TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. “History never looks like history when you are living through it” – John Gardner, former Secretary of Health
Sabath Anthony “Sam” Mele was born in Astoria, New York on January 21, 1922 and passed away in his home in Quincy, Massachusetts this past Monday at the age of 95. Sam Mele‘s parents were born in Avellino, Italy although they met in America. Mele’s mother was sister to big league brothers Al and Tony Cuccinello. Sam Mele was a natural all-around athlete and a Queens Park baseball legend and went on to attend New York University where he excelled as a basketball and baseball player before serving his country in the Marines during World War II. But Mele wanted to play pro baseball and was signed as a free agent by the Boston Red Sox in 1946. In his first year of organized ball, Mele played 119 games for Scranton (A ball in the Eastern League) hitting .342 with 18 home runs before being moved up to Louisville in the AAA American Association where he played all of 15 games. Mele made his major league debut with the Red Sox the following year against the Washington Senators on April 15, 1947. His rookie season may have been one of the best of his career as Sam hit 12 home runs and knocked in 73 runs in 123 games while hitting .302. Mele would never hit over .300 again in his 10 year major league career. During his playing career spanning 1947 to 1956, Mele, who batted and threw right-handed, saw duty with six major league clubs: the Boston Red Sox, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians, batting .267 with 80 home runs in 1,046 games. Sam Mele played his final major league game as a Cleveland Indian on September 16, 1956. Mele played AAA ball with for the White Sox and Athletics in 1957 and 1958 but never returned to the majors as a player.
The 1966 Minnesota Twins finished the season in second place with a 89-73 record, a full nine games behind the AL pennant winning Baltimore Orioles and they were looking to regain the pennant they felt should have been theirs for the second year in a row in 1966.
Twins owner Calvin Griffith was eager to get back to the World Series and made some moves in December of 1966 that he felt would ensure him the AL pennant in 1967. He traded pitcher Pete Cimino, 1B Don Mincher and OF Jimmie Hall to the California Angels to acquire pitcher Dean Chance and shortstop Jackie Hernandez and the very next day he traded 2B Bernie Allen and P Camilo Pascual to the Washington Senators for reliever Ron Kline.
Manager Same Mele wasn’t entirely pleased with how the Twins did in spring training, finishing with a 11-17 mark in Grapefruit League play. It didn’t make him feel any better when Starter Jim Grant was hit in the forearm by a line drive that took him out of action for several weeks just before the 1967 season was about to start.
The April 15, 1967 Sporting News lays out the Twins plan to win it all with pitching and defense and gives you a look at the roster of the 1967 Twins as they prepare to open the season in Baltimore on April 11. It also has a short piece on Twins rodeo bronc riding third baseman Ron Clark.
Former Giants, Cubs, Twins and Rangers pitcher Bill Hands and a 20-game winner for the 1969 Cubs, died Thursday, March 9 in a Orlando, Florida hospital after a brief illness at the age of 76.
William Alfred Hands was born May 6, 1940 in Hackensack, New Jersey and signed with the San Francisco Giants as an amateur free agent prior to the 1959 season. Hands started his pro career at the age of 19 in class D ball in Hastings, Nebraska in the Nebraska State League and worked his way up the big-league ladder. The right-handed Hands made his major league debut on June 3, 1965 in a Giants 10-3 loss to the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium. “Froggy” as he was known to his teammates appeared in just four games as a San Francisco Giant before he was traded by the San Francisco Giants with Randy Hundley to the Chicago Cubs for Don Landrum and Lindy McDaniel in December 1965.
Bill Hands pitched for the Cubs for seven season posting a 92-86 record with a 3.18 ERA including a 20 win season in 1969. In November 1972 he was traded by the Chicago Cubs with Bob Maneely (minors) and Joe Decker to the Minnesota Twins for Dave LaRoche. Hands was not happy in Minnesota under the Calvin Griffith ownership team and requested to be traded but instead found himself waived by the team and claimed by the Texas Rangers in September of 1974 where he finished out that season and then again pitched for the Rangers in 1975 but suffered a back injury that essentially ended his career at the age of 35. In February of 1976 Hands was again on the move, this time traded by the Texas Rangers to the New York Mets for George Stone but as far as I know he never pitched pro ball again after his final big league game on August 10, 1975.
With baseball salaries being what they were back in the 1960’s, Hands started driving a fuel truck in Lyndhurst, New York during the off-season for what is now Keller Depken Oil. That planted the seed for a post-baseball job as an oil company salesman on Long Island, and eventually the service station that he ran in Orient, New York for a quarter century with his son Billy III.
So Orient was home, where he lived with his wife Sandra, after his first wife passed away. Besides his son, he also has two daughters (Heather, Heidi) and nine grandchildren.
In their 56 seasons of baseball in Minnesota the Twins have had 71 different players don the tools of ignorance and squat down behind the plate to catch a major league pitcher. Two those 71 players only caught in one inning of one game. Cesar Tovar did it when owner Calvin Griffith had him play every position in a game in 1968 as a gimmick and manager Tom Kelly had Jeff Reboulet catch the ninth inning in a 1995 game against the Royals in the Metrodome. It wasn’t an easy inning for Reboulet either, as he caught two different pitchers as the Royals sent 12 men to the plate and scored 6 runs on 6 hits not to mention 2 walks and a wild pitch.
With the Minnesota 2017 TwinsFest going on I thought it would be a good time to rank the Twins catchers. The Twins have been looking for an everyday catcher ever since Joe Mauer hung up his catcher’s mitt after the 1993 season due to a variety of injuries the most serious of which were his concussion problems. Kurt Suzuki filled in since then but he too has moved on. The Twins Top 10 Catchers list ranks the catchers by B-R WAR statistics. Player must have appeared in at least 51% of his games as a catcher to qualify for this list.
Dave Engle was drafted in 1978 by the California Angels in the third round (66 over all) as a third baseman out of USC. His stay in his home state however; was short-lived as he was traded on February 3, 1979 with pitchers Paul Hartzell and Brad Havens and outfielder Ken Landreaux to the Minnesota Twins for Rod Carew who wanted out of Calvin Griffiths Minnesota Twins organization.
Engle spent 1979 in AAA Toledo as a third baseman and in 1980 he again found himself in Toledo but that year he played in the outfield. Engle made the 1981 Twins team out of spring training and debuted on April 14, 1981. Engle was always first a hitter and finding a position for him was a struggle for Minnesota and they decided to turn him into a catcher. Engle must have been a quick study because by 1983 he was catching for Minnesota. In 1984 he was the Twins lone representative to the All-Star game but did not get a chance to play in the game at Candlestick Park. In 1984 Engle started having more issues throwing the ball back to the pitcher although he had no problems throwing to second or third base if needed. The problem continued to plague him in 1985 and he soon found himself a part-time player. In January of 1986 he was traded by the Twins to the Detroit Tigers for Chris Pittaro and Alejandro Sanchez in one of those “I’ll take yours if you take mine” trades.
Dave Engle stay in Minnesota lasted 439 games, 176 of them behind the plate. Engle hit .268 as a Twin with 28 home runs and 13 triples which is not too shabby for a catcher. The Tigers released Engle in August of 1986. Engle went on to play for Montreal in 1987-1988 and finished out his big league career in 1989 with Milwaukee.
Did you know that Dave Engle hit the first home run at the Metrodome and that he is Tom Brunansky‘s brother-in-law?
The most famous eye issue in Minnesota Twins history has to be the Kirby Puckett glaucoma issue that led to the future Hall of Famer’s premature retirement. In a meaningless fall game against the Indians at the Metrodome on September 28, 1995 with the Twins in last place and 42 games out of first place, Puckett was hit in the face by a fastball from Dennis Martinez in the bottom of the first inning. When Puckett who was the DH that afternoon and in the third spot in the batting order stepped to the plate, Chuck Knoblauch was on third base after he too was hit by a Martinez pitch leading off the game. Knobby stole second and advanced to third on a fly ball to center by Matt Lawton. On a 0-2 count Martinez hit Puckett in the face and blow shattered his jaw and put him out of play for the rest of the season. My wife and I were at that game along with just 9,440 others and when Puckett fell to the ground the silence was amazing, you could have heard a pin drop before Indians catcher Tony Pena and the Twins medical staff rushed to Puckett’s aid.
At spring training camp the following March he was batting well, but on March 28 he woke up unable to see out of his right eye. Doctors discovered he had glaucoma. The problem could not be corrected, even after four surgeries, and on July 12, 1996, he announced his retirement as a player.
This past summer Philadelphia Phillies pitching prospect Matt Imhof was injured in a freak accident when he was struck in the face by a resistance band that was anchored to a wall following a minor league game in Florida. The mounted base broke off the wall and damaged Imhof’s right eye. Doctor’s were unable to save the eye. At last report Imhof had not decided if he would continue his professional baseball career as a pitcher. Imhof, a left-hander was a Phillies second round selection in the June 2014 draft.
Almost 50 years ago back in the fall of 1968 a freak injury caused a Minnesota Twins minor league catching prospect to also lose an eye playing the game he loved.
Many players can say that they played ball in the Minnesota Twins minor league system but few can say that they were good enough and fortunate enough to wear a MLB Minnesota Twins uniform. Because of a tragic accident nearly fifty years ago on October 6, 1968 catcher Franklyn Sands big league dreams took a sharp detour and his dreams of becoming a big leaguer would never happen and his life was forever chnaged.
The Bahamas are not exactly a hot-bed for major league talent but at last count six players born in the Bahamas have worn a big league uniform. According to some, Frank Sands was one of the best catchers to ever come out of the Bahamas when the Houston Astros signed Sands to a contract to play pro ball as a 17-year old and sent him to play class A ball in Bismarck-Mandan in the Northern league in 1966. After the 1966 season the Astros chose not to protect Sands and the Minnesota Twins drafted him and assigned him to AAA Denver in 1967 where he appeared in just 46 games. The following season the Twins organization decided to send Sands to play class A ball for the Wilson Tobs. Sands caught 116 of the teams 139 games and gained a reputation as a good receiver with a whip like arm but his hitting remained a work in progress.
Then on October 6, 1968 while taking part in the Twins Florida Instructional League tragedy struck, here is how B-R Bullpen describes the incident.
“Sands was warming up pitcher Tom Hall. Hall bounced a breaking ball in the dirt, and it caromed up and off Sands’ mitt into his cheekbone. A sliver of bone punctured his eye from the inside. Sands knew immediately that he had lost the eye. Scipio Spinks observed, “After his accident, it was mandatory for catchers to wear a mask while warming up pitchers.”
Frank spent four weeks in the hospital, and as soon as he got out, the first thing he wanted to do was put on his uniform and get out for batting practice. He was determined to come back, despite the obstacle he faced in batting with impaired depth perception. Twins owner Calvin Griffith liked the young man very much and gave him every opportunity. In fact, Griffith said that Sands would have a job for life with the organization if he wanted it.”
Sands reported for spring training in 1969, this time as a pitcher but was farmed out early in training camp to the class A Orlando Twins where he appeared in just three games pitching just four innings before breaking his arm throwing a pitch. Frank Sands professional baseball career was over but he still caught in the Bahamas Baseball Association for several years playing a game he loved.
Scipio Spinks was a pitcher and a teammate of Sands in the Northern League in 1966 and today is a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Here is what Scipio wrote in a e-mail to me about Frankie Sands.
“It’s been a long time, he mostly hung out with Roy Bethel and other Bahamian players. He was a very good catcher and had a cannon for an arm, very friendly and sure of himself, I threw to him some as he was a very good catcher. He wasn’t a good hitter though and he struggled at the plate. We only played together for a few years as he was ruled 5 by the Twins, I believe he could have become a decent hitter and I do believe he would have made it to the Big Leagues.”
The Minnesota Twins started play in 1961 after leaving Washington D.C. where they were known as the Washington Senators. Even though Calvin Griffith’s team started playing in Met Stadium in 1961 the team had a player on the roster that made his major league debut in game one of a doubleheader on September 22, 1940 in Shibe Park as the starting left fielder for the Philadelphia Athletics in a 5-4 loss to the Washington Senators. Valo went on to play for the Kansas City A’s, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees, and the Washington Senators in 1960 before playing for the Twins. When Valo appeared in his first game in a Twins uniform on April 21, 1961 at Met Stadium against who else but the Washington Senators he was playing in his 1,724th game. Elmer Valo appeared in just 33 games for Minnesota and only had 36 plate appearances. Valo was used strictly as a pinch-hitter except for one blow out game in which he pinch-hit and then stayed in the game as a left fielder and had four PA’s. The Twins released Valo on June 17, 1961 and he signed on with the Phillies again where he played out the 1961 season and then retired from baseball. An oddity about Elmer Valo is that he played for Philly when the Athletics moved to Kansas City, he was a Brooklyn Dodger when they moved to Los Angeles and he was with the Washington Senators when they moved to Minnesota to become our Twins. Elmer Valo SABR Bio.
“Harmon Killebrew joins the 200 Home Run club on Sept. 15, 1963. He is joined by teammates Wally Post, left and Vic Wertz. (Pioneer Press file)”
Vic Wertz who debuted for the Detroit Tigers on April 15, 1947 against the St. Louis Browns played 35 games for the Twins in 1963 before retiring from the game. Vic Wertz SABR Bio.
Wally Post also played briefly for Minnesota in 1963 appearing in just 21 games after being purchased by the Twins from the Cincinnati Reds. The Twins released Post after the 1963 season and Post went on to play one more year, this time in Cleveland. Wally Post SABR Bio.
All three of these players were born in the 1920’s which is just around the corner. It is hard to believe that in the next few years we will have future Twins players born 100 or more years after the “old time” Twins were born. Elmer Valo, Vic Wertz and Wally Post are all deceased and though they were not All-Stars in Minnesota they each had long baseball careers and played a part in the history of the Minnesota Twins and deserve to be remembered for their contributions to Twins lore.
When Target Field opened in 2010, Minnesota Twins fans were hungry for out-door baseball after having spent the previous 28 seasons watching the Twins play their home games indoors at the H.H.H. Metrodome and over 3.2 million fans poured through the Target Field turnstiles to watch the playoff bound Twins play ball. The 2010 AL Central champs were swept by the New York Yankees 3 games to zip in the ALDS but it turns out that was the least of the Twins problems.
The Tigers beat the Twins Thursday afternoon extending their winning streak in Minnesota to eight games. That matches the longest current road winning streak for any team against a particular opponent. The Yankees have won eight straight games at Atlanta (2009-present) and the Angels have won eight in a row in Colorado (2001-present).
It’s the longest road winning streak for the Tigers against the Twins since the team moved from Washington to Minnesota in 1961 and the longest against the franchise since they won 11 straight road games against the Senators from 1949 to 1950.
The two paragraphs above come from According to ELIAS. Way too much news like this coming out of Target Field, is there any good news at all? Hope has turned into despair in Twins Territory. Even for a long time Twins fan like myself it is difficult to watch the 2016 Minnesota Twins. I just can’t understand why this team keeps making the same mistakes over and over. Sending players to the minors has not worked, as a matter of fact a case could be made that the Twins keep their players in the minors too long. Players seem to be regress in the Twins system versus get better. Once these players reach Minnesota they seem to fall apart totally after a short stay.
Ron Keller pitched for the Twins in 1966 and in 1968
Major League Baseball’s first amateur draft was held in June 1965. Teams chose players in reverse order of the previous season’s standings, with picks alternating between the National and American Leagues. With the first pick, the Kansas City Athletics took Rick Monday, an outfielder from Arizona State University.
Originally, three separate drafts were held each year. The June draft, which was by far the largest, involved new high school graduates, as well as college seniors who had just finished their seasons. Another draft was held in January, which typically involved high school players who graduated in the winter, junior college players, and players who have dropped out of four-year colleges. Junior college players were required to wait until their current season was completed before they could sign. Finally, there was a draft in August for players who participated in amateur summer leagues. The August draft was eliminated after only two years, while the January draft lasted until 1986.
Ron Keller was an eighth round selection and the 143 pick overall by the Minnesota Twins in MLB’s first amateur draft that was held in New York City in 1965. Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan was the New York Mets 12 round pick and 295th overall that same year. The Twins selected the 6’2″ Keller out of Indiana University as a right-handed pitcher.
From 1957 to 1961 Keller earned six letters at Cathedral High in Indianapolis playing baseball and basketball. According to teammates, Keller was a very intelligent player and knew how to keep the ball down and to throw strikes. At IU Keller majored in accounting and played under Ernie Andres who had a short stint in the big leagues as a third baseman for the Boston Red Sox in 1946. After retiring from baseball Andres coached the IU baseball team from 1949-1973.
After being drafted and signed by the Twins, Keller was assigned to the St. Cloud Rox (A) where he led the league in wins with 9 (3 losses) and he completed 11 of the 14 games that he started. Keller posted a 2.03 ERA and he struck out 132 batters in 111 innings.
In 1966 started the season with the Wilson Tobs (A) where he was 4-2 in 55 innings before being bumped up to the Charlotte Hornets (AA) where he was 3-0 in 48 innings. After his brief stop in Charlotte he was assigned to the Denver Bears (AAA) where he started seven games and posted a 5-1 record. When Camilo Pascual took one of his annual trips to the DL, Keller was called up by the mother club and he made his inauspicious big league debut at Met Stadium on July 9, 1966 in an 8-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers, just barely a year after being drafted and starting his professional career. Keller shut down the Tigers in 2 of the 3 innings he pitched but he gave up 3 “earnies” in the middle inning. Keller only appeared in one more game again in relief for the Twins in 1966 before being send down. Advancing from “A” ball to the big leagues in just one year after signing was very impressive indeed.
Ron Keller spent all of 1967 in the minors at Denver (AAA) and posted and 10-11 record with a 4.78 ERA. Keep in mind we are talking Denver which was no easier to pitch in then than it is now. Keller spent most of 1968 with Denver again but was called up by the Twins and appeared in just 7 games in 3 months with the parent club. In the spring of 1969 the Twins brain trust wanted to ship Keller back out to AAA but Keller said “no” and retired from baseball at the age 25. “I thought I had nothing more to prove in the minors,” he said. “Twins owner Calvin Griffith refused to trade me, and wouldn’t believe my threats to quit baseball.”
You have to wonder if either Griffith or Keller regretted their stubbornness and their decision.
