Leonard Charles Green (born January 6, 1933, in Detroit) was the middle of three sons born to Eugene and Anna Green and passed away on his 86th birthday on January 6, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan.
After graduating from Pershing High School, Lenny Green was signed as an amateur free agent by the St. Louis Browns late in 1952 to play for York of the Class B Inter-State League. But before he ever put on a York uniform or a Browns uniform for that matter the Army called and he spent 1953-1954 in the service of his country during the Korean War. Green was stationed stateside and ended up playing on a baseball team with and against players like Willie Mays, Don Newcombe, Billy Martin and Zach Monroe. After being discharged from the Army as a corporal, Green was free to resume his pro baseball career but thing had changed and Green experienced his first MLB franchise shift as the Browns became the Baltimore Orioles.
In 1955 Green was assigned to AA San Antonio but played very little there and was sent to A ball Wichita where the swift left-handed hitter got to play every day and hit .302 in 78 games. Green spent the entire 1956 season with the Class A Columbus Foxes where he hit 13 home runs and led the team with a .318 batting average. Lenny Green spent most of 1957 with the Vancouver Mounties an open classification team in the Pacific Coast League and was named a league All-Star before being called up by the Baltimore Orioles on August 25. Green was immediately put in the line-up against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park but went 0 for 3. It wasn’t until his fifth game that Green got his first big league knock and that was a base-clearing triple in Cleveland Stadium against the Indians and when the season ended Green had appeared in 19 games in his first shot at the big leagues.
After the 1957 season ended Lenny Green played in the Venezuelan winter League to get more at bats and that probably helped him earn a roster spot with the 1958 Orioles as a back-up outfielder. Lenny got just 91 at bats by mid July and struggled with the bat and found himself optioned to AAA Rochester on July 25 and he finished the season there.
Green had kept busy, though, and had his own daily sports program—when the team was at home—on Washington radio station WUST beginning in the summer of 1958.
Green again made Orioles team in the spring of 1959 but was used primarily late in games for his defense. Meanwhile the Washington Senators were looking to make a deal because their center fielder and 1958 Rookie of the Year Albie Pearson was off to a terrible start so on May 26 Lenny Green was traded to the Washington Senators for Pearson. Green was happy to leave Baltimore as he did not like playing for manager Paul Richards. He made no bones about it saying:
“I didn’t enjoy playing for him. I didn’t like his managing.” Allowing that “he was a good one, manager and all that, but just.…If you knew him, you either liked him or you didn’t.”
Green was happy to be with Washington and playing for Cookie Lavagetto who believed that Green was a sure-handed fielder and the best base runner on the club. After another winter playing ball in Venezuela, Lenny Green had a breakout season in 1960 with a strong .294 season and a .383 on-base percentage while scoring 62 times and driving in 33 RBI. After the 1960 season ended, Lenny found himself in his second franchise shift when the Washington Senators announced they were moving to Minnesota to become the Twins while the folks in Washington received an expansion team as a parting gift.
Lenny enjoyed his team in Minnesota as a Twins player, “I loved it”, he recalled. Lenny Green was the Twins Opening Day center-fielder and hit second when they played in Yankee Stadium and shut out the New Yorkers 6-0. In his first 39 games in a Twins uniform Green had 49 hits and was hitting .322. Green enjoyed a 24-game hitting streak May 1–28, 1961, which remained the Twins record until Ken Landreaux surpassed it in 1980. Lenny Green quickly became one of my favorite players for my new favorite team. By the time the 1961 season ended, he hit .285 in an even 600 at-bats as the team’s regular center fielder, playing between Jim Lemon in left and Bob Allison in right. He led the club in base hits with 171, hit nine home runs, and drove in 50 runs.
In 1962 at the age of 29 Lenny Green had a breakout season with career highs in most hitting categories including runs, doubles, home runs, RBI and Total Bases. Not only was good on the field but he was good in the clubhouse as well, Green had a good sense of humor. One Twins fan, accepting the Minnesota Historical Society’s invitation to reminisce about the club, fondly remembered, “One early summer night, the fog was so thick the game was delayed. The crowd roared when Lenny Green ran to center field with a miner’s hat with the light on atop the helmet. The game did eventually resume.” The Twins made a run in the ten team American League pennant winning 91 games, 21 more than they did the year before but when the season ended the Twins were five games behind the New York Yankees.
The following season, 1963, the Twins again won 91 games but the ball didn’t bounce their way and all they had to show for their year was a third place finish thirteen games behind the leaders. The season didn’t start all that well for Lenny Green and he lost more and more playing time to rookie Jimmie Hall. Green had only 319 at bats and hit a measly .239. Green knew this was the beginning of the ended for him in Minnesota as Hall hit for a then record 33 home runs and finished third in ROY voting in the AL. Green was well-respected in the Twins organization, in the off-seasons, Green was often invited to team functions and promotional events. He was also one of four Twins players named to an in-house committee to study the problem of planning for racially integrated housing arrangements at their Orlando spring training locale.
Green led the Twins in hitting in spring training exhibition games in 1964 but when the season started Green was relegated to a defensive replacement role and didn’t start in a single game. By the time he was included in a three-team trade along with Vic Power with the Los Angeles Angels and Cleveland Indians on June 11 he had no hits in 19 plate appearances. After appearing in 39 games with the Angels they sent him to Honolulu to get in shape and then in September he was purchased by the Orioles where he played in 14 games.
In 1965 according to his SABR Bio:
Green was a non-roster invitee to spring training with the Boston Red Sox in 1965, the property of Baltimore’s Rochester ballclub but with Boston on a “look-see” basis. Green had telephoned Orioles GM Lee MacPhail and asked if he could be placed with another team during the exhibition season to see if he could catch on. MacPhail found interest from both Boston and Houston, and Green chose Boston. If he made the team, the Orioles would sell him at a predetermined price, believed to be $25,000. He excelled, leading the Red Sox in spring training with a .385 mark. On March 30 Boston announced his purchase from Rochester. “I had no intention of starting the season with Green in center field,” acknowledged Red Sox manager Billy Herman. “But Lenny hit so well he forced his way in there. He’s a real hustler.” Green kicked off the year for the Red Sox with two home runs on Opening Day in Washington. It was the fourth time Green had hit a home run on an opening day. In 1961 and 1962, he hit homers in the home opener for the Twins, and in 1963 he hit one in the season opener.
At the end of the 1966 season he was released by the Red Sox but hooked on with the Detroit Tigers, a team that Green had dreamed about playing for when he was just a kid. Green started the season in Toledo but with the greatest pennant race in the history of the AL taking place in 1967 and outfielders Al Kaline and Gates Brown down with injuries the Tigers called up Green and he responded with four multi-hit games in the first seven games he played.
In 1968 Green was a non-roster invitee by the Tigers but was farmed out to Toledo once again. Green appeared in just six games for Detroit in 1968 before being released at the age of 35 and Lenny Green’s 12 years in the big leagues were behind him.
Green had no interest in staying in baseball after his playing days were over and he took a job with Ford just his father had before him. Green retired after 27 years at Ford as a security supervisor.
As I had mentioned earlier, Lenny Green was one of my favorite players on that first Twins team in 1967.I am not sure why, maybe it was because he hit from the left-side, just like I did in our yard. Green has the honor of starting the long string of great Minnesota Twins center fielders. I tried on several occasions to get an interview with Mr. Green for this site but always without success. Green was the Twins center fielder and hit second in the Twins very first game, a 6-0 win over the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. With the passing of Green only two players (Billy Gardner and Pedro Ramos) remain with us that started the Minnesota Twins first ever game.
I was lucky enough to hook up with Detroit Tiger great Willie Horton and we chatted for a few minutes about Horton’s friend Lenny Green.
Willie Horton talks about Lenny Green (about 12 minutes long)
Former Tigers outfielder Lenny Green dies at age 86 Obit
Dick Stigman has lost another Twins teammate in Lenny Green
We at Twinstrivia.com pass on our condolences to the family and friends of Lenny Green. Thank you Lenny Green for all the wonderful memories.