The Minnesota Twins have a new pitching coach in Neil Allen this season. Heading into the 1965 season the Twins also had a new pitching coach and his name was Johnny Sain. It turns out that both Allen and Sain were right-handed and both pitched in the big leagues during all or parts of 11 seasons. Allen is getting his first shot as a big league pitching coach in 2015 while Sain had already served as a pitching coach for the Kansas City A’s in 1959 and the New York Yankees from 1961-1963 before he joined Minnesota in 1965 where he would last for two years before going on to serve as pitching coach for the Tigers from 1967-1969, the White Sox from 1971-1975 and the Atlanta Braves in 1977 and again from 1985-1986. Most pitchers loved Sain as their pitching coach and Twins pitcher Jim Kaat was one of those. Matter of fact, when owner Calvin Griffith and the Twins let Sain go, Kaat went public about how stupid he thought that move was but that is a another story for another time.
The Twins had switched to a five man rotation in 1962 but new Twins pitching coach Sain thought that he had the pitchers in Minnesota to go back to a four man starting rotation and it was not a hard sell. Here is a piece that appeared in the Sporting News on February 13, 1965. Feel free to click on the article a couple of times if your eyes are like mine and need a bit larger font.
