With the Twins AL lead at only 4 games and the All-Star game break coming up the next day, the Twins took on the New York Yankees at the Met and after 8 innings the score was tied at 4 apiece. The Yanks scored one in the top of the ninth and the Twins had their backs to the wall. In the bottom of the ninth, Zoilo Versalles grounded out to the pitcher but Rich Rollins coaxed a walk from Pete Mikkelsen and the Twins had the tieing run on base with Tony Oliva due up. Oliva flew out to center and the Twins were down to their last out but the last Twins hitter was Harmon Killebrew and he took Mikkelsen to a full count before hitting a walk-off 2 run homer and the Twins fans celebrated. The Twins players never looked back and ended up winning the league pennant by 7 games over the White Sox. Killebrew’s described his home run as “It’s one of the sweetest of the sweet” and it stands in Twins lore as one of their most famous home runs. The box score can be found here.
By the way, how the Yankees scored the run in the top of the ninth to take the lead in this game is a story in itself. If you want to read more about that and this game, you can read Chapter 8 of Jim Thielman’s book Cool of the Evening here. It is a wonderful book about the 1965 Twins championship season, if you have never read this book, I would recommend it highly.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of the things that happened to the Twins on this day by visiting our Today in Twins History page.