer Charlie Hough and the Texas Rangers in Texas. Gaetti becomes the third Twins player to homer in his first at bat in a ML game. |
September 20, 2004 | The Twins clinch the AL Central Division title when they beat the White Sox 8-2 in Chicago. They won their 88th game in their 150th game of the season. Carlos Silva picks up the win with home run help from Koskie, Hunter, Blanco, and Rivas. Rivas's homer was his 10th of the season and he bacame the Twins 9th player to have 10 or more home runs. |
September 21, 1963 | Harmon Killebrew goes on a home run tear and smacks 3 out of the park against the Red Sox at Fenway Park in game one of a double header and hits one more home run in game two. |
September 21, 1970 | The A's Vida Blue no-hits the Twins 6-0, becoming the youngest pitcher to perform the feat since Paul Dean, 36 years ago to the day. The only base runner against Blue is Harmon Killebrew, who walks in the 4th inning. An Oakland crowd of only 4,284 watches Blue's 2nd ML start. |
September 21, 1997 | The Twins beat the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 in 10 innings at the Metrodome and Brad Radke pitches the entire 10 innings to get his 20th and final win of the season. Radke gives up a home run to Jeff Cirillo in the top of the first and shuts down the Brew crew the rest of the way. In the process Brad strikes out 9 Brewers, walks none and gives up 6 hits and throws 128 pitches. With one out in the bottom of the 10th, Brent Brede singles and Molitor follows with a game winning triple and the Twins send their fans home happy. The Twins will only win 68 games that season and Radke wins 20 of them. |
September 21, 2002 | Outfielder Michael Restovich homers for his first major league hit in a 14-4 loss to the White Sox at Comiskey field against Kelly Wunsch. |
September 22, 1968 | Cesar Tovar played one inning at each position for the Minnesota Twins at the Met against the Oakland A's becoming only the second major leaguer in history to do it. Bert Campaneris of the Oakland A's was the first. Tovar became the only Twins position player to be a starting pitcher in Twins history, as he tossed a scoreless first inning and struck out future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson along the way. Cesar went on to play C-1B-2B-SS-3B-LF-CF-RF. This was the only occurrence of a Twins position player pitching at Met Stadium. This is also the first and only time that the Twins have won a game when one of their position players has pitched. |
September 22, 1969 | The Minnesota Twins win the American League Western Division title when they defeat the Kansas City Royals 4-3. Bob Miller is the winning pitcher and Harmon Killerbrew hits his 47th home run. |
September 22, 1970 | The Twins clinch the division for the second year in a row when they beat the A’s 5-3 in Oakland in game number 154. |
September 23, 1978 | Lyman Bostock, Jr., an outfielder for the California Angels was shot and killed in Gary, Indiana. He remains the only major league baseball player murdered during the baseball season. Lyman was an oufielder for the Minnesota Twins from 1975-1977. |
September 23, 1990 | Gary Gaetti hits a grand slam off the Rangers Charlie Hough for his 200th career HR, as the Twins win 6-4. It comes 9 years and 4 days after his first ML homer, also off of Hough. |
September 23, 1995 | Chicago White Sox outfielder Lance (One Dog) Johnson goes 6 for 6 with 3 triples (and 3 singles) in a 14-4 win over the Twins at the Metrodome. |
September 23, 2003 | The Twins clinch their second consecutive Central Division title when they beat Cleveland 4-1 in the Metrodome and watch as the White Sox lose to the Yankees and the Royals lose to the Tigers. |
September 24, 2004 | Johan Santana beats Cleveland 8-2 at Jacobs Field and become the first Venezuelan pitcher to win 20 games or more. It was a very good day for Johan, he also set a new team record win 13 consecutive wins and he set a new team strikeout record when he broke Bert Blylevens previous team record. |
September 25, 1965 | The Twins Mudcat Grant one-hits the Washington Senators to win the first game of the DH, 5 - 0 at D.C. Stadium. Senators Don Blasingame's double in the 3rd is the only hit for Washington; it is the 4th time that Blasingame has collected the only hit for his team. |
September 25, 1985 | Bert Blyleven beats the Texas Rangers 5-1 and the Twins rack up win number 2,000. |
September 25, 2000 | In only the second three-team doubleheader in the majors since 1900 and first since Sept. 13, 1951, the Cleveland played host to two different teams, beating the White Sox 9-2 before losing to Minnesota 4-3. It was the Indians' third doubleheader in six days. By the time Minnesota's players arrived at the ballpark for their 4-3 win in Cleveland on Monday night, the only trace that Chicago had used the visitor's clubhouse earlier in a 9-2 loss to the Indians was a pair of white socks left behind by one of the White Sox players. |
September 25, 2006 | The Twins beat the Kansas City Royals 8-1 at the Metrodome and clinch a wildcard playoff spot. This is the first time in history that the wildcard has come from the American League Central Division. It has been an amazing run from a 25-33 start and 11 1/2 games out of first as of June 7th. |
September 25, 2008 | The Twins cap a thrilling three-game sweep of the Mighty Whities to reclaim first place in the AL Central. The team came back from a 6-1 deficit to win the game on Alexi Casilla's walk-off single in the 10th inning for a 7-6 victory. |
September 26, 1965 | Minnesota gains its first AL pennant by defeating Washington 2-1 at D.C. Stadium in their 157th game of the season. Jim Kaat (17-11) wins the clincher. |
September 26, 1973 | Bert Blyleven posts his second one-hitter of the season, beating the A's 4 - 1 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Angel Mangual's single in the 5th is the only hit. |
September 26, 1981 | Rain delayed the Twins/Rangers game for 48 minutes at Met Stadium in front of 4,959 fans. This was the last rain delay for a Twins home game until May 25, 2010 because the Twins moved to the Metrodome in 1981 and played under the roof through the 2009 season. |
September 26, 2009 | For the first time in their history the Twins have won 5 straight road games (three against the White Sox and 2 against the Royals) in which they scored 6 or more runs in each game. |
September 27, 1973 | The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins 5-4 in 11 innings, as Nolan Ryan struck out 16 in a complete game effort, including No. 383 of the season, a modern major league record. Rich Reese was strike-out victim 383. The strikeout broke Sandy Koufax's former single-season record of 382, set in 1965.
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September 27, 1981 | The Twins beat theTexas Rangers 5-2 in what turns out to be their final victory at Met Stadium. Pete Redfern is the winning pitcher and Doug Corbett gets the save. John Castino and Gary Ward each hit two homeruns in the game. The Twins go on to lose the final three games played at Met Stadium to the Kansas City Royals.
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September 27, 1987 | The Twins draw 53,106 fans for their day game against the Kansas City Royals making it their largest ever regular season crowd. |
September 27, 1992 | Beating the Royals at the Metrodome, 4-0, the Twins win their 523rd game with Tom Kelly as the manager. The victory makes the Minnesota native the winningest skipper in team history. |
September 27, 1998 | Paul Molitor completes his Hall of Fame career with a single to center off Doug Jones for hit number 3,319 as the Twins beat the Cleveland Indians 6-2 at the Metrodome. Molitor finishes the game 2 for 4. |
September 28, 1969 | The Twins clinch the division title in their 158th game of the season when they defeat Seattle 5-2 in the first game of a double header in Seattle. |
September 28, 1974 | Nolan Ryan pitched his third of seven career no-hitters, striking out 15 batters and beating the Minnesota Twins 4-0 at Anaheim Stadium. |
September 28, 1978 | In what is referred to in MInnesota as simply "the speech", took place on this day as owner Calvin Griffith spoke to a group at a Lions Club meeting in Waseca, Minnesota. Nick Coleman a Minneaplois reporter was attending the event with his father-in-law. As Griffith spoke, Coleman starting taking notes and in the October 1 issue of the Tribune Coleman wrote that Griffith stated "Rod Carew is a "damn fool" for playing for as little as I pay him; ballplayers should take advantage of free love rather than get married and have their performance suffer like Butch Wynegar; BIlly Martin "never punched anyone his own size"; the stadium commission "can go to hell"; and the Minnesota Twins decided to come to Minnesota "when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here". The negative reactions were swift and strong, Griffith stated he was taken out of context but Griffith's words followed him for the rest of his life. |
September 28, 1982 | The Twins and Blue Jays play two at Exhibition Stadium and the Twins come out on the short end in both games. In the first game the Blue Jays Jim Clancy pitches a one-hitter (a Randy Bush single to RF leading off the ninth inning breaks up the no-no) to beat Frank Viola and the Twins 3-0 and the game is played in an amazing 1 hour and 33 minutes and becomes the Twins shortest ever nine inning game. In the second game, the Twins stake Terry Felton to a 3-0 lead in the night cap of a twin bill, the Blue Jays tie the score knocking out the hard luck pitcher from his last major league game. The no-decision leaves the 24-year old right hander with a lifetime mark of 0-16, a major league record for most career losses without recording a victory. |
September 28, 1984 | In one of the darker days in Minnesota Twins history, the Twins blow a 10-0 lead and lose to the Cleveland Indians 11-10 at Cleveland Stadium. |
September 28, 1987 | The Twins clinch another division title and their first since 1970 when they beat the Texas Rangers 5-3 in Texas in their 157th game of the season. |
September 28, 1995 | Kirby Puckett was hit in the face by a Dennis Martinez fastball, at the Metrodome against the Cleveland Indians, leaving him bloodied with a shattered jaw. The injury marked the end of both his season and, as it turned out, his career. The following spring Puckett batted .360, but on March 28, the last day of training camp, he woke up unable to see out of his right eye. He was diagnosed with glaucoma, and four eye surgeries in a four-month span did nothing to improve his vision. |
September 29, 1986 | Minnesota's Bert Blyleven broke Robin Roberts' 1956 record of allowing 46 home runs in a season when he gave up a third-inning homer to Cleveland rookie Jay Bell. |
September 29, 1991 | The Twins back in to the Central Division title when they lose 2-1 to the Blue Jays in Toronto while the White Sox lose to the Mariners 2-1. |
September 29, 2002 | The Twins end their magical 2002 season with a 94-67 record and 13 ½ game bulge over the second place Chicago White Sox. For only the second time in their history (first accomplished in 1965), they win more games then they lose in each month of the season. |
September 30, 1970 | Twins shortstop Leo Cardenas lost a solo home run to an umpire’s decision. In the eighth inning of a game at Met Stadium, Cardenas hit a ball that appeared to hit the left field fair pole off Kansas City’s Wally Bunker. However, the umpires ruled it a foul ball. Both Bill Rigney and Bob Allison were ejected for protesting the call and Cardenas finished his plate appearance with a strikeout. |
September 30, 1979 | Jerry Koosman pitched a complete game shutout at Met Stadium beating the Milwaukee Brewers 5-0 in the final game of the season as he posted his 20th win. If not for Koosman's shutout, the Brewers would have become the only team besides the 1932 Yankees to go an entire season without being shutout. |
September 30, 1981 | The Minnesota Twins played their final home game at Metropolitan Stadium in front of 15,900 fans. |
September 30, 2008 | The Twins played in their first ever American League Central Division tie-breaker game at Cellular Field against the Chicago White Sox and came away on the short end of a 1-0 score. Nick Blackburn was the hard luck loser. The White Sox become the first team in major league history to defeat three different opponents in three days. Chicago beat the Indians on the last scheduled day of the regular season to necessitate the playing of a previous rain out with the Tigers, which the Southsiders won 8-2, making today's game with Minnesota necessary to determine the AL Central divisional championship. So, the Mighty Whitey's advanced to the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays but they came up short there and lost the series 3 games to 1. |
| October 1, 1945 | Hall of Famer Rodney Cline Carew is born in Gatun, in the Panama Canal Zone. |
October 1, 2000 | Detroit's Shane Halter became the fourth major leaguer to play all nine positions in a game and capped his adventure by scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Tigers over Minnesota 12-11 at Comerica Park. |
October 1, 2002 | The Twins over came three errors to beat the A’s in Oakland 7-5 in game 1 of the 2002 ALDS after trailing by a 5-1 score after two innings. Corey Koskie and Doug Mientkiewicz each hit homeruns and Brad Radke was the winning pitcher. |
October 1, 2006 | The Minnesota Twins become the first team in major league history to take the league or division lead by themselves for the first time on the final day of the regular season. Joe Mauer at the age of 23 becomes the first American League catcher to ever win a batting title by hitting .347. |
October 1, 2009 | With an RBI against the Tigers at Comerica Park in the Twins 8-3 victory, Mike Cuddyer joined Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel and Joe Mauer with 90 or more RBI's this season, this is the first time in Twins history they have had more then 3 players knock in 90 or more runs in a season. |
October 2, 1974 | Texas Rangers manager Billy Martin elects not use a designated hitter, and allows starting pitcher Ferguson Jenkins to bat for himself. Although Fergie gets a hit in the Texas 2-1 victory over the Twins at Metropolitan Stadium, the Rangers manager refusal to use a DH prevents the position from being employed for the entire game according to the rules. |
October 2, 1981 | The HHH Metrodome is inflated for the first time. It took two hours to inflate over 310 tons of fabric, covering the world's largest air-supported multi-use stadium. |
October 2, 1988 | The Twins draw 35,952 fans in their season finale against the California Angels to become the first American League team to pass 3 million in attendance in a single season. They finish the season with a total attendance of 3,030,672. By the way, the Twins won the game 3-2. |
October 2, 1992 | Chili Davis hits home runs from each side of the plate against the Royals at Kauffman Stadium in a 5-1 Twins victory and becomes only the second Twins batter to accomplish this feat. |
October 2, 2002 | The Twins lose game 2 of the 2002 ALDS in Oakland to the A’s by a score of 9-1. Joe Mays was the losing pitcher and the Twins scored their only run on a Christian Guzman homerun. |
October 2, 2004 | The game against the Indians at the Metrodome was suspended after 11 innings with the game tied at 5 because the playing surface had to be prepared for a Gophers football game. I was there and walked away feeling like I got cheated, baseball games are not supposed to end in a tie. The Twins won the game 6-5 in the 12th inning the next day. Kyle Loshe who pitched the 12th inning was thw winning pitcher and he went on to start the regularly scheduled game for that day but he only lasted 4 innings and was the losing pitcher. |
October 2, 2009 | Joe Nathan recorded his 46th save of the season and in the process broke the club single season save record held by Eddie Guardado who had 45 saves in 2002. Joe finished the 2009 regular season with 47 saves. |
October 3, 1965 | At Metropolitan Stadium, Angels first baseman and former Minnesota Twin, Vic Power (Pellot) ends his 12-year major league career going 1-for-5 with a RBI single in a 5-2 loss to the Twins. The .284 career hitter will have the distinction of being the last active player to have worn a Philadelphia A's uniform (1954). |
October 3, 1970 | The Twins play the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS for the second year in a row and again lose game 1, this time by a score of 10-6 at Metropolitan Stadium. Jim Perry takes the defeat. |
October 4, 1969 | The major leagues staged their first divisional championships as the New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves 9-5 and the Baltimore Orioles edged the Minnesota Twins 4-3 in 12 innings in Baltimore in the opening games. |
October 4, 1970 | The Twins continue their ALCS losing streak by losing game 2 in a 11-3 blow out at the Met. Tommy “the blade” Hall takes the loss. |
October 4, 1986 | Greg Gagne hits two inside-the-park home runs against Floyd Bannister and the Chicago White Sox in the Twins 7-3 win at the Metrodome and becomes the only Minnesota Twin player to ever accomplish this feat. |
October 4, 2002 | The A’s beat the Twins 6-3 in game 3 of the 2002 ALDS at the Metrodome and took a 2 games to 1 lead in the series. Ray Durham hit a liner under Torii Hunter’s glove for an inside the park homerun, the first in ALDS history on the games 3rd pitch. Scott Hatteberg followed that with another homerun and the Twins trailed early. Rick Reed would go on to give up 2 additional homeruns for another ALDS record. Barry Zito earned the hard fought victory. |
October 4, 2009 | In what was supposed to be the final regular season game at the Metrodome, 51,155 fans paid to see the Twins beat the Kansas City Royals by a score of 13-4 and finished their regual season tied with the Detroit Tigers at 86-76 after the Tigers win their final game over the White Sox 5-3. Carl Pavano got the victory and Luke Hochevar was the losing pitcher for KC. Jason Kubel and Delmon Young each homered twice and Michael Cuddyer hit one out of the park for the Twins. In what will go down as one of the biggest "chokes" in history, the Tigers blew a 7 game lead as late as September 6th. The Tigers also had a 3 game lead with 4 games to play and coughed that lead up too. The Twins playing without star 1B Justin Morneau won 16 of their last 20 regular season games to put themselves into a postion to play in the tie-breaker game on October 6. The tie-breaker was not played on Monday, October 5th because the Minnesota Vikings also call the Metrodome home and they had a big Monday night game scheduled against the Green Bay Packers which they won when Brett Favre played his first game against his former team. |
October 5, 1969 | The Twins lost game 2 of the ALCS to the Orioles in Baltimore, this time in 11 innings by a 1-0 score. |
October 5, 1970 | The Twins again lose game 3 and the ALCS to the Baltimore Orioles in 3 games. This extends the Twins ALCS losing streak to 6 games, all loses to the Baltimore Orioles in the last 2 years. Jim Kaat is the losing pitcher. |
October 5, 2002 | The Twins tie the 2002 ALDS at 2 games apiece with a 11-2 whipping of the A’s in the Dome. Eric Milton got the win and Doug Mientkiewicz was the hitting star with a 3 for 4 day with a homerun. |
October 5, 2004 | The Twins beat the New York Yankees 2-0 at Yankee Stadium II and go up 1 game to zip in the ALDS. Johan Santana was the winner and Mike Mussina was the loser. Joe Nathan recorded his first post season save. Jacques Jones hit a solo home run. The Twins also set a playoff record when they turned 5 double plays. Unfortunetly the Twins lost the next 3 games and the ALDS, 3 games to 1. |
October 6, 1965 | The Twins play their first World Series game at Metropolitan Stadium with 47,797 fans in the stands against the Los Angeles Dodgers and win the game 8-2 behind the pitching of Mudcat Grant. Grant becomes the first African-American to win a World Series game. Don Drysdale took the defeat. Don Mincher and Zoilo Versalles hit round trippers. Sandy Koufax refuses to pitch the first game of the World Series against the Twins because game is scheduled on Yom Kippur, the most sacred of the Jewish holidays. Tony Oliva tied a World Series record for most putouts in a nine-inning game in right field (7). |
October 6, 1969 | The Twins lose game 3 and the ALCS to the Baltimore Orioles at the Met by a score of 11-2. |
October 6, 2002 | The Twins beat the A’s in Oakland 5-4 and in the process take the ALDS 3 games to 2. Brad Radke won his second ALDS game and AJ Pierzynski hit a 9th inning homerun. In a cruel twist of fate, Denny Hocking has his hand stepped on in the celebration and is out for the ALCS against his hometown Angels. |
October 6, 2009 | The Twins played the Detroit Tigers in a tie-breaker game to decide the 2009 Central Division winner and came away with a thrilling 6-5 win in 12 innings. This is the second year in a row that the Twins played in game number 163 and this time the game was at the Metrodome and this time the Twins won a see-saw affair. 54,088 Homer Hanky waving fans, the largest to ever see a regula season game at the Metrodome, sat through 12 innings and 4 hours and 37 minutes and 391 pitches (163 by the Tigers and 198 by the Twins) of stressful baseball before Alexi Casilla hit a walk-off single to right in the bottom of the 12th inning to score Carlos Gomez with the winning run. There was some controversy in the top of the 12th inning when with the score tied 5-5, the Tigers loaded the bases with one out. Tiger 3B Brad Inge appeared to have been grazed by a pitch which would have forced in a run for the Tigers but umpire Randy Marsh said no. Inge then hit into a force out and the next batter struck out to end the inning. Bobby Keppel, the 8th Twins pitcher of the game was the winning pitcher and Tiger closer Fernando Rodney who was in his 4th inning of pitching took the loss. Jason Kubel hit the Twins only home run. This was the last regular season game (since tie-breaker games are considered regular season games) to be played at the Metrodome. |
October 7, 1925 | The Washington Senators won game 1 of the 1925 World Series against the Pirates behind Walter Johnson. This is the last time that the Senators/Twins have won a World Series road game. Since that date they have lost 14 straight World Series road games. |
October 7, 1965 | The Twins win game 2 of the World Series when Jim Kaat beats Sandy Koufax 5-1 in front of 48,700 delirious fans at the Met. Bob Allison makes a fantastic catch sliding across the LF line and to this day this is one of the finest fielding plays ever seen in a World Series. |
October 7, 1987 | Don Baylor singled to break an eighth-inning tie, and Gary Gaetti homered in his first two playoff at-bats as the Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in the opening game of the ALCS. The Twins debut the "Homer Hanky". |
October 7, 2009 | The Twins played the New York Yankees in the first ever post season game at the new Yankee Stadium in game 1 of the 2009 ALDS and lost to the Bronx bombers by a score of 7-2. Brian Duensing took the loss for the Twins and C.C. Sabathia got the win for the Yanks. |
October 8, 1987 | Minnesota beats the Tigers 6-3 at the Metrodome in game 2 of the 1987 ALCS. Bert Blyleven got the win and Kent Hrbek his first ALCS home run. |
October 8, 1991 | The Twins get by the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in game 1 of the 1991 ALCS at the Metrodome as Jack Morris gets the victory. |
October 8, 2002 | In the first game of the 2002 ALCS, the Twins beat the Angels 2-1 at the Dome. Joe Mays was masterful in his first post season victory. |
October 9, 1965 | Claude Osteen shuts out Camilo Pascual and the Twins 4-0 in game 3 of the World Series in Los Angeles but the Twins still lead the series 2 games to one. |
October 9, 1991 | The Toronto Blue Jays take game 2 of the 1991 ALCS at the Metrodome when they beat the Twins 5-2. Kevin Tapani was the losing pitcher. |
October 9, 2002 | In the Twins largest crowd ever, 55,990 fans pack the Dome and wave their Homer Hankies but the Anaheim Angels come back and take game 2 of the 2002 ALCS with a 6-3 win. |
October 9, 2009 | The Twins lose game 2 of the ALDS to the Yankees 4-3 in 11 innings at Yankee stadium. The Twins had a 3-1 lead in the ninth inning but Alex Rodriguez hits a 2 run home run off Joe Nathan to tie the game and send it into extra innings. In the 11th inning Mark Teixiera hits a lead off walk off home run off Twins pitcher Jose Mijares for a 4-3 victory and a 2-0 lead in the ALDS series. David Robertson got the win and Jose Mijares was the losing pitcher. |
October 10, 1965 | The Dodgers tie the World Series at 2 games each when Don Drysdale turns the tables and beats Mudcat Grant 7-2 in spite of the fact that both Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva hit home runs. |
October 10, 1987 | The Twins are beaten by the Tigers 7-6 in Detroit in game 3 of the ALCS. Greg Gagne and Tom Brunansky both hit homeruns in the losing effort. |
October 11, 1900 | Washington D.C. was awarded a franchise in the soon to be American League. This franchise was the Washington Senators who six decades later became the modern day Minnesota Twins. |
October 11, 1965 | The Twins lose game 5 of the World Series to Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers, 7-0 and are down 3 games to 2. Dodger Willie Davis steals 3 bases and sets a single game World Series record. |
October 11, 1968 | Billy Martin is named as the Minnesota Twins manager. Martin replaces Cal Ermer and becomes the 4th ever Twins skipper. |
October 11, 1987 | The Twins take game 4 of the 1987 ALCS from the Detroit Tigers in Detroit by a 5-3 final score. Greg Gagne hits his 2nd ALCS home run in 2 days and Kirby Puckett bangs out a long ball too as Frankie “sweet music” Viola gets the win. The Twins have a commanding 3-1 game lead in the series. |
October 11, 1991 | The Minnesota Twins score in the 10th inning on a Mike Pagliarulo homerun and go up in the 1991 ALCS 2 games to 1 with a 3-2 win over the Blue Jays at the Skydome in Toronto. Mark Guthrie walks away with the win. |
October 11, 2002 | The Twins lose game 3 of the 2002 ALCS 2- to 1 in Anaheim and trail the series 2 games to 1. JC Romero suffers the loss. |
October 11, 2009 | The New York Yankees beat the Twins 4-1 and in the process sweep the ALDS 3 games to zip. Carl Pavano was the losing pitcher and Andy Pettitte was the winner for the Yanks. This was the Twins final baseball game at the Metrodome as they open Target Field in April 2010. |
October 12, 1987 | The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers 9-5 and win their first American League pennant in 22 years as Bert Blyleven wins his second game of the series. The Twins, with the worst road record of any pennant or division winner in history (29-52), took two of three in Detroit to win the best-of-7 ALCS playoffs in five games. The Twins are greeted by over 50,000 fans waiting at the Metrodome (and I was one of them) following their victory in Detroit which gave them their first AL pennant in 22 years. |
October 12, 1991 | Jack Morris bests Todd Stottlemyre and wins his second game of the 1991 ALCS when he and the Twins clobber Toronto 9-3 and are now just one game away from advancing to the World Series. Kirby Puckett homers. |
October 12, 2001 | Tom Kelly retires as the Twins winningest manger ever with a record of 1140-1244. |
October 12, 2002 | The Angels whip the Twins 7-1 in game 4 at Anaheim and take a 3-1 lead in the 2002 ALCS. Brad Radke gets his first post season loss. |
October 13, 1965 | The Twins come back to tie the Series at 3 games apiece when Mudcat Grant hits and pitches the Twins to a 5-1 win in front of 49,578 delirious fans at the Met. The Mudcat and Bob Allison hit home runs. |
October 13, 1969 | Billy Martin is fired by owner Griffith after losing 3 playoff games in a row to the Orioles. Bill Rigney will be named the next Twins manager. |
October 13, 1991 | The Twins take game 5 of the ALCS in Toronto by a 8-5 score and win the series 4 games to 1. Kirby Puckett hit his second homerun of the series and David West picked up the win. |
October 13, 2002 | The Angels beat up the Twins in a 13-5 game when they score 10 runs in the 7th inning and win the 2002 ALCS 4 games to 1 by sweeping all 3 games in Anaheim. The hitting star is Adam Kennedy as he goes 4 for 4 with 3 homeruns and 5 RBIs. Joe Mays takes the defeat. The Twins did not hit a single homerun in the 2002 ALCS. |
October 14, 1965 | Sandy Koufax tossed his second shutout to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 2-0 victory over the Minnesota Twins and the 1965 World Series in seven games. 50,596 fans watched Koufax pitch on 2 days rest and beat Jim Kaat. This is the largest crowd to ever attend a Twins game at Met Stadium. |
October 15, 1964 | The Twins trade pitcher Joe McCabe to Washington for pitcher Ken Retzer. |
October 15, 1968 | The Twins lose otfielders Bob Oliver and Pat Kelly, shortstop Jack Hernandez, and pitcher Gerry Cram to the Kansas City Royals, and pitcher Buzz Stephen and 3B Rich Rollins to the Seattle Pilots in the 1968 expansion draft. |
October 17, 1987 | The Minnesota Twins overpowered the St. Louis Cardinals 10-1 in the opening game of the first indoor World Series. Dan Gladden's grand slam capped a seven-run fourth inning. Steve Lombardozzi also homered and Frank Viola picked up his first World Series victory. |
October 18, 1987 | The Twins and Bert Blyleven win game 2 of the 1987 World Series at the Dome and they beat the Cards 8 to 4 and go up 2 games to none. Gary Gaetti and Tim Laudner hit homeruns. |
October 19, 1991 | The 1991 World Series opens at the Metrodome and the Twins beat the Atlanta Braves 5-2 behind Jack Morris. Greg Gagne and Kent Hrbek hit homeruns. |
October 20, 1970 | The Twins trade outfielders Herman Hill and Bob Wissler to St. Louis for pitcher Sal Campisi and shortstop Jim Kennedy. |
October 20, 1987 | Twins right-hander starter Les Straker becomes the first Venezuelan to pitch in the World Series. At Busch Stadium, the Ciudad Bolivar native blanks the Cardinals for six innings on four hits before being removed for a pnch hitter. The Cardinals score 3 in the 7th and beat the Twins 3-1 in St. Louis as Juan Berenguer gets the loss in game 3 of the 1987 World Series. |
October 20, 1991 | Homeruns by Chili Davis and Scott Leius power the Twins to a 3-2 win over the Braves in game 2 of the 1991 World Series in Minneapolis. Kevin Tapani is the winning pitcher. |
October 20, 1999 | Calvin Griffith, the tight-fisted owner who inherited the Washington Senators and moved them to Minnesota, died Wednesday in Melbourne, Florida at the age of 87. Griffith moved the Senators after the 1960 season and the team was renamed the Minnesota Twins. He sold the club for $36 million to Carl Pohlad in 1984, ending 65 years of franchise ownership by the Griffith family. Baseball was the family's primary business, and Calvin Griffith was intent on holding the line on escalating salaries. |
October 21, 1987 | The Cardinals pound Frank Viola and the Twins 7-2 and tie the 1987 World Series at 2 games apiece. |
October 22, 1971 | The Twins acquire outfielder Bobby Darwin from the Dodgers and give up outfielder Paul Powell. |
October 22, 1987 | The Cardinals take a 3 games to 2 lead in the 1987 World Series when they beat the Twins in St. Louis 4-2. Bert Blyleven takes the loss. |
October 22, 1991 | Rick Aguilera pinch-hits for Mark Guthrie in game three of the 1991 World Series and becomes the first pitcher to be used as a pinch hitter since Don Drysdale did so for the Los Angeles Dodgers in game two of the 1965 World Series against the Minnesota Twins. Unfortunately the Braves beat the Twins 5-4 in 12 innings and Rick Aguilera is pinned with the defeat. Kirby Puckett and Chili Davis hit long balls but it was not enough. |
October 23, 1970 | Twins VP and minor-league director Sherry Robertson dies in an automobile accident at the age of 51 while on a pheasant hunting trip in Houghton, South Dakota. Robertson was one of Calvin Griffith's three brothers and he played in the majors for 10 seasons. Sherry Robertson had been the farm director since 1956 and a VP since 1966. |
October 23, 1974 | The Twins acquire outfielder Dan Ford and pitcher Dennis Myers from the A’s and send 1B Pat Bourque back to the A’s. |
October 23, 1991 | The Braves knot the 1991 World Series at 2 games apiece when they beat the Twins 3-2. Mike Pagliarulo homered in the losing cause and Mark Guthrie was the losing pitcher. |
October 24, 1975 | The Twins send shortstop Sergio Ferrer to the Phillies for catcher Larry Cox. |
October 24, 1987 | The Twins return to the Metrodome and whip the Cardinals 11-5 as Don Baylor and Kent Hrbek hit homeruns and Dan Schatzeder claims the victory. The Twins and Cards are now tied 3 games apiece going into game 7 of the 1987 World Series. |
October 24, 1988 | In the 100th trade in Minnesota Twins history, the Twins acquire pitcher Shane Rawley from the Phillies and give up outfielder Eric Bullock, 2B Tim Herr, and catcher Tom Nieto. |
October 24, 1991 | The Twins are on the brink of losing the 1991 World Series when they lose another World Series game on the road, this time by a 14-5 pasting at the hands of those tomahawking Braves in Atlanta. Kevin Tapani takes the defeat. |
October 25, 1987 | The Minnesota Twins, behind Frank Viola, win their first World Series by beating the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 in Game 7, becoming the first team to win four home games. A Twins record World Series crowd of 55,376 fans watch the action. |
October 25, 2000 | Kirby Puckett is inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame. |
October 26, 1960 | At an American League owners meeting in New York, owners agreed to allow the Washington Senators to move to Minnesota and become the Minnesota Twins. The Angels franchise was also created that day. |
October 26, 1991 | Dome sweet Dome. Kirby Puckett hits that famous home run in the bottom of the 11th inning and carries the Twins to a 4-3 win and sets the stage for game 7. Announcer Jack Buck utters that now famous line “and we will see you tomorrow night”. Charlie Leibrandt was the Braves hard luck loser that day and Rick Aguilera picked up the win. In the 3rd inning, Puckett made a great leaping catch. |
October 27, 1973 | The Twins complete two trades, in the first deal they send pitcher Ken Gill to Kansas City and they receive pitcher Tom Burgmeier, in their second deal of the day, they send outfielder Charlie Manuel and catcher Glenn Ezell packing to the Dodgers and receive outfielders Jim Fairey and George Michael Floyd. |
October 27, 1991 | The Twins wrap up their 2nd World Series title in 4 years when Jack Morris pitches the Twins to a 10 inning 1-0 shutout win over John Smoltz and the Atlanta Braves at the Metrodome in what will be known as one of the best World Series pitching performances of all time. |
October 29, 2001 | MLB Commissioner Bud Selig says major league baseball is considering eliminating two teams by the start of next season. Contraction would include the Montreal Expos and either the Minnesota Twins or the Florida Marlins. |
October 31, 1972 | The Twins send catcher Rick Dempsey to the Yankees for outfielder Dan Walton. |
November 1, 1955 | Calvin R. Griffith today was named president of the Washington Senators. The Senators' board of directors elected him to take the place of Clark Griffith, baseball's "Old Fox" who had passed away a few days earlier on October 27th. Calvin was Clark's adopted son. Calvin had been the executive vice president of the club and in recent years, as Clark Griffiths aide, had assumed many of the administrative tasks. |
November 1, 1982 | Minnesota and Texas swap pitchers when the Twins acquire Len Whitehouse and give up John Pacella. |
November 3, 1988 | The Twins once again trade pitcher Bert Blyleven along with pitcher Kevin Tredeau, this time to the California Angels for 1B Paul Sorrento, and pitchers Mike Cook, and Rob Wassenaar. |
November 5, 1976 | The Twins lose outfielder Steve Braun to the Seattle Mariners and pitchers Jerry Garvin and Bill Singer, 3B Dave McKay, and outfielder Al Woods to the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1976 expansion draft. |
November 6, 1976 | After having a career year with the Twins, reliever Bill Campbell becomes one of the first players to cash in on the new free-agent system. The reliever signs with the Red Sox for big money (four-year, one-million dollar contract). |
November 6, 2001 | MLB owners vote 28-2 to contract two teams before the 2002 season. They tell the players’ association that the Minnesota Twins and the Montreal Expos are the targeted teams. It was determined later that Carl Pohlad, the Twins owner voted for contraction. |
November 6, 2009 | The Twins trade outfielder Carlos Gomez to the Milwaukee Brewers for shortstop JJ Hardy. |
November 7, 2001 | The players union files a grievance, claiming the contraction vote violates the labor agreement. |
November 10, 2002 | Twins Vice-President and General Manager Terry Ryan was voted the Sporting News Executive of the Year. |
November 12, 1986 | The New York Mets traded shortstop Ron Gardenhire to Minnesota for a player to be named later (Dominic Iasparro). Who knew at that time that in 2002 Gardenhire would become the Twins manager? |
November 12, 2002 | For the first time in their history, the Minnesota Twins were named the “Organization of the Year” by Baseball America. |
November 13, 2006 | GM Terry Ryan is named ML Baseball Executive of the Year by the Sporting News for the second time in his career. |
November 14, 1979 | Twins pitcher David Goltz,the first player to be selected by the maximum thirteen teams in the first round of the free agent draft, signs a six-year, three-million dollar contract with the Dodgers. The former Twins' pitcher (14-13, 4.16) will post a 9-19 record during his 2+ seasons with the club. |
November 14, 2003 | In a trade that will turn out great for the Twins, they send catcher AJ Pierzynski and cash to the San Francisco Gians for pitchers Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser, and Francisco Liriano. |
November 15, 2002 | The Twins trade pitcher Matt Kinney and catcher Javier Valentin to the Milwaukee Brewers for pitchers Gerard Oakes and Matt Yeatman. |
November 16, 1977 | Twins' first baseman Rod Carew wins the American League's MVP award. He led the league in hitting with a .338 batting average. |
November 16, 1998 | The Yankees acquire pitcher Dan Naulty from Minnesota and give up 3B Allen Butler. |
November 16, 2001 | Minnesota Hennepin County District Judge Harry Seymour Crump issues an injunction preventing the Twins from being eliminated, ruling that it would violate the team’s lease with the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which operates the Metrodome. |
November 16, 2006 | Johan Santana wins his second AL Cy Young award as a unanimous pick. |
November 17, 1992 | The Twins lose catcher Jayhawk Owens and pitcher Curt Leskanic to the Colorado Rockies and pitcher Tom Edens to the Florida Marlins in the 1992 expansion draft. |
November 18, 1965 | Shortstop Zoilo Versalles is selected as the American League MVP getting 19 out of 20 first place votes. Versalles becomes the first Latin player to win a MVP award. Twins outfielder Tony Oliva finishes second in the MVP balloting. |
November 18, 1992 | The Twins and Mets swap outfielders when the Twins acquire Pat Howell and the Mets receive Darren Reed. |
November 18, 1997 | The Twins lose outfielder Brent Brede and catcher Damian Miller to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 1997 expansion draft. The Tampa Devil Rays did not select any Minnesota Twins in that draft. |
November 18, 2001 | Approximately 4,000 Minnesota Twins fans (and I was one of them) gathered in the Metrodome's parking lot on a rainy Sunday afternoon to voice their support for their team after MLB voted to contract two teams. |
November 19, 1981 | The Metrodome roof deflates due to a tear caused by heavy snow. |
November 21, 1968 | The Twins acquire shortstop Leo Cardenas from the Reds and give up pitcher Jim Merritt. |
November 21, 2006 | Twins 1B Justin Morneau wins the American League MVP award beating out Yankee shortstop Derke Jeter. |
November 21, 2007 | The Cubs send outfielder Craig Monroe to Minnesota for the proverbial player to be named later. |
November 22, 1967 | Rod Carew wins the American League Rookie of the Year Award. Receiving 19 of 20 first place votes, the Twins' second baseman easily outdistances Reggie Smith of the Red Sox. |
November 22, 1989 | Kirby Puckett becomes the first major league player ever to sign a contract that calls for an average salary of $3 million per year when he inks a pact with the Twins for $9 million over three years. |
November 23, 2009 | St. Paul native Joe Mauer became the fifth Twins player to win the MVP Award, behind Zoilo Versalles (1965), Harmon Killebrew (1969), Rod Carew (1977) and Justin Morneau (2006). Mauer, 26, is the sixth catcher in Ameican League history to win the MVP and only the second catcher in 33 years to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award. A couple weeks ago, Mauer won the Players Choice Award for A.L. Outstanding Player, an important award for players because it's voted on by their peers. Mauer, who missed all of April because of injury, came back to play 138 of the Twins final 141 games and lead the Twins to an improbable comeback as they overtook the Detroit Tigers to win the A.L. Central. The Gold Glove catcher lead the American League in batting average (.365), On-Base Percantage (.444), Slugging Percentage (.587) and On-Base + Slugging Percentage (1.031). It's the first time a player has led in all three of those key categories in nearly 30 years. |
November 24, 1975 | Gene Mauch is named the new Twins' manager replacing popular skipper Frank Quilici. The respected National League strategist will compile a 378-394 (.490) during his five-year tenure with Minnesota. |
November 24, 1986 | The Twins announce interim manager Tom Kelly will be the club's skipper next season. The Minnesota native, who replaced Ray Miller at the end of the season, will compile a losing record (1140- 1244) but wins two World Championships during his 16-year tenure as skipper. |
November 24, 1993 | The Twins trade pitcher Willie Banks to the Chicago Cubs for catcher Matt Walbeck and pitcher Dave Stevens. |
November 26, 1960 | Less than a month after being granted permission to move to Minneapolis/St. Paul, the former Washington, D.C. team changes its team's name to the Minnesota Twins. The new American League expansion team now in the nation's capital will continue to use the name Senators, but will be a totally different franchise. |
November 28, 1967 | The Twins trade 1965 World Series stars shortstop Zoilo Versalles and pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant to the Dodgers for catcher John Roseboro and pitchers Ron Perranoski and Bob Miller. |
November 28, 2007 | In GM Bill Smith's first big deal, he sends pitchers Matt Garza and Eduado Morlan along with shortstop Jason Bartlett to the Tampa Bay Rays for outfielders Delmon Young and Jason Pridie and infielder Brendan Harris. |
November 29, 1972 | The Twins receive pitcher John Cumberland and outfielder Larry Hisle in a deal with St. Louis but have to give up pitcher Wayne Granger in the process. |
November 30, 1971 | The Twins and Angels hook up in a deal and the Twins get pitcher Dave LaRoche and the Angels get shortstop Leo Cardenas. |
November 30, 1972 | The Twins receive 1B Joe Lis and pitcher Ken Reynolds from the Phillies in return for outfielder Cesar Tovar. In another deal that same day, this time with the Cubs, they acquire pitchers Bill Hands, Joe Decker and Bob Maneely and part ways with pitcher Dave LaRoche. |
November 30, 2001 | The major league's plan to contract by two teams next season is put into jeopardy by Minnesota courts. The state's Supreme Court refuses to grant the request for a speedy review of the appeal of the injunction which forces the Twins to play in 2001, and the appellate court sets the hearing for December 27, a date many believe is too late to make the elimination of two teams a reality. |
December 2, 1966 | The Twins and California Angels swing a big deal as the Twins acquire pitcher Dean Chance and shortstop Jackie Hernandez and give up pitcher Pete Cimino, outfielder Jimmie Hall, and 1B Don Mincher. |
December 2, 1967 | The Twins acquire 1B Bob Oliver from the Pirates and give up pitcher Ron Kline. |
December 2, 2005 | The Florida Marlins and the Twins hook up in a deal, the Twins get 2B Luis Castillo and the Marlins get pitchers Travis Bowyer and Scott Tyler. |
December 3, 1966 | The Twins house cleaning continues as they complete their 2nd big deal in 2 days. This time the Twins acquire pitcher Ron Kline from Washington and in return the Twins give up pitcher Camilo Pascual and 2B Bernie Allen. |
December 3, 1971 | The Twins trade pitcher Tommy “The Blade” Hall to Cincinnati for pitcher Wayne Granger. |
December 3, 2003 | The Twins trade pitcher Eric Milton to the Philadelphia Phillies and acquire infielder Nick Punto and pitchers Carlos Silva and Bobby Korecky |
December 4, 1964 | The Twins send pitcher Gerry Arrigo to the Redlegs and receive outfielder Cesar Tovar. |
December 4, 1978 | Outfielder Danny Ford heads for California and the Twins get catcher Danny Goodwin and 1B Ron “Papa Jack” Jackson. |
December 4, 1988 | The Twins acquire pitcher Todd McClure from Houston after sending Mark Portugal to the Astros. |
December 5, 1983 | The Tigers and Twins hook up in a swap where the Twins get pitcher Larry Pashnick and the Tigers get outfielder Randy Kunz. |
December 5, 1990 | The Giants send pitcher Steve Bedrosian to the frozen tundra of Minnesota and the Giants receive pitchers Johnny Ard and Jimmy Williams. |
December 5, 1992 | The Twins finally give up waiting for pitcher David West to blossom and send him to Philadelphia for pitcher Mike Hartley. |
December 6, 1973 | In a trade of catchers, the Twins ship George Mitterwald to the Cubs and get Randy Hundley in return. |
December 6, 1979 | In a busy trading day the Twins receive 2B Pete Mackanin from the Phillies and send pitcher Paul Thormodsgard packing and the also send 3B Dan Graham to the Orioles for pitcher Tom Chism. |
December 7, 1983 | The Twins send outfielder Gary Ward to Texas and acquire catcher Sam Sorce and pitchers Mike Smithson, and John Butcher. |
December 7, 1984 | The Twins send catcher Ray Smith to the Padres and receive pitcher Floyd Chiffer. |
December 7, 1988 | The Twins trade for 2B Wally Backman and pitcher Mike Santiago and send pitchers Jeff Bumgarner, Steve Gasser, and Toby Nivens to the New York Mets. |
December 7, 1999 | The Twins send outfielder Chris Latham to the Rockies and receive pitcher Scott Randall. |
December 8, 1978 | The Twins acquire pitcher Jerry Koosman from the New York Mets and send pitchers Greg Fields and Jesse Orosco on their way. Orosco was still pitching in the bigs 24 years later. |
December 8, 1980 | The Twins sent outfielder Dave Edwards to the Padres and received shortstop Chuck Baker. |
December 9, 2005 | The Twins send pitcher JC Romero out west to the Angels and receive infielder Alexi Casilla in return. |
December 10, 1982 | The Twins trade pitcher Don Cooper to the Blue Jays and receive 3B Dave Baker. |
December 10, 2009 | The Twins trade pitcher Boof Bonser to the Boston Red Sox for a player to be named later. Several days later that player is named and he is pitcher Chris Province. |
December 12, 1969 | In a major deal the Twins trade pitchers Dean Chance and Bob Miller, outfielder Ted Uhlaender, and 3B Graig Nettles to the Cleveland Indians for pitchers Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. |
December 12, 1980 | The Mariners trade pitcher Byron McLauglin to the Twins for outfielder Willie Norwood. |
December 12, 1985 | The Twins receive pitcher Charlie Mitchell from the Red Sox when the Twins send outfielder Mike Stenhouse to beantown. |
December 12, 1997 | Outfielder Rich Becker heads for New York to join the Mets and outfielder Alex Ochoa becomes a Twin. |
December 13, 1969 | Popular Minnesota Twins manager Billy Martin is fired by owner Calvin Griffith after leading his team to a division title in his first and only season as the Twins manager. |
December 13, 1999 | The Florida Marlins obtain Johan Santana from the Astros in the Rule 5 draft, and later in the day Florida trades the 20-year old southpaw to the Twins (along with some cash) for Jared Camp. The Venezuelan native will post a 93-44 record and will win the Cy Young Award twice (2004, 2006) during his 8-year tenure in Minnesota. |
December 14, 1998 | The Twins and Brewers swap outfielders, the Brewers receive Alex Ochoa and the Twins get Darrell Nicholas. |
December 15, 2003 | The San Francisco Giants trade pitcher JT Thomas to Minnesota for outfielder Dustan Mohr. |
December 20, 1979 | Construction began on the Metrodome and it was built by the state of Minnesota at a cost of approximately $68 million. The Metrodome becomes baseballs third domed facility. |
December 22, 2009 | The Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota Ballpark Authority receive the certificate of occupancy for Target Field. |
December 23, 1975 | The Twins acquire 2B Bob Randall from the Dodgers and part ways with outfielder Danny Walton. |
December 25, 1989 | Popular former Twins player and manager Billy Martin dies in an automobile accident in Binghamton, New York at the age of 61. Billy served as the Twins fourth manager. |
December 26, 2005 | Four-Time All-Star relief pitcher Jeff Reardon is arrested on robbery charges after holding up a jewelry store in Palm Springs Gardens‚ Florida‚ a town he has lived in without incident for 20 years. "He said it was the medication that made him do it and that he was sorry‚" said policeman David O'Neill. Reardon had a son who died of a drug overdose several years ago. In late August 2006, Reardon was found not guilt by reason of insanity. Two court-appointed psychiatrists, along with two defense psychiatrists, will testify that Reardon was under the influence of a dozen prescription medications and that there was no reasonable explanation for the robbery. |
December 28, 1981 | Boomer Wells became a Twin when the Blue Jays sent him over to the border to Minnesota in exchange for outfielder Hosken Powell. |
December 30, 1982 | The Metrodome roof defaltes for the second time in just over a year due to a tear caused by heavy snow. |