Category: This Day in Twins History

This Day in Twins History – May 4

Dick Woodson - Twins pitcher from 1969 - 1974
Dick Woodson – Twins pitcher from 1969 – 1974

5/4/1974 – Less than 3 months after pitcher Dick Woodson wins MLB’s first salary arbitration case, the Twins exile him to the New York Yankees for pitcher Mike Pazik. Owner Calvin Griffith swore he would never pay Woodson the money and he held true to his word.

Vic Albury5/4/1975 – The Minnesota Twins retired their first number ever, HOF Harmon Killebrew’s number 3. Harmon, playing for the Kansas City Royals, hit his first ever home run against the Twins and it was at Met Stadium in a Twins 6-3 win over the Royals. Vic Albury gave up the long ball to Harmon in the first inning. Box score.

Stew Thornley wrote the following in the Halsey Hall chapter of SABR “Old-timers” may remember a promotion by Tootsie Rolls in 1975 to commemorate the one millionth run in major league history (with only the history of the American and National leagues being recognized). The countdown came down to Sunday, May 4, 1975. At Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota, the Twins held a pre-game ceremony to retire the number of Harmon Killebrew, who then homered in the first inning for the Kansas City Royals. In the bottom of the second, Rod Carew was on third for the Twins with no out. Teammates, monitoring the progress of runs that day, yelled at Carew that he was in line to score the millionth run. When Steve Brye hit a fly to right, Carew tagged and raced for home. However, the strong-arm of Al Cowens nailed Carew at the plate, taking away his chance for the millionth run. Soon after Bob Watson of the Astros, in the first game of a doubleheader in San Francisco, scored on a home run by Milt May and took the honor. The run came at 12:52 Pacific time. Watson was on second and ran as fast as he could to reach home. He reportedly crossed home plate at Candlestick Park four seconds before Dave Concepcion, who had homered in Cincinnati and also beat cheeks around the bases. Carew, by being thrown out by Cowens, missed out on the prize: $10,000 and 1 million Tootsie Rolls”.

Eisenreich, Jim 35/4/1982 – Minnesota Twins’ rookie outfielder Jim Eisenreich, who suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome, removes himself from the game due to taunts from Boston Red Sox bleacher fans.

Kingman, Dave5/4/1984 – In the fourth inning of the Twins-A’s game, Oakland’s Dave Kingman hit a ball into one of the Metrodome roof’s drainage holes and the ball never came back down.  Kingman’s pop-up had gone up 180 feet and into one of the seven-inch drainage holes in the inner layer of the roof. The umpires gathered to discuss the event that had never happened before in a major league game and awarded Kingman a ground rule double.  In the ninth inning Kingman homered for Oakland’s only run and the Twins won 3-1. Before the game the next day, a Dome worker found the ball and let it fall on the field to a waiting Twins outfielder Mickey Hatcher, he dropped it. Box score.

Mike Lincoln Credit: Brian Bahr /Allsport
Mike Lincoln Credit: Brian Bahr /Allsport

5/4/1999 – The Twins beat the Yankees 8-4 at the Metrodome as Mike Lincoln gets the win and the Twins get victory number 3,000. Box score.

This Day in Twins History – April 23 – Complete game with zero KO’s?

Kralick, Jack 24/23/1961 – The Twins play their first 1-0 game in history and come up winners at Met Stadium when Jack Kralick pitches a complete game 4 hit shutout of the Washington Senators. Kralick also knocks in the Twins lone run of the game with a fifth inning single. Box score

4/23/1980 – Angels pitcher Bruce Kison settles for a one-hitter when Minnesota’s Ken Landreaux rips a double with one out in the 9th inning of California’s 17-0 romp. For Landreaux, the hit marks the beginning of a 31-game hitting streak. Box scoreKen Landreaux

4/23/1982 – The Twins beat the Seattle Mariners 12-4 at the Kingdome. Twins pitcher Roger Erickson recovers after a rough first inning where he gives up 3 runs on 5 hits and proceeds to pitch a complete game. Erickson strikes out no one and gives up 13 hits and walks two more in this unusual game. It marks the only time that Erickson pitched a complete game with no strikeouts. Twins hitters were no slouches themselves as they had 18 hits and drew 6 walks. Ron Washington had 4 hits and Bobby Mitchell and Gary Ward had 3 hits apiece.

Roger Erickson
Roger Erickson

Box score . See the table below showing all Twins pitchers that have pitched a complete game with zero strikeouts.

4/23/2011 – The Twins beat the visiting Cleveland Indians 10-3 at Target Field and in the process score more than 5 runs in a game for the first time in 2011. The Twins have not scored more than five runs in any game this season (19 games), according to the Elias Sports Bureau, it is the longest such streak to start a season in Twins history, and the longest streak in franchise history (the 1909 Washington Senators failed to score more than five runs in their first 18 games).The Twins were the only team in Major League Baseball that hasn’t scored six-or-more runs in a game in 2011. Box score

*****************

Twins pitchers that have pitched a complete game with zero KO’s

Rk Player Date ? Opp Rslt App,Dec IP H R ER BB SO HR Pit BF
1 Brad Radke 2002-05-08 KCR W 3-1 CG 9, W 9.0 5 1 1 3 0 0 106 32
2 Allan Anderson 1991-04-20 CAL L 1-2 CG 8, L 8.0 4 2 2 1 0 0 100 29
3 Allan Anderson 1988-08-04 TOR W 2-1 CG 9, W 9.0 4 1 1 0 0 1 102 29
4 Les Straker 1987-06-29 KCR L 2-3 CG 5, L 4.1 4 3 3 1 0 1 17
5 Ken Schrom 1985-04-12 SEA L 1-2 CG 8, L 8.0 3 2 2 3 0 1 31
6 Roger Erickson 1982-04-23 SEA W 12-4 CG 9, W 9.0 13 4 4 2 0 0 39
7 Paul Hartzell 1979-04-30 TOR W 6-3 CG 9, W 9.0 7 3 3 2 0 1 36
8 Dave Goltz 1978-06-23 CHW W 2-1 CG 9, W 9.0 5 1 1 1 0 0 32
9 Steve Luebber 1976-09-08 TEX W 3-1 CG 7, W 7.0 7 1 1 1 0 1 26
10 Danny Fife 1973-09-28 CAL W 7-1 CG 9, W 9.0 7 1 1 6 0 0 39
11 Jim Kaat 1965-04-17 CLE W 3-0 SHO9, W 9.0 7 0 0 1 0 0 32
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/23/2015.
.

This Day in Twins History – April 17

Jason Kubel
Jason Kubel

4/17/2009 – Jason Kubel hit for the cycle at the Metrodome against the Angels. Kubel became the ninth Twins player to hit for the cycle when he doubled in the first, singled in the third, and tripled n the sixth before clobbering a grand slam homerun in the 8th inning as the Twins rallied for an 11-9 win. It was only the third time in MLB history a player had completed hitting for the cycle with a grand slam home run. It was done previously by two shortstops, Tony Lazzeri in 1932 and Miguel Tejada in 2001. Box Score

4/17/2014 – What a day! Yesterday’s Twins/Blue Jays game was snowed out so the Twins scheduled a doubleheader for today in spite of 4″ of snow that fell at the ballpark last night. The weird snow storm dumped 20″ in North Branch but only .03″ at the airport. When Kyle Gibson throw the first pitch in the first game at Target Field it was just 31degrees, an all-time record cold temperature for a Twins home game. The Twins won game 1 by a score of 7-0 in front of 20,507 shivering fans. The second game of the DH which was the make-up game started about 6PM and the Twins won 9-5 but it was how they won that game that was unusual as 20,698 fans looked on but there were far less when the eighth inning hubbub started. The Twins scored six runs on only one hit in the bottom of the eighth inning as they came from behind to beat the Blue Jays, 9-5, in the second half of their split doubleheader at Target Field. Minnesota’s six-run “rally” benefited from the almost total inability of Toronto pitchers to throw strikes in that inning, as Steve Delabar, Sergio Santos and J.A. Happ combined to walk eight Twins batters. (Santos also threw three run-scoring wild pitches in that inning.). According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Minnesota was the first big-league team to draw eight walks in one inning since April 19, 1996. The eight walks in one inning set a Twins club record, their previous record was six, done twice – April 16, 1961 at Baltimore (first inning) and July 15, 1965 vs. Kansas City (fourth inning). Both of the attendance totals were “paid attendance” and not a real count of fans in the stands and the estimate for fans in attendance was less than 12,000 for game one and even less for game two. Box Score Game 1, Box Score Game 2

This Day in Twins History – March 27

Jim Perry
Jim Perry

3/27/1973 – Twins’ pitcher Jim Perry becomes the first player to use the ’10 and 5 rule’ when he okay’s his own trade to the Tigers for minor league pitcher Dan Fife and cash.

Brad Havens3/27/1985 – The Twins move pitcher Brad Havens to the Orioles and receive pitcher Mark Brown.

3/27/2005 – Bob Casey, the first and only Twins public-address announcer passed away.

Bob Casey
Bob Casey

3/27/2010 – The University of Minnesota Gophers lost to Louisiana Tech 9-1 in the first baseball game played at the Twins’ new home, Target Field. More than 37,757 people came through the turnstiles after they opened in the morning for fans to take a look, sit in the seats and sample the food. Tickets were $2, with proceeds going to the team’s community fund. Former Gophers and Twins catcher Terry Steinbach threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Louisiana Tech’s Clint Ewing hit the ballpark’s first home run.

Here is an interesting blog I ran across this morning on Fivethirtyeight.com . What would you rather have? TJ elbow surgery or shoulder surgery? See what Fivethirtyeight has to say about it.

This Day in Twins History – January 9, 1961

The new Minnesota Twins and the American Association finally agree on a $500,000 indemnity payment to the minor league for the Minneapolis/St. Paul territory, ending 2 months of negotiations.

The 1960 American Association was made up of eight AAA teams which included the Minneapolis Millers (Boston Red Sox), St. Paul Saints (LA Dodgers), Denver Bears (Detroit Tigers), Louisville Colonels (Milwaukee Braves), Houston Buffs (Chicago Cubs), Charleston Senators (Washington Senators), Indianapolis Indians (Philadelphia Phillies), and the Dallas-Ft.Worth Rangers (Kansas City Athletics). In 1961 the American Association was down to six teams with Charleston being replaced by Omaha and Minneapolis and St. Paul obviously gone.

Here is the article that Halsey Hall wrote for the January 18, 1961 Sporting News. The same Sporting News page has a nice article about the Twins first ever barnstorming trip by Twins publicist Herb Heft that had him traveling 1,312 miles over a four days to sell the upper Midwest on Minnesota Twins professional baseball. I guess you could call this beginning of the Twins Winter caravans that are still taking place 54 years later.

Indemnity article 01181961 Sporting News

This Day in Twins History – November 12

Killebrew, Harmon 2111/12/1969 – Twins infielder Harmon Killebrew, who led the American League with 49 home runs, 140 RBI, and a .430 on-base percentage, is voted the American league MVP and becomes the second Twins player so honored. You can read what the Daily Illini wrote the next day about Killebrew being named the American League MVP by clicking here.

Ron Gardenhire11/12/1986 – The New York Mets traded shortstop Ron Gardenhire to Minnesota for a player to be named later, RHP Donnie Iasparro. Iasparro would never pitch above class A ball and was out of baseball after the 1987 season. Who knew at that time that in 2002 Gardenhire would become the Twins 12th manager and manage the team to a 1,068-1,039 record between 2002-2014.

 

This Day in Twins History – November 4, 2005

Minnesota Twins Press Release on November 5, 2005

Reggie JacksonThe Minnesota Twins would like to take this opportunity to confirm that the team did recently receive an unsolicited phone call from Reggie Jackson regarding his interest in acquiring a Major League Baseball team. During the phone conversation Mr. Jackson recounted his four previous efforts to finalize such a transaction and went on to inquire about availability of the Twins franchise. Mr. Jackson was told the Twins are not for sale at this time and that the Twins organization was currently 100% focused on working to ensure approval of the Twins-Hennepin County ballpark plan.

While not surprising considering the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the franchise’s future, the Twins view the publicity surrounding Mr. Jackson’s inquiry as unfortunate. To that end, the Pohlad family and Twins organization want to stress that this story was in no way initiated by the baseball team.

This Day in Franchise History – October 10, 1924

1924 World SeriesOn this day back in 1924 the Washington Senators who were playing in their first ever World Series won game 7 in extra innings 4-3 over the New York Giants and became baseball’s world champions. It wasn’t easy and they needed a pebble to help them win the game in the 12th inning. Read a very good review of game seven at dcbaseballhistory.com . You might also check out a nice review (with great pictures) of the entire 1924 World Series here.

1924 World Series box scores can be found here

This Day in Twins History – October 3

Did you stop by and check out our Today in Twins History page? October 3 has been an interesting day in Minnesota Twins lore for sure. Read about Vic Power, the 1970 ALCS, the strange finish to the 1976 AL batting race, the Twins signing a letter of intent to move to North Carolina, how the Twins ended the 1999 season with a tie game and more. Even though the Twins season is done, you can still read about their exploits, good and bad from the past.