Straight from ASU to the Met

Eddie Bane (courtesy of the Minnesota Twins)
Eddie Bane (courtesy of the Minnesota Twins)

Eddie Bane was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 22, 1952 but grew up in southern California not too far from Disneyland. Bane was offered a scholarship by coach Bobby Winkles and before he knew it he was pitching for the Arizona State Sun Devils. In his three years at ASU (1971-1973) Bane became a pitching legend. The left-handed Bane went 40-4 with a 1.64 ERA and is still regarded as one of the best collegiate pitchers of all time. Bane pitched the only perfect game in Sun Devil baseball history on March 2, 1973 against Cal State Northridge and led the nation in strikeouts in 1972 and 1973 and still holds the ASU career strikeout mark. Bane was named first team All-American in 1973.

The Minnesota Twins selected Bane with their first pick, eleventh overall in the 1973 amateur draft and a short time later Bane joined a very select group of only 20 players that were drafted and went on to play pro ball directly out of high school or college with no minor league experience. Bane made his major league debut as a starter against the Kansas City Royals on July 4, 1973 at Met Stadium in front of 45,890 fans that couldn’t wait to see their first round pick pitch. Bane didn’t disappoint the Twins faithful going 7 innings allowing 3 hits, 3 walks and striking out 3 but manager Frank Quilici took Bane out after 7 innings with the Twins trailing 1-0. The Twins took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the 8th inning but couldn’t hold on to the lead and ended up losing the game 5-4. Eddie stayed with the Twins for the rest of the season going 0-5 with a 4.92 ERA in 23 games that included 6 starts. Bane spent all of 1974 and most of 1975 in AAA Tacoma before getting a September call up by the Twins where he went 3-1 in 4 starts and posted a nifty 2.86 ERA. Bane found himself in Tacoma once again as the 1976 season opened but the Twins brought him back to Minnesota in late June and Bane started 15 games and put up a 4-7 record with a 5.11 ERA and that was the last time that Eddie Bane pitched in a Twins uniform. Bane pitched in Tacoma in 1977 but became a free agent after that season and signed with the Chicago White Sox but never pitched for them in the majors and then in January of 1980 he was traded to the Kansas City Royals but never pitched in the majors again. Bane went on to spend some time in the Cubs minor league system later in 1980 and pitched in Mexico in 1981 and Alaska in 1982 but then his career as an active player was over.

After Bane’s playing career was over he became a pitching coach in the LA Dodgers minor league system in 1983 and then managed the Batavia Trojans in 1984-1985 in the Cleveland Indians system. Bane also scouted for the Indians from 1984-1987 before moving on to the Dodgers as a scout from 1988-1998. Bane then joined the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as an assistant to the GM from 1999-2003 before joining the Los Angeles Angels as their Scouting Director from 2004 to 2010 where he drafted players like Jered Weaver in 2004, Nick Adenhart in 2004, Jordan Walden in 2006, Hank Conger in 2006, Mark Trumbo in 2004 and Mike Trout in 2009 and in 4 of those 7 years the Angels didn’t even have a 1st round pick. Inexplicably, the Angels let Bane go after the 2010 season and Bane became a scout for the Detroit Tigers in 2011-2012. Later in 2012 Bane took the position of Assistant to Player Personnel with the Boston Red Sox where his son Jaymie who also attended ASU and pitched in the Angels minor league system has been a scout since 2006.

In 1994 Baseball America named Eddie Bane to their All-Time college all-star team and in 2008 Bane was selected to the Collegiate Baseball Hall of Fame.

I also wanted to share with you what Eddie Bane had to say about Tony Oliva. “By the way one additional thought on some of the old time baseball guys from the 60’s and 70’s. I have asked a lot of former major league pitchers who the best hitter they ever faced was. Of the more then 20 pitchers I asked at least half of them said Tony Oliva. Tony never gets his due as far as the Hall of Fame goes, but those pitchers all remember that swing that I can still picture in my mind. Without those lousy knees that he had Tony O would certainly be a Hall of Fame player”.

You can find the interview with Eddie Bane here. This interview is just one of the 39 interviews that we have done with former Twins players that you can find on our Interviews Archives page.

How Twins have fared against other AL opponents

The Washington Senators played in Washington D.C. from 1901 through 1960. During those 60 years the team played 9,188 games and had 4,223 wins, 4,864 losses and 101 ties to show for their efforts. Excluding the tie games the Senators had a .460 winning percentage.

Since the Minnesota Twins took the field for the first time as a major league team back on April 11, 1961 against the New York Yankees the Minnesota Twins have played 8,293 games and have 4,138 wins, 4,147 losses and 8 ties for a .499 winning percentage. Their home record stands at 2,241-1,913 for a .539 win percentage and on the road they have 1,897 wins and 2,234 losses for a .459 winning percentage.

I have put together a chart that shows how the Twins have fared against their American League brethren from 1961-2012 under Gardy, under TK, and the other 10 Twins managers combined that preceded TK and Gardy from 1961-1986, I know that TK managed briefly in 1986 but I have not included those few games in TK’s stats.

It comes as no surprise that the Kansas City Royals have been Twins patsies for a long time or that the New York Yankees have caused the Twins to get into a fetal position in the corner and cry. But a .276 winning percentage against the Bronx Bombers since Gardy took over as the Twins skipper is just plain atrocious, how can one team be so dominant?  That number truly amazes me. You have to understand, I like Gardy as a manager but a .276 winning percentage means that if the Twins played the Yankees under Gardy in every game of a 162 game schedule, the Twins would end up with a 45-117 record under Gardy’s leadership. There is an old baseball axiom that states that if you play 162 games, odds are that you will win at least 60 games and lose at least 60 games, at that rate even if you lost all of the remaining 42 games you would sill have a .370 winning percentage. YIKES!

The only Central division team to hold a winning record over the Twins is the Cleveland Indians. The Twins have beat 8 teams more often than they have lost and 6 teams hold a winning percentage over Minnesota.

Team Wins Losses Win % Pre 1987 Under TK Under Gardy
Royals 361 315 .534 .500 .492 .621
Senators/Rangers 360 321 .529 .561 .444 .550
Tigers 391 349 .528 .500 .569 .542
White Sox 420 383 .523 .545 .481 .517
Oak/KC A’s 358 335 .517 .523 .500 .520
Tampa 60 56 .517 n/a .447 .551
Brewers/Pilots 226 215 .512 .528 .472 .545
Red Sox 293 290 .503 .503 .512 .478
Indians 361 377 .489 .478 .463 .532
Mariners 196 211 .482 .508 .449 .505
Angels 326 353 .480 .487 .497 .421
Orioles 270 317 .460 .443 .472 .513
Blue Jays 153 197 .437 .518 .395 .410
Yankees 247 338 .422 .436 .463 .276

This Day in Twins History – October 15, 1968

The 1968 Major League Expansion Draft was held to stock the newly formed Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots and the Minnesota Twins lose outfielders Bob Oliver and Pat Kelly, shortstop Jack Hernandez, and minor league pitcher Jerry Cram to the Kansas City Royals, and pitcher Buzz Stephen and 3B Rich Rollins to the Seattle Pilots.

The first two picks in the draft were pitcher Roger Nelson from the Baltimore Orioles chosen by the Kansas City Royals and 1B Don Mincher from the California Angels by the Seattle Pilots. By the way, did you know that the “Kansas City Royals” were named after the American Royal Livestock Show that has been held annually in Kansas City since 1899?

Buzz Stephen started two games for the Twins in 1968 pitching 11.1 innings and had a 1-1 record with a 4.76 ERA. Stephen was the first player chosen from the Minnesota Twins and was the ninth pick over all and the Pilots fifth pick but he never pitched for the Pilots or any big league team again.

Bob Oliver was the Royals 10th pick. Oliver had appeared in just 3 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates back in 1965 and then was traded to Minnesota in December of 1967 and spent all of 1968 with the Twins AAA Denver team before being taken by the Royals. Oliver ended up playing in the big leagues for all or part of eight seasons.

The 26th pick over-all belonged to the Seattle Pilots and they chose 8-year Twins veteran 3B Rich Rollins. “Red” had played in 888 games for the Twins between 1961-1968. Rollins played for the Pilots in 1969 and then finished his big league career with the Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Indians in 1970.

The 34th pick belonged to the Kansas City Royals and they chose Twins outfielder Pat Kelly. Kelly had played just 20 games for the Twins in 1967-1968. Kelly went on to have a nice 15 year big league career.

The Royals took Twins shortstop Jackie Hernandez with the 43rd over-all pick. The slick fielding no-hit shortstop had been a part-time player for the Twins in 1967-1968 and spent a total of 9 nine years in the bigs with four different teams.

The Twins lost their fifth and last player in this draft, minor league pitcher Jerry Cram when Kansas City took him with their 54th pick. Cram pitched in the big leagues briefly for between 1969, 1974-1976 appearing in only 23 games for the Royals and the New York Mets.

Although I  have not been able to verify it to be a fact, I have read several blogs that have stated that New York Yankee Hall of Fame outfielder Mickey Mantle was ‘unprotected” by New York Yankees in this draft but went unpicked. Mantle was at the end of his career by then and played his final season in 1968.

History of the MLB Trading Deadline

According to MLB, “The non-waiver Major League trading deadline has been July 31st since the 1986 season. Prior to that season, the non-waiver deadline for trades within each League was June 15th and there were also distinctions between when intraleague and interleague trades could be made. Waivers were necessary at all times for interleague trades, with the exception of two non-waiver interleague trading periods: February 15 – April 1 and 5 days after conclusion of World Series – the day before the last scheduled day of the Winter Meetings.

The first appearance of a trade deadline in the Major Leagues came when the National League established a deadline of August 20th in 1917. After that date, a player had to clear NL waivers before being traded. The American League followed suit in 1920, but with a deadline of July 1st. The following year, both the AL and NL agreed on a deadline of August 1st. On December 14, 1922, the deadline was changed to June 15th after gaining approval at the Joint Major League meetings held at the Hotel Commodore in New York. It would stay June 15th until after the 1985 season. In 1953, the interleague trading rules were amended as to require waivers between June 15th and the conclusion of the championship season. The first non-waiver interleague trading period was created for the 1959 off-season and it was from November 21–December 15. In 1970, the start of the period was moved to begin 5 days after the World Series instead of November 21. Seven years later, a second non-waiver interleague trading period was created, February 15–March 15. In 1981, that period was extended through April 1 and was in effect until all distinctions between interleague and intraleague trading were abolished prior to the 1986 season.”

Players may be traded between Major League Clubs until 4:00 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, July 31st without Major League waivers in effect.

In July between 2000 and July 25 of 2012, the San Diego Padres have made the most trades, a total of 38 and on the other end of the spectrum, the Angels have made the fewest deals, just 11. The Minnesota Twins have made the second fewest number of trades in that time frame, just 13 but the Francisco Liriano trade the other day would add one to the total. Looking at the rest of the AL Central, the Tigers have made 15 deals, the White Sox have made 25 not counting the recent Liriano deal, the Royals have swung 26 deals and the Indians lead the division with 27 trades. It appears that the addition of two wild card spots this season has deceased the amount of deals but we still have time to bring that number up.

The following table tracks the number of trades that have occurred between June 1-July 31. Three-way trades are counted as one trade.

YEAR Trades between June 1 and July 31
2012 36
2011 33
2010 40
2009 36
2008 25
2007 33
2006 42
2005 30
2004 41
2003 34
2002 32
2001 41
2000 42
1999 28
1998 40
1997 23

Interactive Whiteboards by PolyVision