This Day in Twins History – April 3

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.

Key Dates in Metrodome History

TCBearApril 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 resemblance 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. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TC!

Ervin Santana 2015April 3, 2015 – The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball announced that Minnesota Twins right-handed pitcher Ervin Santana has received an 80-game suspension without pay after testing positive for Stanozolol, a performance-enhancing substance, in violation of Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. The suspension of Santana will be effective for the first 80 games of the 2015 regular season. Santana, who was to earn $55 million over the next four seasons, was suspended for 80 games for violating Major League Baseball’s drug prevention and treatment program. The earliest he can return to action is July 4, when the Twins visit the Kansas City Royals. Scheduled to earn $13.5 million this year as part of the richest free-agent deal in club history, Santana will not be paid during the suspension, costing him more than $6.6 million.

Twins post first “W” of the season

What a nice win! The Twins posted their first “W” of the season this afternoon in a come from behind walk-off double by Eduardo Escobar that scored Jamey Carroll and Brian Dozier with two out in the ninth at Target Field. I know that the Tigers outfielders probably should have caught that ball for the third out but the fact is they did not. Kevin Correia started and pitched 7 innings allowing two runs on seven hits and a walk while striking out two. Correia did a great job against the Tigers and kept his team in the game. I know it is only one game but maybe this will help quiet all those Correia critics out there. I have to mention Wilkin Ramirez too and give him his props for the pinch-hit double that plated the Twins first run in the seventh inning. On the not so good side, the Twins had 8 more LOB today making 20 in their first two games, they have to do better than that if they want to win games. The Twins still have not started a single inning this season with a lead. I wonder what the Twins are going to do when they have to add Scott Diamond to the roster in a few days, there is no obvious candidate to ship out to Rochester at this point.

Torii Hunter as TigerFormer Twins and current Tiger outfielder Torii Hunter started the game with 1,988 hits and had a single in the top of the third inning and singled again in the top of the fifth for hit number 1,990 but was thrown out at third base by Chris Parmelee on Miguel Cabrera’s single that scored Omar Infante as Hunter tried to advance from first to third.

Thirteen years ago today the Twins introduced TC Bear as their mascot and last May he marked his consecutive 1,000 game. That bear is out there day in and day out, he never misses a game, he just grins and bears it I guess. You can read a nice piece about TC by going here.