Previous 1967 AL Pennant Race blogs can be found here.
The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 36 – Twins Keep Winning
Category: The 1967 AL Pennant Race
Twins and their shortstop issues go way back – Part 35
Previous 1967 AL Pennant Race blogs can be found here.
Nats beat Twins 9-7 in 20 innings at the Met – Part 34 – Worthington
The Twins had a long day at the Met on August 9, 1967 but after 5 hours and 40 minutes and 20 innings all they had to show for their efforts was a 9-7 loss at the hands of the Washington Senators. I have attached the first page of the sports page for the day after but there is no box score, must have been too late for that edition. I am including the Box Score link at B-R that you should check out.
No home runs for the Twins but the Senators Frank Howard and Ken McMullen each hit one out at the Met. But it is the relief pitching that is amazing, Senators reliever Darold Knowles went 10 scoreless innings allowing just 3 hits and striking out 10. Twins reliever Al Worthington went 8.2 scoreless innings allowing 2 hits and striking out 8 Senator batters. Interestingly enough, Worthington had pitched the final 2 innings of the game the previous day also. The Twins gave Worthington the next 4 days off….
After all was said and done the Twins were in fourth place and 2.5 games behind the lead leading White Sox. The Red Sox were 1.5 out and the Tigers 2 games out. The California Angels were just one back of Minnesota.
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The rest of the stories I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 33 – Elston Howard traded to Boston Red Sox
I remember Yankee catcher Elston Howard well, he always seemed to find a way to beat our Minnesota Twins. Howard could do it all, he could hit, behind the plate he called a great game and he was a leader.
Do you remember how as a young child you used to “hate” certain ball players because they found ways to beat your favorite team? For me Ellie Howard was one of those players, it had nothing to do with the color of his skin, just the fact that he kept beating the Twins. As you grew up you realized that your ‘hate” for certain ball players was really respect in disguise.
To me Ellie Howard was always and always be a New York Yankee and I didn’t realize until a number of years ago that he was traded by the Yankees to the Boston Red Sox in August of 1967 and also played there in 1968. My time in the service from 1965-1968 limited my ability to follow baseball.
Ironically to me, it turns out that Elston Howard’s first game in a Boston Red Sox uniform took place at Met Stadium on August 5, 1967 against the Minnesota Twins. Howard went 0-3 that day and the Twins beat the Red Sox 2-1 on a complete game 3-hitter by Dave Boswell and the only Red Sox run scored on a Rico Petrocelli home run. Tony Oliva was 3 for 4 with an RBI and Zoilo Versalles was 2 for 4 with a home run that was actually the winning run.
There is a recent story by Dave Kaplan at thenationalpastimemuseum.com about Elston Howard called “Elston Howard made the difference for the ’67 Boston Red Sox” that you may enjoy reading. To learn more about Elston Howard you can check out his SABR Bio.
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Star_Tribune_Sun__Aug_6__1967_
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
1967 Twins Pennant Race – Part 32 – Twins 1967 Media Guide
I worked for several years to acquire a copy of all the Minnesota Twins media guides and completed the set last year. I have scanned and created a PDF of the 1967 Minnesota Twins Media Guide for everyone to enjoy. There is a lot of interesting data about the players and their records but the guide was pretty simple back then. The Twins media guide has obviously grown over the years and I believe the 2017 Twins media guide has 446 pages.
1967 Minnesota Twins Media Guide
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
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50 years ago it was not just about baseball in Detroit – Part 31 – 1967 Detroit riots
The 1967 Detroit rebellion, also known as the 1967 Detroit riot or as the 12th Street riot, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. It began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967.
There was a recent article “Black Tigers: Detroit and the 1967 Rebellion” written by Andrew Linden Louis Moore and posted on the Sports in American History site that is worth reading. Check it out, it might make you wonder how much progress we have really made in the last 50 years.
Lenny Green who played for the Senators/Twins from 1959-1964 is one of the players in the article.
When Detroit rioted, Tigers games moved to … Baltimore
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 30 – Race continues, five teams within five games
In their final July game the Twins were helpless against Lee Stange, a former Twins pitcher and current Red Sox starter. Stange had a perfect game going until Harmon Killebrew singled with two out in the seventh inning at Fenway Park. The Twins final two hits took place in the ninth but Stange retired Tony Oliva and Killebrew on fly balls and he and the Red Sox closed out the 4-0 win. The Boston crew had only 4 hits themselves but three of them including a 3 run home run belonged to Carl Yastrzemski and Stange had the other Boston hit. Even though the Sox lost the five game series three games to two they held on to second place just 2 games out of the lead.
With 2/3 of the 1967 season in their rear-view mirror the Twins find themselves with a 53-47 record, good enough for fourth place tie and 5 games behind the league leading White Sox. With 17 wins and 13 losses in July the Twins scored 122 runs and held the opposition to just 94 runs.
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 29 – Twins losing streak finally over
According to manager Cal Ermer about 1/3 of the Twins roster was a bit lighter in the wallet after Ermer fined them for curfew violations. The Twins who took on the Yankees in a scheduled doubleheader today were on a 8 game winless streak which included yesterdays tie game.
In game one,Twins left fielder Bob Allison batting lead-off, hit a home run off Yankee starter Steve Barber but it turned out to be the only run the Twins would score, it was the fifth consecutive game, all losses, that the Twins would score just the one run. The Yankees won the game 6-1 with Joe Pepitone hitting two home runs and Steve Whitaker contributing another. Twins starter Jim Perry took the defeat.
Game two however; had a happier ending but the Twins had to play 18 innings before they could finally say their eight game losing streak was over with a 3-2 win over the Bronx bombers.
The Yankees scored 2 runs in the bottom of the fifth inning off Twins starter Jim Merritt and the Twins scored one in the second and one in the sixth of Yankee starter Fred Talbot and no one crossed home plate after that until the top of the 18th inning when Rich Rollins singled off Yankee reliever Thad Tillotson to score Rod Carew with an unearned run on the Yankees third error of the game.
Twins starter Jim Merritt pitched the first 13 innings for the Twins and came away with a ND. Al Worthington was credited with the win and Jim Roland notched his first save of the season.
The 18 inning game was the longest the Twins had ever played to that point in their history. In terms of time the game only lasted 4 hours and 24 minutes.
The 8 game winless streak which included a tie game would be the longest the Twins would encounter in 1967.
The Yankees second pitcher of the game Bill Monbouquette pitched 9 innings of scoreless relief allowing just 3 hits and a walk.
Cesar Tovar and Yankee Roy White who both went 0 for 8 would just as soon forget this game was ever played.
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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 28 – Twins play to a crowd of 51,144
The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox 2-1 in Milwaukee’s County Stadium but the game did not count in the standings, it was just an exhibition game. There were 51,144 baseball fans in the stands, about 3,000 more watched from the outfield where they were roped in and an estimated 5,000 more were turned away.
The White and Twins were scheduled to play the game at County Stadium in Milwaukee in a game sponsored by the Milwaukee Brewers, the organization trying to get another team for Milwaukee after the Braves moved to Atlanta after the 1965 season. A name Twins fans may recognize Allan (Bud) Selig was the president of that organization.
When Milwaukee auditioned to return to the big leagues — in 1967 (Some great pictures in this story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
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Twins_WSox_exib_p2 (Includes box score)
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 27 – Jose Cardenal and the Angels steal a 2-1 win
The Twins lose to the California Angels on the road again and it is the same old story, they lose 2-1 for the third day in a row and they have lost all five game on this current road trip and six in a row. Ermer’s boys find themselves in fifth place 3 1/2 games behind the leaders and 4-7 since the All-Star break.
The Twins could only muster three hits off Angels spitballer Jack Hamilton who is 5-1 since being acquired from the Mets and Minnie Rojas who earned the save with 3 innings of scoreless relief while allowing just 1 hit. Dean Chance pitched well enough to win for Minnesota but allowed 2 unearned runs in the third. Bobby Knoop reached on a Rod Carew error, Hamilton sacrificed Knoop to second. Jose Cardenal singled scoring Knoop from second. Cardenal then stole second and went to third on a wild pitch. Chance then struck out Roger Repoz for the second out and that brought Woodie Held to the plate who was batting when Cardenal stole home and Chance then struck out Held but it was too late, the run would turn out to be the winner.
With their tails between their legs the Twins now have to fly from California to New York to play the New York Yankees but first they need to make a detour to Milwaukee to play the Chicago White Sox in a meaningless exhibition game before continuing their road trip and pennant race. No way the players union would allow something like that now days but that is the way it was back then.
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The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.