August 6, 2010 – The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a great organization and one of the wonderful projects they have going on is the Baseball Biography Project. One of the many biographies they have completed is about former Twin Jose Manuel Morales. Jose was born December 30, 1944 in Frederiksted, Virgin Islands. Morales was a catcher by trade but the bat and his ability to pinch-hit was why Jose spent all or part of 12 years in the big leagues with A’s, Expo’s, Twins, Orioles and the Dodgers. Morales was with the Minnesota Twin from 1978 – 1980 and was used primarily as a DH although he played a few games as a catcher, 1B, and even appeared in the outfield for one game. Take a few minutes and read about the Twins original Jose Morales by clicking here.
Category: General Blogging
This is a general blogging category.
Most games played by position in franchise history
July 31, 2010 – I just wanted to take a look and see who the leaders for games played at each position by the Minnesota Twins and the Washington Senators. With the way things are in baseball today and players on the move through free agency it is hard to keep the same players for any length of time. The only current player that might have a shot at moving on to the list below in the near future is Joe Mauer and if all goes well that might happen late in 2011 or early 2012.
| Position | Games | Name | Games | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catcher | 831 | Earl Battey | 874 | Muddy Ruel |
| 1B | 1,609 | Kent Hrbek | 2,025 | Joe Judge |
| 2B | 1,128 | Rod Carew | 1,339 | Buddy Myer |
| SS | 1,112 | Greg Gagne | 1,445 | George McBride |
| 3B | 1,311 | Gary Gaetti | 1,625 | Eddie Yost |
| LF | 620 | Dan Gladden | 1,093 | Goose Goslin |
| CF | 1,432 | Kirby Puckett | 1,635 | Clyde Milan |
| RF | 1,138 | Tony Oliva | 1,592 | Sam Rice |
| DH | 406 | Tony Oliva | — | — |
Most Games Played in a Twins Uniform
| Rank | Name | Games played | Plate appearances |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harmon Killebrew | 2,329 | 9,462 |
| 2 | Kirby Puckett | 1,783 | 7,831 |
| 3 | Kent Hrbek | 1,747 | 7,137 |
| 4 | Tony Oliva | 1,676 | 6,879 |
| 5 | Rod Carew | 1,635 | 6,980 |
| 6 | Bob Allison | 1,541 | 5,921 |
| 7 | Gary Gaetti | 1,361 | 5,459 |
| 8 | Torii Hunter | 1,234 | 4,894 |
| 9 | Randy Bush | 1,219 | 3,480 |
| 10 | Roy Smalley | 1,148 | 4,675 |
MIA
July 19, 2010 – Have you seen this man? Clay Condrey, otherwise known as the “Twins Invisible Man” was signed by the Twins back in January for about $900,000 to bolster the bullpen. The 6’3” right hander with a sinker, cutter, curve-ball, change-up, and a four-seam fastball was targeted for a key role in the Twins pen but to date the man has not fired a single bullet in a Twins uniform in a game that has counted. Now there is talk that he will have season ending surgery and may never appear in a Twins uniform. You spin the wheel on some of these free agents and sometimes you come up with a dud, I think Bill Smith has that sinking feeling.
My Twins all-time starting five
July 14, 2010 – I thought that it might be interesting for me to pick my all-time Twins starting 5 pitchers. It turned out to be more difficult than what I had imagined it would be. What do you rank them on? How important is durability versus intimidation for example. Were they the ace of the pitching staff that carried the team to the playoffs? The list would be different if I included pitchers that pitched for both the Senators and the Twins such as Camilo Pascual who had a stellar career and is one of my all time favorite pitchers. The first row of stats are stats with the Twins and the second row are career stats. The Twins stats for Jim Kaat do include a few games that Kaat pitched for the Senators in 1959 and 1960 and the numbers for Johan Santana include the first half of 2010.
1. Rik Aalbert (Bert) Blyleven – right handed
| Seasons | GS/CG | Innings | Wins | SO | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 345/141 | 2,566 | 149 | 2.035 | 3.28 | 1.19 |
| 22 | 685/242 | 4,970 | 287 | 3,701 | 3.31 | 1.20 |
2. James Lee (Kitty) Kaat – left handed
| Season | GS/CG | Innings | Wins | SO | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | 433/133 | 3,014 | 190 | 1,851 | 3.34 | 1.23 |
| 25 | 625/180 | 4,530 | 283 | 3,701 | 3.31 | 1.20 |
3. James Evan Perry – right handed (1970 Cy Young award winner)
| Seasons | GS/CG | Innings | Wins | SO | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 249/61 | 1,883 | 128 | 1,025 | 3.15 | 1.20 |
| 17 | 447/109 | 3,285 | 215 | 1,576 | 3.45 | 1.26 |
4. Frank John (Sweet Music) Viola – left handed (1988 Cy Young award winner)
| Seasons | GS/CG | Innings | Wins | SO | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 259/54 | 1,772 | 112 | 1,214 | 3.86 | 1.30 |
| 15 | 420/74 | 2,836 | 176 | 1,844 | 3.73 | 1.30 |
5. Johan Alexander Santana – left handed (2004 & 2006 Cy Young award winner) still active
| Seasons | GS/CG | Innings | Wins | SO | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 175/6 | 1,308 | 93 | 1,381 | 3.22 | 1.09 |
| 11 | 253/10 | 1,836 | 129 | 1,816 | 3.11 | 1.12 |
Tough to strike out
June 21, 2010 – Hall of Famer Sam Rice is way ahead of everyone in franchise history with the best strike out per at bat ratio going down swinging just once in every 33.6 at bats in 9,879 plate appearances. It seems as though the players in the past had much bat control or were more patient then the players of today. As you can see, the Twins best in this category is Brian Harper and he struck out once in every 19.6 at bats in 2,691 plate appearances. Where do Joe Mauer and Rod Carew stand you ask? To this point in his career Joe has 3,253 plate appearances and he strikes out once in every 8.8 at bats. Carew struck out once in every 8.7 at bats in his 6,980 Twins plate appearances. What I think is kind of weird is that Tony Oliva was known as a free swinger and he struck out once every 9.8 at bats in 6,879 at bats. Just for comparison, Harmon Killebrew struck out once every 5.81 at bats in 9,462 Twins plate appearances while Justin Morneau is currently at a strike out every 6.71 at bats in 3,889 plate appearances.
Toughest Twins to strike out
- Catcher Brian Harper
| Rank | Name | At bats per strike out |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brian Harper | 19.6 |
| 2 | Mickey Hatcher | 15.0 |
| 3 | Cesar Tovar | 13.5 |
| 4 | Lenny Green | 13.3 |
| 5 | Hosken Powell | 11.0 |
| 6 | Butch Wynegar | 10.6 |
| 7 | Lyman Bostock | 10.4 |
| 7 | Ted Uhlaender | 10.4 |
| 9 | Al Newman | 10.2 |
| 10 | Jim Holt | 10.0 |
Toughest Senators to strike out
| Rank | Name | At bats per strike out |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam Rice | 33.6 |
| 2 | Sam Dente | 27.7 |
| 3 | Heinie Manush | 25.1 |
| 4 | Muddy Ruel | 23.4 |
| 5 | Clyde Milan | 23.1 |
| 6 | Rick Ferrell | 21.0 |
| 7 | Clint Courtney | 19.3 |
| 8 | Eddie Foster | 19.2 |
| 9 | Stan Spence | 18.5 |
| 10 | George Case | 17.5 |
Would Tom Kelly take Orioles job?
June 4, 2010 – I have to wonder, what would happen if Andy MacPhail the Orioles president of baseball operations would offer the Orioles manager job to Tom Kelly. The history obviously goes back a long ways and MacPhail gave TK his first opportunity to manage in the big leagues. The word seems to be that the Orioles need a “kick-ass” manager; I think TK fits that role to a “T”. The team has some good young players but to date they have not performed. Maybe an old east coast guy like TK would take the helm once again to help an old friend in Baltimore.
Another rumor circulating now connects Minnesota and Baltimore and supposedly the Orioles are interested in a shortstop and rumor has it that Trevor Plouffe is one of their targets. The Orioles are looking to unload starting pitcher Kevin Millwood who is 0-6 I think but has not pitched that badly. Would the Twins pull the trigger on a deal like that? Then again, how serious is Hardy’s injury? I can’t help but be a bit worried about what is going on with Hardy.
Jerry Wayne Terrell
June 2, 2010 – The Society for American Baseball Research is a great organization and one of the wonderful projects they have going on is the Baseball Biography Project. One of the biographies they have completed is about former Twins utility player Jerry Wayne Terrell. Jerry was born on July 13, 1946 in Waseca, Minnesota and played for the Twins between 1974 and 1977 before he was granted free agency and signed with the Kansas City Royals where he played from 1978 through 1980 before retiring from baseball. In April of 1980 the membership of the Major League Baseball Players Association voted 582-1 in favor of a strike. Jerry Terrell has long been assumed to be the only dissenting vote but to date he has never stated that this was true or false. Take a few minutes and read the bio about Jerry Terrell here.
The greatest baseball game ever played?
May 24, 2010 – The game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Milwaukee Braves on May 26, 1959 at County Stadium in Milwaukee in front of 19,194 fans has often been called the greatest baseball game ever played. A pitching duel for the ages between the Pirates lefty Harvey Haddix and the Braves right hander Lew Burdette. This game had nothing to do with the Washington Senators or the Minnesota Twins who were not yet a twinkle in Calvin Griffith’s eye, but to me it is one of my favorite baseball memories.
Back in the summer of 1959 I was 11 years old and loved baseball, regardless if it was playing the game, collecting baseball cards, or listening to Milwaukee Braves games on my transistor radio. We had no TV at the time so it was radio or nothing for me. I grew up on a dairy farm outside of Taylors Falls, Minnesota and the Milwaukee Braves were the only games I could pick up so they became my favorite team. Add in the fact that they whipped the hated New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series and that Hammerin Hank Aaron was my favorite player and there was no better team than the Milwaukee Braves. I often went to bed with my radio under my pillow listening to Braves baseball games. I could rattle off the most recent stats of Spahn, Burdette, Buhl, McMahon, Crandall, Adcock, Mantilla, Logan, Mathews, Covington, Pafko, and of course Aaron, what wonderful teams the Braves had back in the late 50’s.
My favorite baseball memories are unique to me, they may not mean a thing to someone else but to me they are what baseball is all about. Some of my favorite baseball memories are listening to Minnesota Twins games on a radio in the barn when I was milking cows and listening to Halsey Hall spin another yarn and laugh like no one else, watching a nail file fall out of Joe Niekro’s back pocket as the umpire looks on, attending my first live baseball game, which happened to be the 1965 All-Star game, Getting to attend the 1987 and 1991 World Series games at the Metrodome, listening to Braves games on my transistor radio, watching Henry Aaron become the home run champion (still is in my book) and many more, I could go on and on. One of those memories however is this 1959 game between the Braves and the Pirates. I tuned in the game in the 8th inning and was amazed to hear that Harvey Haddix not only had no hit the Braves to that point but he had a perfect game going, I was in awe, I had only read about no hitters and had never heard one in progress. Perfect after nine, ten, eleven, twelve, my God, how long could this go on? Then in the 13th inning things started to unravel for the Pirates and Haddix and I will let Craig Muder tell you the rest of the story in his article for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, just click here to read it.
The ending was very confusing as I remember, listening to the Braves announcers explain what happened on the home run by Adcock that turned out not to be a homerun. Harvey (Kitten) Haddix lost the game and sadly, gets no credit for a no-hitter much less a perfect game for 12 innings. No one even mentions that the Braves Lew Burdette pitched a 13 inning 12 hit shutout that day and got the victory. I wonder how pitches were thrown that day! Both Haddix and Burdette are gone now but I bet you that on May 26 of each year they hook up again and take the mound in that big ballpark in the sky and see who the best is on that given day. Damn, I love baseball………
Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame
May 18, 2010 – The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame began to induct members in 1939. It continued to do so even with all the political turmoil that has befallen Cuban Baseball. The Federacion de Peloteros Profesionales Cubanos en el Exilio continued elections of members after the end of professionalism in Cuba. For a complete list of members inducted, please go to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame pages.
The following one time Twins players are in the Cuban Hall of Fame.
Inducted in 1979 – Leo Cardenas – SS Inducted in 1980 = Zoilo Versalles – SS Inducted in 1981 – Pedro Ramos – P Inducted in 1982 – Tony Oliva – OF Inducted in 1983 – Camilo Pascual – P Inducted in 1985 – Mike Fornieles – P Inducted in 1997 – Julio Becquer – 1B Inducted in 1997 – Luis Tiant – P