Most Twins fans know that current Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire played for the New York Mets between 1981 – 1985 playing in 285 games, mostly at short but he also played some second and third base. Hitting was not Gardy’s strong suit as he posted a career average of .232 with 4 home runs, walking 46 times and struck out 122 times in 777 plate appearances. But did you know that Gardy “owned” the Hall of Famer that everyone called “Lefty”? You better believe it, the right-handed hitting Gardenhire had 30 at bats against Carlton over the years and had 11 hits including a home run and put up a cool .367 batting average and .387 OBP against the hall of famer. Lefty did manage to strike out Gardy 8 times. On the other hand, Fernando Valenzuela faced Gardenhire 12 times and all Gardy got for his efforts was one base on balls.