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
Found in today’s Twins Notes, How can you not love stuff like this?
DID YOU KNOW?
Former Twins reliever Travis Bowyer is celebrating his 36th birthday today. Bowyer, a Twins 20th round pick in 1999 appeared in eight career games for the Twins, all in 2005. Bowyer, along with left-handed pitcher Scott Tyler were traded to the Florida Marlins in 2005, in exchange for second baseman Luis Castillo . Castillo was traded to the New York Mets in 2007, in exchange for catcher Drew Butera and outfielder Dustin Martin. Drew Butera was traded to Los Angeles Dodgers in 2013 in exchange for left-handed pitcher Miguel Sulbaran. Sulbaran was traded to New York Yankees in 2014 in exchange for infielder Eduardo Nunez. Nunez was traded to San Francisco Giants in 2016 in exchange for tonight’s starter Adalberto Mejia.
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.
I got a little busy with some other activities yesterday and didn’t get the August 2 debuts out here so today we will do August 2 & 3.
Danny Ardoin (Credit: Getty Images)
Danny Ardoin (C) – August 2, 2000 – Traded by the Oakland Athletics to the Minnesota Twins for Mario Valdez on July 31, 2000. Debut was at Camden Yards in a Twins 10-6 win over the Orioles and Ardoin was 0 for 2 but scored a run and walked three times.
Bob Gebhard
Bob Gebhard (P) – August 2, 1971 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 44th round of the 1965 amateur draft. Debuted at White Sox Park in a 7-5 loss to the White Sox. He pitched 2 innings of scoreless, hit-less relief and allowed just the single walk.
Jim Merritt (P) – August 2, 1965 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1961 first-year draft. Debuted as a starter against the Orioles at the Met and had a 5-2 lead after 8 innings but in the ninth inning he retired Brooks Robinson on a ground ball, gave up a single to Bob Johnson, induced Carl Warwick to pop-up before giving up another single to Jerry Adair and that brought up catcher Dick Brown who proceeded to hit a 3 run home run, his only home run of the season and tied the score at 5-5. Johnny Klippstein was brought in and struck out Jim Palmer to end the threat. In the bottom of the ninth inning the first Twins batter was Klippstein and Jimmie Hall pinch-hit a walk-off home run for him off Palmer and Twins fans went home happy, Merritt probably was not in such a merry mood as he did the heavy lifting and Klippstein earned the “W”.
Jason Bartlett
Jason Bartlett (SS) – August 3, 2004 – Traded by the San Diego Padres to the Minnesota Twins for Brian Buchanan on July 12, 2002. Debuted as a sub for Cristian Guzman at the Dome and struck out in his only plate appearance but at least he got to shake hands on the field after the Twins 10-0 shellacking of the Angels.
Ervin Santana threw his fifth complete game of the season, a four-hitter, in the Twins’ 5–2 win in San Diego on Wednesday. In four of those complete games he’s allowed fewer than five hits, tying the highest total for any major league pitcher over the last six seasons (2012 to date). Clayton Kershaw had four in 2014 and Jake Arrieta had four in 2015.
Santana is 3–0 with a 1.40 ERA in five starts in National League parks over the last two seasons, including a four-hit shutout in San Francisco on June 9 this season.
Inter-League play was discussed in 1967 but the wheels in MLB turn slowly and it took another 30 years before the first inter-league game was played in 1997.
Kennys Vargas (1B) – August 1, 2014 – Signed by the Minnesota Twins as an amateur free agent on February 25, 2009 – Debuted on his 24th birthday at U.S. Cellular Park in a Twins 10-8 loss to the White Sox. Vargas went 1 for 5 with a double, a run scored and 2 RBI. Happy Birthday Kennys!
Randy Ruiz
Randy Ruiz (1B) – August 1, 2008 – Signed as a Free Agent with the Minnesota Twins on November 16, 2007. Debuted at the Dome in a 4-1 win over the Indians. Ruiz started at DH and went 1 for 3 with a run scored.
Travis Baptist
Travis Baptist (P) – August 1, 1998 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins from the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1996 rule 5 draft. Debuted in a Twins 10-9 loss to the Blue Jays at the Dome. Baptist pitched the ninth inning for the Twins and had a tough go of it allowing two runs on 3 hits in his lone inning of pitching.
Scott Watkins (P) – August 1, 1995 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 23rd round of the 1992 amateur draft. Debuted at Jacobs Field and helped to protect a Twins 6-5 lead in the ninth inning by facing one batter and retiring him.
Ron Coomer (3B/1B/OF) – August 1, 1995 – Traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers with a player to be named later, Greg Hansell and Jose Parra to the Minnesota Twins for Mark Guthrie and Kevin Tapani on July 31, 1995. The Los Angeles Dodgers sent Chris Latham (October 30, 1995) to the Minnesota Twins to complete the trade. The Coom Dog debuted at Jacobs Field in the same game that Scott Watkins did. Coomer’s debut however came as a pinch-hitter with one out and two runners on and Coomer hit into a double play ending the Twins threat.
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.
One big league debut in a Minnesota uniform on July 31.
Willie Banks
Willie Banks (P) – July 31, 1991 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (3rd pick) of the 1987 amateur draft. Big league debut was in New York against the Yankees in a Twins 12-3 win. Banks tossed two innings of relief allowing two runs (none earned) on 3 hits and 2 walks.
Chattanooga Lookouts (AA) right-handed pitcher Fernando Romero has been named Twins minor league Player of the Week. Romero made two starts for the Lookouts, going 2-0, 0.90 ERA (10.0 IP, 1 ER) with seven hits, four walks and 15 strikeouts in starts against Mobile last Saturday and Birmingham on Friday. He has appeared in 20 games (19 starts)
for the Lookouts this season, going 10-6, 2.64 ERA (105.2 IP, 31 ER) with one complete game shutout, 41 walks and 112 strikeouts.
Romero was signed by the Twins out of the Dominican Republic on November 4, 2011 as a 16 year-old for a reported $260,000. Romero has TJ surgery in June 2014 and missed the entire 2015 season.
If hitting walk-off homers were everything, the A’s would be awesome
Yonder Alonso hit a 12th-inning walk-off homer off the Twins’ Tyler Duffey. It was the Athletics’ seventh walk-off home run this season, the most in the majors (the Blue Jays stand second with five, including one on Sunday). That total of seven walk=off homers is the highest prior to the beginning of August by any team in major-league history! Sunday’s walk-off blast came on the heels of Rajai Davis’s walk-off home run Saturday night. It was the second time this season that the A’s have hit walk-off home runs in back-to-back games: they did it on May 7 (Ryon Healy against the Tigers) and May 8 (Jed Lowrie against the Angels). The A’s are the first team in major-league history to have two separate instances of back-to-back games with walk-off home runs in the same season.
Alonso’s blow was the third walk-off homer in the majors on Sunday, the most on one day since there were three on June 7 of last year.
