Category: The 1967 AL Pennant Race

The 1967 AL pennant race – Part 5 – Walter Bond and Bratwurst on the menu at Met Stadium

Part time outfielder and first baseman Walt Bond played in just 10 games for Minnesota and he was never a star but he had an interesting history. Although his time in Minnesota may have been short, he still should be remembered for wearing a Minnesota Twins uniform before passing away at the age of just 29 on September 14, 1967 of leukemia. 

In memory of Walt Bond

One of the mainstays at all baseball ballparks today are the Hot dogs and Brats but apparently that was not always the case. When the 1967 season opened at Metropolitan Stadium on Friday, April the 14th with the Twins facing the Detroit Tigers there was a new comestible on the menu for fans to try, bratwurst and sauerkraut. So tomorrow will mark 50 years since the Twins first sold Brats at the home ballpark. Twins concessionaire Jimmy Robertson had 16 ounce draft beer on the menu for 50 cents and he said he would consider tortillas, pizza, fish and chips, chow mein and who knows what if someone was willing to buy it. I wonder what a Brat went for back then.

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The 1967 Minnesota Twins opened the 1967 season on April 11th on the road at Memorial Stadium taking on the Baltimore Orioles and their starter Dave McNally, the Twins countered with their big lefty Jim Kaat. 

The game started with a bang when Cesar Tovar hit a double off McNally but the excitement for Twins fans was short-lived when Rich Rollins flew out to left-fielder Curt Belfray who quickly doubled-off Tovar off second base. Oliva followed with a ground out and McNally was out of the inning. Twins starter Jim Kaat must have been a bit nervous because he hit lead-off hitter Curt Blefary and then proceeded to give up a double to Luis Aparicio with Blefary scoring, a single to Frank Robinson that scored Aparicio and then gave up a home run to Brooks Robinson. After facing just four Oriole batters Kaat and the Twins found themselves down 4-0 with still no one out. Kaat shut the door after that but was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the top of the fifth still trailing 4-0.

The Twins scored 3 runs in the fifth knocking McNally out of the game but that was a close as they would get as reliever Jim Perry allowed two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning and the Orioles sent their 39,812 fans home happy after just 2 hours and 32 minutes of play. Rookie second baseman Rod Carew who played for the Wilson Tobs in the class A Carolina League in 1966 hit sixth in the Twins line-up in his first big league game and went 2 for 4 and his Hall of Fame career was under way. Jim Kaat took the loss and reliever Moe Drabowsky got the win for the O’s while Stu Miller got the save.

You can check out the four previous blogs on the great 1967 AL pennant race by clicking here.

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 4 – pitching & defense and a rodeo bronc rider

The 1966 Minnesota Twins finished the season in second place with a 89-73 record, a full nine games behind the AL pennant winning Baltimore Orioles and they were looking to regain the pennant they felt should have been theirs for the second year in a row in 1966.

The 1966 Orioles were no slouches themselves having won 97 games on the back of Triple Crown winner Frank Robinson and their top four starters Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Wally Bunker and Steve Barber who won 48 games between them.

Twins owner Calvin Griffith was eager to get back to the World Series and made some moves in December of 1966 that he felt would ensure him the AL pennant in 1967. He traded pitcher Pete Cimino, 1B Don Mincher and OF Jimmie Hall to the California Angels to acquire pitcher Dean Chance and shortstop Jackie Hernandez and the very next day he traded 2B Bernie Allen and P Camilo Pascual to the Washington Senators for reliever Ron Kline.

Manager Same Mele wasn’t entirely pleased with how the Twins did in spring training, finishing with a 11-17 mark in Grapefruit League play. It didn’t make him feel any better when Starter Jim Grant was hit in the forearm by a line drive that took him out of action for several weeks just before the 1967 season was about to start.

The April 15, 1967 Sporting News lays out the Twins plan to win it all with pitching and defense and gives you a look at the roster of the 1967 Twins as they prepare to open the season in Baltimore on April 11. It also has a short piece on Twins rodeo bronc riding third baseman Ron Clark.

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All of my previous blogs on the 1967 pennant race can be found here.

 

 

The great pennant race of 1967 – part 3 – the rookies, Chance, Versalles and payroll could reach $700K

The Minnesota Twins were unable to defend their 1965 championship season and finished 1966 with a 89-73 record in second place behind the World Champion Baltimore Orioles. The team was out to make amends in 1967 and get back to the World Series.

Tinker Field

In late March of 1967 the Minnesota Twins like every other team in the ten team American League was getting ready to wind down spring training at Tinker Field in Orlando, Florida and prepare for the long season ahead. The soon to be 1967 Minnesota Twins were a veteran team but they had high hopes for rookies like pitcher Jim Ollom, first baseman Rich Reese, third baseman Ron Clark and a 21 year-old Panamanian second baseman by the name of Rod Carew who spent 1966 in the class A Carolina League playing for the Wilson Tobs where he hit .292 with one home run and committed 21 errors.

Today you can read what Twins beat writer Max Nichols wrote about the Twins in the March 25, 1967 issue of the Sporting News which was the weekly baseball bible back in the days before the internet.

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Minnesota Twins go high tech….. back in 1967

Their computer might have looked like this. Is that Derek Falvey?

According to the February 25, 1967 issue of the Sporting News the Minnesota Twins went high-tech by installing their first computer in their accounting department and Twins PR man Tom Mee thought that in the future they might even use it for Twins statistics. 1967 was the year that IBM created the first floppy disk, the first CES (Consumer Electronic Show) was held and GPS first became available for commercial use. About the same time the Minnesota Twins also announced that they would begin accepting credit cards for ticket purchases albeit only from “our good” customers said Twins ticket manager Charlie Lavender. The article also has a nice story about Cesar Tovar, one of the forgotten Twins.

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Looking ahead to the 1967 baseball season

Fifty years ago the Boston Red Sox won the American League pennant in 1967 in what many think is one of the most if not thee most exciting AL pennant races ever. The Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins finished one game back and the Chicago White Sox finished 3 games behind the Red Sox. My plan is to do some postings as the year goes along about the 1967 AL pennant race. I found an article in the April 17, 1967 Sports Illustrated called “RISING DYNASTY FOR THE BIRDS?” that does a recap on each AL team and predicts their chances for the 1967 season. Kind of a fun read. The Boston Red Sox of course played the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and lost 4 games to 3.

Carl Yastrzemski won the triple crown in 1967 although he and Twins 1B Harmon Killebrew each had 44 home runs that year. Even though you know how the story ends, it will still be fun reliving it.