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
Now it is time to look at the pitchers. Who have been the toughest starting pitchers that the Twins have faced over the last 57 seasons. The criteria just to make this list is very high, pitchers have had to start at least 25 games and pitched 150 innings during their career against the Minnesota Twins between 1961 and 2017 just to show up on this list.
First we are going to look at the right-handed starters and 30 pitchers make the list. Who is the best right-hander that has pitched against the Twins over the years? It is an almost impossible task but I am going to go with Jim Palmer and here is my reasoning.
I have to admit, if not for all the chatter surrounding Roger Clemens about his cheating I would probably have selected him as the guy, but right or wrong I am disqualifying him in my mind as a cheat. Don’t forget that I also consider Hank Aaron as the legitimate home run champion. The starter that I am going with as the best right-handed starter as the Twins is Hall of Famer Jim Palmer.
BALTIMORE, MD – CIRCA 1970s: Pitcher Jim Palmer #22 of the Baltimore Orioles pitches during circa early 1970s Major League Baseball game at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland. Palmer played for the Orioles from 1965-84. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Palmer started 39 games against Minnesota, all with the Baltimore Orioles colors on his back and put up a 20-10 record with an 2.64 ERA with 14 complete games and four shutouts. In 280 innings pitched he struck out 161 batters and allowed just 238 hits.
Check out the list of right-handed starters below and tell me who you would pick as the top guy if you don’t agree with my selection. It is not an easy pick at all.
Albert Pujols hit his 600th major-league home run in the Angels’ 7-2 win over the Twins, a long grand slam off Ervin Santana. The only player in major-league history who hit a “100th” home run of 400-or-higher that was a grand slam was Carlos Delgado, whose 400th home run was a grand slam, for the Mets at home off Jeff Weaver of the Cardinals on August 22, 2006. Delgado hit number 399 off Weaver earlier in the game and also homering twice in that game was Pujols himself: the 238th and 239th of his career off of John Maine.
Pujols is the ninth player to join the 600 home run club, and he had 1,223 extra-base hits leading up to his 600th homer. That’s the second-most for a player at the time of his 600th homer, behind Hank Aaron (1,233). Willie Mays had the next-most (1,193). Pujols was batting .308 entering the 600th home run, third-highest at the time of accomplishing the feat, below Babe Ruth (.349) and Hank Aaron (.312). Ruth started his career before RBIs became in official statistic in 1920. Among the 8 members of the 600 home run club who debuted since 1920, Pujols’s 1,855 RBIs at the time of number 600 rank second to only Aaron, who had one more (1,856).
Ervin Santana is a former teammate of Pujols; they played together for the Angels in 2012. Pujols is the third player to hit a “100th” home run of 500-or-higher off a former teammate. Jimmie Foxx hit number 500 while playing for the Red Sox in Philadelphia in 1940, off his former A’s teammate George Caster, and Manny Ramirez hit number 500 while playing for the Red Sox in 2008 in Baltimore off his former Red Sox teammate Chad Bradford.
The other day SABR member Clem Comly who also follows basketball wondered who the “triple doubles” leader might be in baseball history. His search defined a “baseball triple double” as a player that had 2 or more runs, 2 or more hits, and 2 or more RBI in a single game. His used Retrosheet (1913-2014) in his calculations and determined that the all-time baseball leader in triple doubles was Babe Ruth with 247. Lou Gehrig was second with 204, Willie Mays and Alex (A-Rod) Rodriguez were tied for third with 191 and Hank Aaron was fifth with 188.
I though it might be fun to run a similar search for all of baseball during the time period of 1961 through 2014 since 1961 is the year the Minnesota Twins came into existence. I cut the list off at 100 meaning that you had to have at least 100 “triple double” games to make the list. It turns out to be a Whose Who of baseball hitting. You can almost use this list to see who might deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, assuming of course you excluded things like position played, fielding and the whole steroid situation.
I am surprised to see Jacques Jones on this list. Larry Hisle only played in Minnesota for five seasons but he put up some nice numbers during his stay here and a lot of Twins fans have no idea who he is.
The Minnesota Twins spring training home from 1961 – 1990 is scheduled for demolition some time in the next 60 days. The Twins left Orlando after the 1990 season and moved their spring training home to Hammond Stadium in Ft. Myers prior to their 1991 championship season. Numerous teams including the Minnesota Twins had minor league teams that played in Tinker Field as part of the Florida State League and the Southern League.
The ballpark was built-in 1923 at a cost of $50,000 and named for former Chicago Cubs player and Hall of Famer Joe Tinker. It hosted the Cincinnati Reds for spring training in the 1920s, and the Brooklyn Dodgers for two seasons in the 1930s. The Washington Senators and later the Minnesota Twins held spring training camp there from the mid-’30s until 1990. Numerous Hall of Famers including Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Bert Blyleven, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson have played there. Tinker Field’s history isn’t limited to baseball, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at a civil-rights rally there in 1964.
On May 14, 2004, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places but now it is slated to be torn down in the name of progress. The main reason? The renovation of the Florida Citrus Bowl stadium, which abuts the baseball field, includes a larger enclosed concourse that will encroach onto Tinker Field. The ballpark will lose about 80 feet of its outfield, putting the outfield fence as close as 240 feet from home plate.
For me personally,it is sad that Tinker Field will soon be torn down as it is the first place that I ever attended spring training when I spend a few days there back in 1971 watching the Twins go through their spring paces.
Harvey Haddix - courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
May 24, 2010 – The game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Milwaukee Braves on May 26, 1959 at County Stadium in Milwaukee in front of 19,194 fans has often been called the greatest baseball game ever played. A pitching duel for the ages between the Pirates lefty Harvey Haddix and the Braves right hander Lew Burdette. This game had nothing to do with the Washington Senators or the Minnesota Twins who were not yet a twinkle in Calvin Griffith’s eye, but to me it is one of my favorite baseball memories.
Back in the summer of 1959 I was 11 years old and loved baseball, regardless if it was playing the game, collecting baseball cards, or listening to Milwaukee Braves games on my transistor radio. We had no TV at the time so it was radio or nothing for me. I grew up on a dairy farm outside of Taylors Falls, Minnesota and the Milwaukee Braves were the only games I could pick up so they became my favorite team. Add in the fact that they whipped the hated New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series and that Hammerin Hank Aaron was my favorite player and there was no better team than the Milwaukee Braves. I often went to bed with my radio under my pillow listening to Braves baseball games. I could rattle off the most recent stats of Spahn, Burdette, Buhl, McMahon, Crandall, Adcock, Mantilla, Logan, Mathews, Covington, Pafko, and of course Aaron, what wonderful teams the Braves had back in the late 50’s.
My favorite baseball memories are unique to me, they may not mean a thing to someone else but to me they are what baseball is all about. Some of my favorite baseball memories are listening to Minnesota Twins games on a radio in the barn when I was milking cows and listening to Halsey Hall spin another yarn and laugh like no one else, watching a nail file fall out of Joe Niekro’s back pocket as the umpire looks on, attending my first live baseball game, which happened to be the 1965 All-Star game, Getting to attend the 1987 and 1991 World Series games at the Metrodome, listening to Braves games on my transistor radio, watching Henry Aaron become the home run champion (still is in my book) and many more, I could go on and on. One of those memories however is this 1959 game between the Braves and the Pirates. I tuned in the game in the 8th inning and was amazed to hear that Harvey Haddix not only had no hit the Braves to that point but he had a perfect game going, I was in awe, I had only read about no hitters and had never heard one in progress. Perfect after nine, ten, eleven, twelve, my God, how long could this go on? Then in the 13th inning things started to unravel for the Pirates and Haddix and I will let Craig Muder tell you the rest of the story in his article for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, just click here to read it.
Lew Burdette
The ending was very confusing as I remember, listening to the Braves announcers explain what happened on the home run by Adcock that turned out not to be a homerun. Harvey (Kitten) Haddix lost the game and sadly, gets no credit for a no-hitter much less a perfect game for 12 innings. No one even mentions that the Braves Lew Burdette pitched a 13 inning 12 hit shutout that day and got the victory. I wonder how pitches were thrown that day! Both Haddix and Burdette are gone now but I bet you that on May 26 of each year they hook up again and take the mound in that big ballpark in the sky and see who the best is on that given day. Damn, I love baseball………
