TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. “History never looks like history when you are living through it” – John Gardner, former Secretary of Health
One big league debut as a Minnesota Twin on August 28.
Tim Laudner (C) – August 28, 1981 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 3rd round of the 1979 amateur draft. Debuted as the starting catcher at the Met against the Tigers and hit in the 8 spot. Laudner must have thought that the big leagues were easy when he had a single in his first at bat, then a walk and then a home run before fouling out in his final at bat.
Byron Buxton went 4-for-5 with three home runs and five RBIs in the Twins’ 7–2 win at Toronto yesterday. It was the 64th time since 2012 that a player hit as many as three homers in one game. But Buxton was only the second of those players to steal a base in the game. The other was Yoenis Cespedes for the Mets in 2015.
Buxton joins his outfield compatriots Max Kepler (8/1/2016 in Cleveland) and Eddie Rosario (6/13/2017 versus Seattle at Target Field) with three home runs in a single Twins game.
UPDATE 8/27– Byron Buxton has been named the AL Player of the Week for the period
ending August 27th. Buxton hit .333 (11-for-33) with nine runs scored, a double, five home
runs, 10 RBI and two stolen bases over eight games played to earn his first career AL Player of the Week Award. Among his AL counterparts, Byron finished first in home runs; tied for first in total bases (27); tied for second in extra-base hits (6) and RBI; fourth in slugging percentage (.818); and tied for fourth in hits and stolen bases.
This is Minnesota’s third weekly award this season, becoming the second AL Club to do so (also Baltimore Orioles), other Twins to win this season include Miguel Sanó (April 30) and Eddie Rosario (August 13).
One player debuted in the big leagues as a Minnesota Twin on August 27.
Chip Hale
Chip Hale (2B/3B) – August 27, 1989 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 17th round of the 1987 amateur draft. Debuted in the Dome in a Twins 8-5 win over the Seattle Mariners going 1 for 5 with a run scored.
Adalberto Mejia (P) – August 20, 2016 – Traded by the San Francisco Giants to the Minnesota Twins for Eduardo Nunez on July 28, 2016. It is never easy to make your debut when your team is down 8 to zip in the fifth inning but that was Mejia’s task at Kauffmann Stadium. Mejia went 2.1 innings allowing 5 hits, 1 walk and 2 earned runs in his first time on a big league mound.
Paul Abbott (P) – August 21, 1990 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 3rd round of the 1985 amateur draft. A tough start for Mr. Abbott against the Kansas City Royals at Royals Stadium when he is pinned with the loss after giving up 7 earned runs in 3 innings on 6 hits and 5 walks in his 84 pitches that day.
Dave McKay (3B/2B/SS) – August 22, 1975 – Signed by the Minnesota Twins as an amateur free agent in 1971. McKay was the starting third baseman against the Tigers at the Met. Started a Twins four run rally by leading off the bottom of the third inning with a home run off Tiger pitcher Vern Ruhle in his first big league at bat. Ended up 1 for 3 with a RBI and run scored.
Jason Ryan (P) – August 24, 1999 – Traded by the Chicago Cubs with Kyle Lohse to the Minnesota Twins for Rick Aguilera and Scott Downs. Probably drew the short straw when his big league debut was at the Met against the Red Sox and Pedro Martinez. Ryan lasted 4.1 innings giving up 4 earned runs on 4 hits and 6 walks and getting the loss in a 7-1 Red Sox victory.
Kent Hrbek (1B) – August 24, 1981 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 17th round of the 1978 amateur draft. First big league action was a start at first base in Yankee Stadium II against Tommy John in the 8 hole in the batting order. Hrbek went 2 for 5 with a run scored and 2 RBI. One of his 2 hits was a home run off George Frazier leading off the top of the 12th inning which provided the winning run in a Twins 3-2 victory over the Bronx Bombers.
Armando Gabino (P) – August 25, 2009 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins from the Cleveland Indians in the 2004 minor league draft on December 13, 2004. Gabino started his big league career with a start at the Dome against the Orioles. Gabino unfortunately lasted just 2.2 innings when he gave up 3 earned runs on 5 hits and 3 walks but the Twins came back to win the game 7-6.
Travis Miller (P) – August 25, 1996 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (34th pick) of the 1994 amateur draft. Travis Miller kind of showed right away that starting was not his thing when he started against the Texas Rangers at the Dome and was lifted after throwing 48 pitches in his first and only inning when he gave up 5 hits and 2 walks while allowing 7 Rangers runs. Two of the five hits were home runs. Oh, he did get the loss.
Alex Wimmers (P) – August 26, 2016 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (21st) of the 2010 MLB June Amateur Draft. Debuted at Rogers Centre in relief and pitched a slick 1 inning striking out 2 batters in a 15-8 Twins loss to the Bluejays.
Jack Cressend (P) – August 26, 2000 – Selected off waivers by the Minnesota Twins from the Boston Red Sox on April 22, 1999. The Twins were down 6-2 to the Tigers when Cressend entered the game in relief and pitched 1 inning giving up one run on two hits. The Twins eventually lost the game 8-2.
Dwight Siebler
Dwight Siebler (P) – August 26, 1963 – Purchased by the Minnesota Twins from the Philadelphia Phillies on August 24, 1963. Siebler entered the game in relief of Jim Kaat with runners on first and second and one out. Siebler got the first batter on a weak foul popup to the third baseman, but then he issued a bases filling walk before hitting the next batter to force in a run, walked the next guy to force in another run before retiring the next batter for the final out of the inning. It all sounds bad but his line was 2/3 of an inning with 2 walks, a HBP and zero runs on his record.
Bartolo Colon is rewarding the Twins’ faith in him. The hefty veteran wielded an ugly 2–9 record with an equally hideous 7.70 ERA at the end of July, but Colon has won four of five starts since the start of August including Friday night’s victory over the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. Colon’s win against Toronto was unlike any of his major-league career, and when you’re talking about a pitcher with 239 wins, that’s saying something. Friday’s game marked the first time in Colon’s 20 major-league seasons that he registered a win without striking a batter out. He struck out one batter in six of his wins, including one earlier this season for the Braves, which coincidentally also took place at Rogers Centre.
A bomb scare caused a 43 minute delay in the fourth inning of the Twins and Boston Red Sox game at the Met.
“Leave the stadium quickly,” Twins public address announcer Bob Casey declared. “There is going to be an explosion in ten minutes.”
Bob Casey
The people of the Twin Cities were already on edge when Casey made his ill-advised announcement during the fourth inning of the Twins-Red Sox game at Met Stadium on the evening of August 25, 1970. Just three days earlier, a bomb had exploded inside Dayton’s department store in downtown St. Paul, injuring one person. Police and Twins officials had little choice but to stop play and evacuate the stands when they received a phone call warning that a bomb was set to explode at the stadium at 9:30 p.m. Their mistake came in entrusting the gaffe-prone Casey with the task of telling 17,697 people they needed to leave the stadium. Despite Casey’s alarmist announcement, the evacuation went smoothly. Most fans headed to the parking lot while the rest joined the players in center field.
The game was scoreless going in to the eighth inning when Twins reliever Tommy Hall gave up a home run to Tony Conigliaro after striking out Reggie Smith and Carl Yastrzemski for the first two outs of the inning. The Twins had no match for the home run and ended up losing the game 1-0
The Twins swept a twin-bill from the Cleveland Indians at Cleveland Stadium in what turned out to be a very interesting day. The first game was tied at 4-4 after 9 innings and in the top of the tenth Tony Oliva singled and scored when Harmon Killebrew followed with his annual triple. Sandy Valdespino followed Harmon with a sac fly to score Killebrew and the Twins were up by 6-4. Ron Kline gave up a home run to Joe Azcue but kept Cleveland from scoring any more runs and the Twins won the game 6-5 in 10 innings.
The first game extra-innings victory was quickly put on the back burner when Twins starter Dean Chance pitched a no-hitter in the second game even though he allowed the Indians to score first in a no-hitter rarity. Chance threw 95 pitches and struck out 8 Indians but walked five and Cesar Tovar committed an error so it not like the Indians didn’t have their chances in the Twins 2-1 win. The Twins scored both of their runs without the benefit of a RBI, the first run scored on an error and the second scored on a balk.
The Minnesota State Fair opened today for its 12 day run and when I think of the fair I think of two things, politicians and food. This morning my alarm went off and what did I hear first? None other than Dave Lee of WCCO radio interviewing Senator Amy Klobuchar.
We don’t go to the state fair every year but when we do go we try to taste some of the new foods that they have available which brings to mind a recent article I ran across that Sports Illustrated did a couple of weeks ago in ranking food safety at MLB ballparks in 2017. Food safety standards are not standard across the board so it is difficult to rate and compare, here is what SI had to say about that.
Are standards the same across the country? It can be difficult to compare ballparks since each city, county and state reports restaurant inspections differently. Nonetheless, all departments follow the food code set forth by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which offers a consistent model. Health department representatives said that inspections are largely standardized. Some violations, though, did mean different things in different municipalities. For example, a walk-in refrigerator that didn’t have a thermometer was a non-critical violation in Anaheim and Oakland, whereas it was critical in Toronto and D.C.
The Seattle Mariners and Safeco Field had the best ranking and the Tampa Bay Rays and Tropicana Field had the lowest ranking. So where do the Minnesota Twins and Target Field rank against other MLB ballparks in 2017 as far as food safety is concerned? Sadly, their food safety ranks in roughly the same category as does their pitching. You can read the SI article here.
Jorge Polanco homered for the third straight game in the Twins’ win over the White Sox yesterday, tying the longest homer streak by a shortstop in Twins history. Their only other players to do that, including their 60 years as the Washington Senators, were Zoilo Versalles (three times) and Roy Smalley, Jr. (in 1980).
Tim Laudner (C) – August 28, 1981 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 3rd round of the 1979 amateur draft. Debuted as the starting catcher at the Met against the Tigers and hit in the 8 spot. Laudner must have thought that the big leagues were easy when he had a single in his first at bat, then a walk and then a home run before fouling out in his final at bat. 
