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
Dave Engle was drafted in 1978 by the California Angels in the third round (66 over all) as a third baseman out of USC. His stay in his home state however; was short-lived as he was traded on February 3, 1979 with pitchers Paul Hartzell and Brad Havens and outfielder Ken Landreaux to the Minnesota Twins for Rod Carew who wanted out of Calvin Griffiths Minnesota Twins organization.
Engle spent 1979 in AAA Toledo as a third baseman and in 1980 he again found himself in Toledo but that year he played in the outfield. Engle made the 1981 Twins team out of spring training and debuted on April 14, 1981. Engle was always first a hitter and finding a position for him was a struggle for Minnesota and they decided to turn him into a catcher. Engle must have been a quick study because by 1983 he was catching for Minnesota. In 1984 he was the Twins lone representative to the All-Star game but did not get a chance to play in the game at Candlestick Park. In 1984 Engle started having more issues throwing the ball back to the pitcher although he had no problems throwing to second or third base if needed. The problem continued to plague him in 1985 and he soon found himself a part-time player. In January of 1986 he was traded by the Twins to the Detroit Tigers for Chris Pittaro and Alejandro Sanchez in one of those “I’ll take yours if you take mine” trades.
Dave Engle stay in Minnesota lasted 439 games, 176 of them behind the plate. Engle hit .268 as a Twin with 28 home runs and 13 triples which is not too shabby for a catcher. The Tigers released Engle in August of 1986. Engle went on to play for Montreal in 1987-1988 and finished out his big league career in 1989 with Milwaukee.
Did you know that Dave Engle hit the first home run at the Metrodome and that he is Tom Brunansky‘s brother-in-law?
Odds are that you will not recognize the player in this picture but he is still in the Twins organization and has been on the Fort Myers Miracle coaching staff since 2006. He played in the big leagues for 18 seasons for seven different teams but never had more than 260 at bats in any single season and played for the Minnesota Twins in 1998, 1999 and 1990.
It has been over 25 years since a Minnesota Twins batter pinch-hit a grand slam for the Minnesota Twins. This Twins were ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning when “Pig Pen” stepped into the left-handed batters box to hit pinch-hit for Twins catcher Tim Laudner who was hitting in the 7-hole on that day. Right-hander Donn Pall was the third pitcher used by the mighty whitey’s that inning and he gave up the grand salami to Jim Dwyer and the Twins were up 7-2 and would eventually win the game by a score of 10-3 as Frank Viola won his 22nd game of the season. No one has pinch-hit a grand slam home run for the Twins since September 15, 1988.
ERROR, ERROR, RECOMPUTE: A bit of a technical glitch with my search, it turns out that the last player to pinch-hit a home run for the Twins was not Jim Dwyer but our old friend Matt LeCroy in 2004. Here is the corrected list.
From the time the Twins started play in 1961 through yesterday June 14 (2016) the Minnesota Twins have hit 7,462 home runs, 3,746 have been hit on the road and 3,716 have been hit at home. The Twins hit 1,872 home runs at the Metrodome, 1,424 at Met Stadium and 420 at Target Field. The most home runs the Twins have hit on the road have been at the Angels home park where they have hit 257.
Of the Twins 7,462 round-trippers only 50 of them have been inside-the-park home runs. Inside-the-park home runs are relatively rare so I am a bit surprised that when Eduardo Nunez hit the latest one back on June 2 that no one mentioned that it was number 50 in Minnesota Twins history. How rare are they? Only .0067% of Twins home runs are of the inside-the-park variety. So what Twins have hit IPHR’s? We have put together a complete list here for you with the help of Baseball-Reference.
Twins inside-the-park home runs from 1961-June 2, 2016
The Twins defeated the White Sox last night, 1-0, with the only run scoring on a wild pitch. Over the last 40 years, Minnesota has won only one other 1-0 game with the only run scoring on a wild pitch or passed ball. That was in Boston in 1985; Bruce Hurst‘s wild pitch allowed Dave Engle to score and Mike Smithson threw a shutout.
Officially ending his Hall of Fame career about six months after MLB owners did it for him, Rod Carew announced his retirement. A victim of collusion after the 1985 season, Carew failed to get any suitable offers for what would have been his age-40 campaign. Nine years later, he’d be awarded $782,000 in damages for his lost wages. Carew finished his career with the Angels in 1985 hitting .280 in 127 games. It was the only one of his 19 seasons in which he wasn’t named to the AL All-Star team.
Carew who signed with Minnesota on June 24, 1964 as an amateur free agent ended his career with 3,053 hits. Carew hit .328 with 92 homers and 1,015 RBI in 12 seasons with the Twins and seven with the Angels. He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1967 and its MVP in 1977, when he hit .388 and drove in 100 runs for the only time in his career. He ended up winning seven batting titles and finishing first in the AL in the OBP four times. Both the Twins and the Angels retired his number 29.
Carew was born to a Panamanian mother on a train in the town of Gatún, which, at that time, was in the Panama Canal Zone. The train was racially segregated; white passengers were given the better forward cars, while non-whites, like Carew’s mother, were forced to ride in the rearward cars. When she went into labor, a physician traveling on the train, Dr. Rodney Cline, delivered the baby. In appreciation for this, Mrs. Carew named the boy Rodney Cline Carew.
During the 1960s, Carew served a six-year commitment in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a combat engineer. Carew later said that his military experience helped him in his baseball career, explaining that “When I joined the Marine Corps, it was a life-changing event for me because I learned about discipline. When I first came up to the big leagues in 1967, I was a little bit of a hot-head. But after two weeks of war games every summer, I realized that baseball was not do-or-die. That kind of discipline made me the player I became.”
Frustrated by the Twins’ inability to keep young talent, some racist comments by owner Calvin Griffith, and the Twins’ overall penny-pinching negotiating style, Carew announced his intention to leave the Twins. On February 3, 1979 the Twins traded Carew to the California Angels for outfielder Ken Landreaux, catcher/1B Dave Engle, RHP Paul Hartzell, and LHP Brad Havens. Rumors circulated that the Twins completed this trade with the Angels only after a potentially better deal with the New York Yankees in January in which Carew would have moved to the Yankees in exchange for Chris Chambliss, Juan Beniquez, Damaso Garcia, and Dave Righetti fell through at the last-minute. I wonder how baseball history in Minnesota and New York might have changed had that deal gone down?
May 16, 1928 – Alfred Manuel “Billy” Martin was born in Berkeley, California. Billy played in the majors for 11 seasons with the New York Yankees, Kansas City A’s, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Braves and finished his career with the Minnesota Twins in 1961. Martin managed the Twins in 1969, the Detroit Tigers in 1971-1973, the Texas Rangers in 1973-1975, the Oakland A’s from 1980-1982, the New York Yankees from 1975-1979, 1983, 1985 and again in 1988. Billy Martin died as the result of an automobile accident on December 25, 1989.
May 16, 1983 – The Twins enter the ninth inning at the Metrodome trailing the Oakland A’s 7-0. The Twins hit four home runs in the bottom of the ninth (Dave Engle, Bobby Mitchell, Gary Gaetti, and Mickey Hatcher and they score 6 runs. They have the tying run on first when Dave Engle who pinch-hit a home run to lead off the rally strikes out to end the game. Hatcher’s home run was also as a pinch-hitter marking the third time in Twins history they have pinch-hit two home runs in the same game. The attendance was only 7,056 and you wonder how many fans were actually still at the Dome to witness this amazing comeback that fell a run short. Boxscore
Harvey Mackay
May 16, 1984 – The Twins sell 51,863 tickets to their 8-7 loss to the Blue Jays, but only 6,346 fans show up for the game. The skewed numbers are the result of a massive ticket buyout plan organized by Minneapolis businessman Harvey Mackay to keep the Twins in Minnesota; if the club does not sell 2.41 million tickets this season it can break its lease with the Metrodome. Taking advantage of reduced prices on the Family Day promotion, Mackay pays $218,718 for 44,166 tickets. Boxscore
May 16, 2010 – Jason Kubel hit a stunning grand slam off Mariano Rivera with two outs in the eighth inning Sunday, and the Twins snapped a nine-game losing streak against the Yankees with a 6-3 victory in Yankee Stadium. Kubel’s third homer of the season and sixth career slam snapped a string of 51 straight converted save opportunities for Rivera at home, tying the major league record set by Eric Gagne with the Dodgers. Nick Blackburn (4-1) allowed three runs and nine hits in seven innings for Minnesota, which picked up its first win against New York since Aug. 13, 2008. The Twins had lost 12 straight overall against New York, counting the sweep in last year’s AL division series. Boxscore
It is that time of the year again, time to see who will take home the Twins Trivia 2013 Twins Turkey of the Year award.
The 2013 baseball season has been over for almost a month and in the case of teams like the Minnesota Twins, it ended long before that. The temperatures have gotten colder and snow flakes have been seen over at Target Field but I still find it difficult to rid myself of the bitter taste of yet another wretched Twins season. A season in which the home town team managed to lose 96 or more games for the third year in a row. Not once in franchise history going back to 1901 have any previous Washington Senators or Minnesota Twins teams managed to accomplish what the 2011-2013 Twins have done by losing 96 or more games three years in a row. The 1997-2000 Twins ball clubs who lost 94, 92, 97, and 93 games were pretty dismal but they fell short of the three straight 96 loss mark.
The depressing part of this is that we can’t even blame injuries for the Twins poor play, the team just plain under performed to what were already low expectations. Sure Joe Mauer missed the last 39 games and Josh Willingham missed 33 games and a few other regulars spent a couple of weeks on the DL but that was about it. A number of players that spent time on the Twins DL list didn’t belong in the majors anyway.
When your team plays this bad it should not be that hard to find candidates for this years Twins Turkey of the Year. I had a few minutes the other day and I start compiling a list of possibilities and here is who I came up with off the top of my head in no particular order. Worse yet, I know it is hard to believe but these guys didn’t even make the cut for the final five.
Rich Harden – The Twins signed this fraud in December 2012 and allowed him to rehab his surgically repaired shoulder but Harden requested his release at the end of July when even he could see he would not be pitching in the majors in 2013. The man last pitched in the majors in 2011. I am not sure what it says for the state of baseball today when teams keep giving pitchers like Harden chance after chance. In all or parts of nine big league seasons with three different organizations, Harden has already pocketed $23,586,500 and he has pitched in a total of 170 games and only twice in nine seasons has he ever appeared in more than 25 games. If there was a DL Hall of Fame, he would be right there. He will only be 32 later this month and he still wants to pitch again in 2014.
Joe Benson – The Twins selected Benson in the second round of the 2006 June draft, just a couple of picks ahead of Justin Masterson and Jon Jay. Benson passed on a football scholarship to Purdue and took the Twins $575,000 and started his career in pro ball. Benson finally got the call to join the Twins in September of 2011 and had 71 at bats in 21 games and hit .239 with no home runs and two RBI. The Twins kept trying to hand him a starting outfield spot in 2012 and 2013 but he just could not get the job done. With his propensity to strike out, Benson would have fit right in with the 2013 Twins. In May of 2013 the Texas Rangers picked Benson up on waivers.
Chris Parmelee – This Twins first round pick in 2006 was projected to be a big time home run hitter. Parmelee worked his way up the minor league ladder and got his first taste of big league ball as a 2011 September call-up and he knocked the cover off the ball by hitting .355 with four home runs and 14 RBI in jus 76 at bats. The Twins had high hopes for Parmelee in 2012 and he rewarded them with 5 home runs and a .229 average in 192 at bats. The Twins handed Parmelee the starting right field job in 2013 but by the time the all-star game rolled around he found himself in Rochester. Parmelee finished the 2013 season hitting .228 with 81 strike outs and just 8 long balls in 294 at bats.
Scott Diamond – This 2010 Rule 5 pick-up had a wonderful season in 2012 going 12-9 with a 3.54 ERA in 27 starts and was projected to be the Twins ace going into 2013. After undergoing elbow surgery in late December of 2012 Diamond started the 2013 season on the DL. When he joined the team later in April he was nowhere near the pitcher he was in 2012. Diamond crashed and burned in 2013 going 6-13 with a 5.43 ERA in 24 starts and by August found himself with AAA Rochester.
Josh Willingham – This Twins starting left fielder was born in the Yellowhammer state and goes by the nickname of The Hammer but in 2013 he played more like a toffee hammer then the sledge-hammer that the Twins expected. Coming off a 2012 season when he hit .260 with 35 home runs and 110 RBI Willingham slumped badly in 2013 hitting just .208 with 14 home runs and 48 RBI. Worse yet he played in just 111 games due to a knee injury which eventually needed surgery. The Hammer’s strikeout’ jumped from 27% of his 2012 at bats to 33% of his 2013 at bats.
Eddie Rosario – A fourth round pick in 2010 this Twins minor leaguer was expected to make his big league debut with the 2014 Twins and possibly fight for a starting spot but a week or so ago he announced that he would be suspended for 50 games for violating the minor league drug policy. Rosario claims that the positive test came from some pills he took to help recover from an arm injury but then again everyone that is caught has some excuse. Neither MLB nor the Twins have made an official announcement as yet. Rosario began his career as an outfielder but agreed to switch to second base in 2011. This past year Rosario played for Ft. Myers before being bumped up to AA New Britain. This past Fall the Twins sent him to play in the Arizona Fall League. If this suspension is a fact, this will really hinder Rosario’s climb up the minor league chain towards Target Field. Minor league teams only play around 140 games so missing 50 really hurts.
We have spent enough time talking about the nonqualifiers, so without further ado let’s get to the meat of todays festivities. Each and every one of the final five did his best this past season to win the 2013 Twins Turkey of Year award but we can only have one winner here.
Vance Worley
The fourth runner-up is pitcher Vance Worley. Worley was a Phillies third round pick in 2008 and pitched in just 5 games for Philly in 2010. In 2011 Worley went 11-3 but in 2012 Worley went 6-9 with a 4.20 ERA in 23 starts.The Twins parted ways with center fielder Ben Revere to acquire the Vanimal from the Phillies in December of 2012. Worley started 10 games for Minnesota including the Twins home opener going 1-5 with a 7.21 ERA before GM Terry Ryan had seen enough and sent Worley to AAA Rochester. Worley was supposed to be a stalwart in the Twins 2013 rotation but he didn’t even make it to Memorial Day in Minnesota. The man talked a good story but he could not walk the talk. In Rochester he spent time on the DL and started just 9 games going 6-3 with a respectable 3.88 ERA but the call to return to Minnesota never came. Worley was the big acquisition by Ryan last off-season and he was supposed to eat innings and stabilize the rotation but he failed miserably in both. The man pitched like a turkey and earned his spot on this list.
Aaron Hicks
The third runner-up is outfielder Aaron Hicks. Hicks was the Twins first round pick (14th overall) in 2008. Hicks slowly worked his way through the Twins system and finally had a breakout season in 2012 with AA New Britain. He so impressed the Twins brass that during that off-season they traded both of their center fielders, Denard Span and Ben Revere for pitching help and Hicks became the front-runner to be the Twins Opening Day center fielder in 2013. Hicks rewarded the Twins organizations faith in him by having a great spring training hitting .370 with four home runs (three in one game) and 18 RBI along with 3 stolen bases. But when they started playing for real Hicks got off to a horrendous start getting two hits in his first 48 at bats and worse yet, he struck out 20 times. The Twins had no one else to play center so they kept sending him out there everyday until he pulled a hamstring on a June 9th. At that point Hicks was hitting .179 with 6 home runs but he also struck out 56 times in 190 at bats. While rehabbing in Rochester Hicks was recalled by the Twins when Willingham went on the DL. On August 1st Hicks was still hitting .192 with the strike outs continuing to pile up and GM Ryan sent him packing to Rochester and Hicks never again put on a Twins uniform for the rest of the season. I really don’t like picking on rookies and the Twins probably did Hicks a disservice by having him in the major leagues without a single AAA at bat but the Twins were in desperate circumstances and so they threw Hicks in the deep end of the pool and he was just plain in over his head. But Hicks didn’t earn his was on this list because he couldn’t hit, he is here because his attitude left a lot to be desired at some points this year. There were times when he failed to run out ground balls, on some of his home runs he stood at home plate and admired it, and in the field he sometimes played so casually that runners took extra bases on him without too much effort. To me he looked like a player that thought he was a star now that he had reached the major leagues and he quit working and was just coasting along. A little humble pie should be on Aaron Hicks Thanksgiving table this year and hopefully he will become the player that we all hoped he could be. If he doesn’t show solid improvement this season he should look at sharpening his already strong golf swing and consider the pro golf tour.
Anthony Swarzak
Our second runner-up is pitcher Anthony Swarzak. Swarzak did not make this list because of how he did on the mound, he made the list in spite of having a career year in 2013. Swarzak appeared in a career high 48 games and threw 96 innings and posted a 3-2 record with a career best 2.91 ERA. So why was he invited to the Twins Turkey of the Year banquet? Swarzak is here because on January 25th while attending TwinsFest 2013 he and his teammates thought they would have a little fun and started practicing their wrestling moves and Swarzak ended up with two broken ribs. The non-injured participants were not identified and GM Terry Ryan said that he appreciated that Swarzak come forth and fessed up. I am sure that childish behavior like this goes on all the time in baseball locker rooms as Kent Hrbek can certainly attest to when he broke his ankle during some horseplay in the Twins clubhouse in September of 1990. With the Twins desperate for pitching this was a stupid move on the part of Swarzak and possibly cost him a chance to join the Twins starting staff. Swarzak missed most of spring training and did not pitch in a single ST game. Swarzak started the season on the DL but was activated on April 7th and went on to have his best year. Sometimes baseball players have some let’s say “unusual beliefs” and this Twins long reliever fits right in with that group with his passion and interest in Sasquatch, otherwise known as Bigfoot. He’s obsessed with it,” said fellow reliever Brian Duensing. “He believes they’re real. He really wants to find one. He is adamant that they are around.
Tom Brunansky
Our runner-up turns out to be hitting coach Tom Brunansky. This former Twins player got into coaching in 2010 with the GCL Twins and the Twins quickly moved him up the ladder with stops at AA New Britain in 2011, at AAA Rochester in 2012 and in 2013 he became the Twins hitting coach. A number of Twins minor leaguers loved him as a hitting coach but in his one season in Minnesota he has shown nothing that indicates that he is a big league hitting coach if you go by the teams hitting numbers. The 2013 hitters were with a couple of exceptions the same players as the Twins sent to the plate in 2012 but yet Brunansky turned these hitters in to as Sid Hartman might say, real stiffs. Lets take a look at a couple of hitting categories and compare 2013 to 2012. The 2012 Twins hit .260 and under Bruno the 2013 Twins hit .242, fourth worst in team history. The OBP in 2012 was .325 and it was .312 this past season, only five Twins teams have done more poorly. The 2012 team scored 701 runs and in 2013 they scored 614, only the 1968 Twins played in 162 games and scored fewer (562) runs. The crowning achievement for Bruno was his teams 1,430 strike outs, a franchise record going back to 1901 and the next closest number was 1,121 by the 1997 Twins bunch. The 2012 boys went down swinging 1,069 times. But on the plus side he did increase the number of home runs from 131 to 151. It is hard to understand how the Twins justified renewing the man for 2014 who just by looking at the numbers, might be the worst hitting coach in team history. I am thinking he will be on a short leash in 2014 and if Twins hitters get off to another miserable start Dave Engle‘s brother-in-law will be looking for work and Joe Vavra will get his job back.
The entire Twins organization had another bad year and that makes three in a row. You can say what you want and dissect it a thousand different ways but the only way to measure success for any baseball team is in terms of wins and losses. If you don’t win, your season has to be considered a failure and you are not doing your job, it really is as simple as that. In baseball, like in life there are really no moral victories and I am tired of hearing that “the boys really got after it”, I want to see the win column increase and the loss column decrease.
In addition to being bad on the field the Minnesota Twins organization was equally bad off the field. Spring Training 2013 was year 2 of “Value” and “Premium” pricing and the tickets ranged from $13 for a “value” lawn ticket to $43 for a “premium” Dugout Box seat. In 2012, three of the 16 (18.8%) home games were designated as “premium”, in 2013 six of the 18 (33.3%) of the home games were classified as “premium” games. 2013 was the first time in a number of years that the Twins had not raised their spring training ticket prices at Hammond Stadium from the previous season but they doubled the number of their “premium” games so yes, they pocketed more money from ticket sales. YES, $43 to watch a ST game. How in the world can the Twins who were coming off of back-to-back 90+ loss seasons, dropping payroll, charge $43 to watch a team that will not even have big leaguers playing most of the time?
The 2013 regular season brought even more changes in Twins ticket pricing for Twins fans. The variable ticket pricing plan that was instituted in 2006 with two tiers jumped to three tiers in 2009 and jumped to five tiers in 2013 as the Twins came off back-to-back 96+ loss seasons. The tiers are called “extra value”, “value”, “select”, “premium” and “elite”. Six of the nine “elite” games were against the Yankees and White Sox, I wonder how they were chosen as the “elite” games. Oh, by the way, the Twins record for “elite” games was 1-8. When you look back at the 2013 season how many of the games that the team played should have been classified in any of these five categories? According to Team Marketing Report the average MLB ticket price in 2013 was $27.73 and the Twins 2013 average ticket price was the 13th highest of the 30 big league teams at $32.59. To bad the Twins play was not that good, I can’t wait to see the Twins 2014 ticket prices.
Then on April 8th the Twins sent out a Press Release – Early Entry Program Coming to Target Field. The press release went on to say that early entry tickets will be sold on a walk-up basis at the main Target Field Box Office beginning 30 minutes before the early entry time for that game. Tickets will cost $15 dollars, and sales will be limited to the first 60 fans. Fans will also be required to have a normal entry ticket to the game, and will not be allowed to exit and reenter the ballpark after batting practice. When the Twins fans and the press saw this release the reaction in blogs, Twitter and sports talk shows went wild and it wasn’t positive.
Then a couple of hours later Twins corporate communications senior manager Chris Iles sent out another press release retracting the whole “early entry” offer from this morning. “My apologies as I sent a release out prematurely earlier today. The early entry program outlined in the release was not fully vetted across the Twins organization. To that end, please disregard the earlier release as the Minnesota Twins will not be offering an early entry program as stated earlier today. There will be no change in policy regarding gate opening times and season ticket holders will continue to be given early access priority as part of the Sweet Spot program. On behalf of the Twins, we apologize for a lack of internal communication which led to the premature release of this misinformation”.
Twins president Dave St. Peter
So what happened? Twins President Dave St. Peter said the release was sent prematurely and hadn’t been approved by higher-ups in the organization. “It was released before it ever should have been. It’s hard to believe, but it was not pulled down because of fan reaction,” St. Peter said, adding this: “Our organization made a mistake.” We’re looking at ways to add more access to batting practice, but I’m not sure charging incrementally is the way to go about that.” When asked again if this 180 degree turn had anything to do with the roughly 95 to 99 percent of people who thought the plan was a bad idea and made their voices heard on Tuesday. “I heard from a few fans,” St. Peter said. “I know this: I know we provided a tremendous level of entertainment to the world of Twitter this afternoon. I don’t know if that’s good news.”
Dave St. Peter, a native of North Dakota became the fourth president in Minnesota Twins team history in November 2002 and has done great job in that role over the years. Dave has always been willing to help anyone that asks and he is one of the few MLB team presidents that I know of that is willing to make his e-mail address available to the general public and respond to your e-mail personally as quickly as he can. Although I am not a Twitter user, St. Peter is and I have heard that he is very active there.
Dave St. Peter needs one of these for his desk.
Having said that, I am disappointed in how St. Peter handled to the pay for batting practice issue this season, my perception is that Dave St. Peter threw Chris Iles under the bus and did not take responsibility for the problem and then was less than honest about the reason for the change of heart. I also have the perception that a baseball teams president should be more of the face of the franchise to the general public then Dave St. Peter has recently shown. I know that Dave St. Peter shows up at many events but I am talking more about taking responsibility for the actual play of the team. I know that running the team is not his job, he has people for that like GM Terry Ryan and manager Ron Gardenhire but St. Peter is the team president, as President Harry Truman one said “The Buck Stops Here.” The way I see it Dave St. Peter should stop spouting the normal baseball clichés and step forward and admit that “I am responsible for the state of this baseball team and I will do all I can to fix it.” The first part of that process is to instruct his GM to sign some players that will make this team more competitive. I know that it might be difficult to get good players to play for a team that is as bad as the Twins have been for three years but money speaks volumes and if the Twins have to over pay to get them, so be it. After all, Twins fans have been over paying to watch this team play for several years, now it is your turn to hand over your wallet. Another step might be to revisit ticket prices both for spring training games and for the regular season. The team has sucked for several years, maybe the organization should give the fans a break on ticket prices until things get better instead of bragging that you didn’t raise the ticket price but fail to mention that you have moved to five tier ticket pricing from three with higher prices for those two new tiers. For some reason Dave St. Peter’s name never comes up when members of the organization such as the GM, the manager or the pitching coach are criticized for their performance, the president of the Minnesota Twins appears to be the Teflon man. The entire Twins organization probably earned this award but we need the leader of this organization to step up and accept responsibility. 2013 was not a good year for another president we all know but for your performance this year Mr. Dave St. Peter you are our 2013 Twins Turkey of the Year winner.
Who says that there no tie games in baseball? In major league baseball, games end with tie scores only in rare cases when conditions make it impossible to continue play. A tie game does not count as a game in the standings – a 2008 rule change made all tie games suspended unless and until not needed for the sake of determining playoff teams, and no longer replayed; however, though undecided, and not factored in the championship standings and the playoff reckoning, a tie game goes on the record and player and team statistics from the game are counted. Inclement weather may also shorten games, but at least five innings must be played for the game to be considered official; four-and-a-half innings are enough if the home team is ahead. Previously, curfews and the absence of adequate lighting caused more ties and shortened games – now, games interrupted from ending in such circumstances are, at least initially, suspended. Also, with more modern playing surfaces better able to handle light rains, the process for calling or shortening a game due to weather has changed; it is more common than in the past to delay a game as much as two hours before a cancellation; also, a delay usually does not occur anymore until the rain is moderate-heavy and/or there is standing water on some part of the playing field.
Since the Minnesota Twins came into existence in 1961 they have played 8 games that have ended in a tie but none since their last tie game in 1999.
10/3/1999 – The Twins ended their miserable 1999 season (63-97) against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park II with a 1-1 tie game. The game was called due to rain, wind and cold in the middle of the seventh inning after the Twins scored in the top of the seventh after two were out when Doug Mientkiewicz singled and Torii Hunter doubled him home. Previous to the Twins scoring in the top of the seventh, the game had been scoreless since the bottom of the first when the White Sox scored their lone run. The game went on the books as a tie game. Box Score
4/29/1981 – On a 61 degree day albeit cloudy, windy with intermittent rain, 2,171 fans are in the stands to watch the Twins take on the Seattle Mariners at Met Stadium. Going into the bottom of the eighth inning with Mariner reliever Dick Drago on the mound the Twins find themselves trailing 7-4. Outfielder Gary Ward leads off with a single, 2B Pete Mackanin also singles and the Twins have runners on first and second. “Papa” Jackson who is playing 1B grounds out for the first out of the inning but at least moves the runners along. Twins manager Johnny Goryl decided to have Danny Goodwin pinch-hit for catcher Sal Butera and Goodwin delivers with a double to left scoring both runners. Dave Engle is the next batter and he hits a ball off the LF fence scoring Goodwin and tries to stretch it in to an inside-the park home run but is thrown out at the plate and after 8 innings the game is tied up at 7-7. At this point with one out in the inning the umpires delay the game due to rain but the game is never resumed and goes into the books as a tie game. Box Score.
4/11/1974 – Just four games into the 1974 season the winless Chicago White Sox are at Met Stadium to take on the Twins in the final game of a three game series but the game is called after 6 innings and ends in a 4-4 tie. Jim Kaat is again involved in a tie game but this time he is the White Sox starter and the Twins beat him up pretty good. After 6 innings the umpires call for a halt in play due to rain and 38 minutes later the game is called due to unplayable conditions. Box Score
7/25/1967 – The Twins and New York Yankees play to a 1-1 tie at Yankee Stadium I when the game is called after 9 innings due to rain. The only runs of the game are scored via the long ball when Harmon Killebrew gets ahold of one off Yankee starter Al Downing in the top of the first inning with two outs and Mickey Mantle hits one off of Jim Kaat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Kaat pitches a complete game giving up 9 hits but gets nothing for his effort. The Twins were on a 6 game losing streak going into this game and note the unusual batting order that Twins skipper Cal Ermer employed for this game. He had Bob Allison leading off, Tony Oliva hitting second, Harmon Killebrew hitting third, Rich Rollins hit fourth, Cesar Tovar hit in the five hole, Zoilo Versalles hit sixth, Rod Carew hit seventh, Earl Battey hit in the eight spot and Jim Kaat hit in the nine hole. The Twins played the Yankees in a double-header the next day and lost the first game 6-1 to stretch their losing streak to seven before beating the Bronx Bombers 3-2 in 18 innings in game two with Twins starter Jim Merritt going the first 13 innings giving up the two runs. Merritt faced 46 batters allowing 7 hits and striking out 7 so I wonder how many pitches he threw that day. By the way, the winning run in the top of the 18th inning was unearned. The game ended 4 hours and 24 minutes after it started. Box Score for the tie game. Box Score for the 3-2 18 inning affair.
6/21/1967 – The Twins were playing the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium and jumped out to a quick 5-2 lead off Tiger pitcher Earl Wilson but the Tigers came back and by the end of the 7th inning the game was knotted at 5-5. Neither team scored in the 8th. In the top of the 9th inning 2B Rod Carew led off with a single and 1B Harmon Killebrew stepped to the plate having gone 2 for 3 with a walk and two home runs. Unfortunately, Carew tried to steal 2B and was thrown out by Tiger catcher Bill Freehan and at that point the game was halted for rain and never restarted. Box Score
6/22/1964 – The Twins have a 8-2 lead over the Cleveland Indians at Met Stadium after 4 innings but Camilo Pascual, Mudcat Grant, and Gerry Arrigo can’t hold the lead and the Indians tie the game at 8 apiece after 8 innings are in the books. The teams continue play and after 10 innings the game remains tied but then the rains come and force the game to be called. Box Score
8/22/1962 – The Twins and Washington Senators played to an 8-8 at Met Stadium when the game was suspended due to a local curfew regulation. The game was tied 5-5 after 8 innings but then both teams scored 2 in the 9th inning and again the score was tied. In the 10th inning both teams scored again but the game remained tied and after 3 hours and 51 minutes the umps had no choice but to suspend the game due to curfew. Box Score
9/5/1961 – The first tie game in Minnesota Twins history occurred at Met Stadium when the game against the Chicago White Sox was called after 9 innings with the score knotted at 3. Twins hurler Jack Kralick and White Sox pitcher Billy Pierce had dueled for 7 innings and each team had scored a run. The Mighty Whities scored one in the top of the 8th and the Twins came back with two of their own in the home half of the 8th on a single with two runners on base by Bill Tuttle. The White Sox led off the 9th inning with a long home run to left by Al Smith and the score was tied at 3-3. The Twins then retired the White Sox without any additional runs scoring but could not score in the bottom of the 9th. At that point, according to local Twins historian and official scorer Stew Thornley, the game was called due to a heavy fog. Box Score
The Twins traded 7-time batting champion 2B Rod Carew to the California Angels for outfielder Ken Landreaux, catcher Dave Engle, and pitchers Paul Hartzell and Brad Havens. A trade was demanded by Carew after team owner Calvin Griffith made his infamous speech to the Lions Club in Waseca, Minnesota back in September of 1978. According to some reports, Griffith first agreed to trade Carew to the San Francisco Giants but Carew had veto power and nixed that deal. At the time of the trade to California, Carew had been a fixture in the Twins line-up for 12 seasons hitting .334 with 2,085 hits and being named an All-Star each of those 12 seasons. Carew went on to play for the Angels for seven more seasons making post season play in 1979 and 1982 but Rodney never won a batting title as an Angel.
Outfielder Ken Landreaux only played in Minnesota for two years before the Twins traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 30, 1981 for Mickey Hatcher and minor leaguers Kelly Snider and Matt Reeves, neither of whom ever played in a big league game. Landreaux hit .294 with 22 home runs and 145 RBI’s and had 19 stolen bases but what Ken Landreaux is best remembered for is his 31 game hitting streak early in 1980 which is still a Minnesota Twins record. Landreaux was an All-Star in 1980 while a Minnesota Twin. Landreaux played for the Dodgers from 1981-1987 and won a World Series ring there in 1981.
Dave Engle began his career with the Twins as an outfielder but was converted to a catcher in 1982 when his hitting was not considered up to par for an outfielder. Engle played for the Twins from 1981 through 1985 making the All-Star team in 1984 but he did not get a chance to appear in the game at Candlestick Park. In 1985 Engle started having throwing issues and his troubles appeared to have begun during batting practice one day when one of his throws glanced off the top of the protective screen and broke his pitcher’s nose. Engle then began lobbing his throws with a pronounced arc. Engle had the misfortune of having a base runner (Alfredo Griffin) stealing a base on one of his tosses back to the mound. Engle caught jst 17 games for Minnesota in 1985 and the Twins traded him to the Detroit Tigers in January of 1986. Dave went on to play for the Montreal Expos in 1987-1988 and closed out his big league career with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1989 but he only caught 18 games after he left Minnesota. Dave is the brother-in-law of another former Minnesota Twin, Tom Brunansky.
Right-handed pitcher Paul Hartzell only pitched in Minnesota during the 1979 season putting up a 6-10 record with a 5.36 ERA in 26 starts. The 6’5″ Hartzell was one of those pitch-to-contact pitchers who gave up 193 hits in 163 innings while striking out just 44 batters which was also the number of batters he walked that season. The Twins released Hartzell in April of 1980. Hartzell appeared in a handful of games with the Orioles in 1980 and the Brewers in 1984.
Lefty Brad Havens pitched for the Twins from 1981-1983 posting an 18-28 mark with a 5.00 ERA in 58 starts. The Twins sent Havens to Toledo in 1984 and he spent the entire season there before the team traded him to Baltimore in the spring of 1985 for pitcher Mark Brown. Havens pitched for the Orioles in 1985-1986 before moving on to the Dodgers in 1987-1988, the Indians in 1988-1989 and Havens closed out his big league career with the Tigers in 1989. Havens put in the big leagues for all or parts of eight seasons and finished his career with a 4.81 ERA and a 24-37 record.
The same day, the Twins make another deal when the Red Sox shipped outfielder Dave Coleman to Minnesota and the Twins give up 3B Larry Wolfe. Coleman spent the 1979 in AAA Toledo and never put on a Minnesota Twins uniform. In 1980-1981 Coleman played for the Yankees AAA team in Columbus but there is no information on how he ended up there.
Billy Beane, yes the same Billy Beane who went on to become the Oakland A's GM and main character in the movie Moneyball.
They also trade catcher Dave Engle to the Tigers for infielder Chris Pittaro and outfielder Alex Sanchez. Engle, a .305 hitter as a 26-year-old catcher for the Twins in 1983 and an AL All-Star the following season. Engle came up as an outfielder but was converted to a catcher.
Engle started having throwing issues and his troubles appeared to have begun during batting practice one day when one of his throws glanced off the top of the protective screen and broke his pitcher’s nose. Engle then began lobbing his throws with a pronounced arc. Engle had the misfortune of having a base runner (Alfredo Griffin) stealing a base on one of his tosses back to the mound. He remained in the majors from 1985-89 but caught just 38 more games.
