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
Another trip around the Sun and it is once again time to to look back and remember former Minnesota Twins that have gotten the call to their final resting place. They may be gone from this earth but their memories remain.
Garrabrant Ryerson Alyea was born on December 8, 1940 in Passaic, New Jersey and passed away on February 4, 2024. Alyea, originally signed with the Cincinnati Reds in 1962 but made his major league debut with the Washington Senators in 1965. Alyea was traded to the Minnesota Twins on March 21, 1970 for pitchers Joe Grzenda and Charlie Walters. Yes, the same Charlie Walters that writes for the St. Paul Pioneer Press now days. Alyea, primarily a left fielder played for the Twins from 1970-1971 before being picked up in the Rule 5 draft (rules were different back then) by the Oakland A’s. Brant’s best season in pro ball was in 1970 with the Minnesota Twins. Alyea had a son, Brant Alyea Jr. that played minor league ball for Toronto, Texas and the New York Mets from 1985 to 1990. Brant Alyea played in the major leagues for all or parts of 1965, 1968-1972 appearing in 371 games for the Senators, Twins. A’s and Cardinals.
Japanese star Shohei Ohtani was the talk of this off-season before he agreed to sign as a free agent with the Los Angeles Angels. Ohtani is supposedly a very good hitter and a very good pitcher and he wants to do both in MLB. Since he has not played in a regular season game in the majors yet we still have to wait and see if he can pull it off or if he can play in the majors at all for that matter. For all the talk of Shohei Ohtani being the best two-way prospect ever, Ken Brett came first. He was a phenom on the mound and in center field before he became a journeyman.
Ken Brett
Ken Brett, the older brother of Hall of Fame Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett was at one time a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins and nine other big league teams including the team that drafted him number one and fourth overall in the 1966 June amateur draft. The California Angels drafted and signed Ken Brett to pitch, almost every other team had they drafted Ken Brett would have made him a center fielder. The Twins took a chance on the free agent Ken Brett when he was released by the Angels and signed him on April 30, 1979, Brett appeared in just nine games as a Twins pitcher, all in relief and he was released on June 4, 1979 and his Twins career was over with no wins or losses and a 4.97 ERA. “Kemer” as Ken Brett was known to his friends was off to join his next team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This all leads into a great piece that Joe Posnanski wrote yesterday about Ken Brett called Before Ohtani, there was Ken Brett and I will let you read it for yourself. Posnanski is a wonderful writer and storyteller so don’t pass this one by. It will also help you to remember a one time Twins player who passed away from brain cancer just like his father before him. You can also read the SABR Bio on Ken Brett here.
With the Minnesota Twins having 57 MLB seasons in the rear view mirror, the Houston Astros winning the World Series in 7 games, the temperatures in the mid 40’s and with no snow on the ground it is a good time to look back on and revisit the hitters that have found Twins pitching to their liking over the years.
Today we are going to take a look at Twins opponents that have 200 or more hits against the Twins, there are 23 players who fit this criteria. 200 hits is a lot of hits. Six of the 23 hit from the left side, 13 were right-handed hitters and just four (Vizquel, Martinez, Wilson and Murray) of them were switch-hitters. Just missing out on this list were Frank Thomas with 194 hits, Al Kaline with 192 and Sal Bando with 190 hits.
One oddity that I noticed when looking over this data was that only two players got their 200 or more hits from one spot in the batting order. Ricky Henderson had 214 out of his 215 hits against Minnesota hitting lead-off while Carl Yastrzemski had 228 of his 321 hits out of the three-hole.
WOW! Look at the Hall of Famer’s on this list plus some of the others will be in shortly. Anyone on this list surprise you? How about players that you thought would be on the list but are not?
Boggs who many knew as the chicken man played in the big leagues for 18 season with the Red Sox (1982-1992), the Yankees (1993-1997) and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (1998-1999). Boggs was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2005, selected as an All-Star 12 times, won five batting titles, eight Silver Slugger awards, and was a two-time Gold Glove winner.
He showed the Minnesota Twins no mercy in the 162 games he played against them hitting .344 with an OPS of .870. In his 730 PA’s against Minnesota he had 220 hits of which 42 were doubles, 7 triples, 5 were home runs and he walked 82 times to boot. In his 162 games against the Twins he went hitless just 24 times and on May 20 and May 31 of 1986 he had five hits in each game.
Wade Boggs is an interesting person and was a very good baseball player, if you would like to learn more about him, check out his SABR Bio.
Our previous selections for the Twins all-opponent team
I recently learned that former Minnesota Twins pitcher Vic Albury who was born on May 12, 1947 in Key West, Florida had passed away on April 18, 2017 in Tampa, Florida from a stroke/heart attack at the age of 69.
Vic Albury was a ninth round selection by the Cleveland Indians in the 1965 June amateur draft as a first baseman out of Key West High School. Albury started his pro career in 1965 but found himself out of baseball from 1966-1968 serving his country in the military. When his military service concluded Albury resumed his baseball career but this time as a pitcher. Sometime prior to the 1969 season the Indians sent Albury to the San Diego Padres where he pitched in their system for two seasons before the Minnesota Twins drafted him in the November 1970 Minor league draft.
Albury, a chunky left-hander, made his big league debut at Met Stadium on August 7, 1973 in a blow-out loss to the Orioles 10-4, pitching 2 innings of relief and giving up one run but followed that up with 10 consecutive relief stints without giving up a single run. In 1974 Albury was used primarily as a starter but a mid-season shoulder injury slowed him down and he posted an 8-9 record with a 4.12 ERA. In 1975 Albury split his time between starting and relieving but his best work was out of the bullpen. The injury bugged continued to plague Albury in 1976 and he was out for three weeks after being hit in the left leg by a George Brett line-drive and Albury finished the season and what turned out to be his big league career with a 3-1 won/lost record and a 3.58 ERA in just 11 games, all in relief.
In his four-year big league career as a Twins pitcher Vic Albury was 18-17 in 101 games and 32 of them as a starter. In 372.2 innings Albury had a 4.11 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP primarily caused by his 5.3 BB/9. Albury left Minnesota after the 1976 season and pitched in the minor leagues in the New York Yankee system and for the Indians AAA team in 1979. Albury also pitched briefly in 1979 for the AAA Puerto Rico Boricuas in the Inter-American League.
Todate nothing has been published regarding his Obituary or where he may be interned. Thank you for the memories and our condolences to Vic Albury’s family and friends.
SAN DIEGO – Baseball’s annual batting championships have been named in honor of Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn and Rod Carew, Major League Baseball announced during pregame festivities for the 87th All-Star Game, played at Petco Park in San Diego. The players who earn the highest batting averages in each League will now be known as the “Tony Gwynn National League Batting Champion” and the “Rod Carew American League Batting Champion,” paying homage to two of the most accomplished hitters of the modern era. Carew participated in tonight’s ceremonies in San Diego, while the late Gwynn was represented by his family.
Gwynn was a .338 career hitter who batted above .300 in 19 of his 20 Major League seasons, all with the San Diego Padres. The record-tying eight-time NL batting champion collected 3,141 hits. Gwynn, a 15-time NL All-Star, batted a career-best .394 in the 1994 season and hit at least .353 in each of the five seasons between 1993 and 1997. The former San Diego State University player and coach drew 790 career walks and struck out only 434 times, including never more than 40 in any single season. Gwynn remains tied with fellow Hall of Famer Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the most batting titles in NL history. He led the Padres to their two World Series in franchise history (1984, 1998). His plaque at the National Baseball Hall of Fame calls Gwynn “an artisan with a bat.”
2B Rod Carew played for the Twins from 1967-1978
Carew was a seven-time American League batting champion who was a lifetime .328 hitter with the Minnesota Twins (1967-78) and the California Angels (1979-85). With this trademark crouched stance, the legend of Panama topped the .300 mark in 15 consecutive seasons (1969-83), and he was an 18-time AL All-Star (each year from 1967-1984). Between 1972-1978, he won six batting crowns in seven years; in the only year he did not win (1976, when he was runner-up to George Brett), he missed a share by .002. Carew batted a career-best .388 with 239 hits in his AL Most Valuable Player-winning season of 1978 (38 2B, 16 3B, 14 HR, 100 RBI, 128 runs, .449 OBP, .570 SLG). His Hall of Fame plaque refers to Carew as a “batting wizard who lined, chopped and bunted his way to 3,053 hits.”
Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. said: “Rod is one of the most highly decorated players in American League history, who made 18 straight All-Star appearances in his Hall of Fame career. Tony is considered one of the greatest hitters in the history of the National League and there is no better place to honor him than in San Diego. Major League Baseball is pleased to recognize their extraordinary careers by naming our batting crowns in their honor.”
