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
Big four-game sweep as Twins tame Tigers in Detroit
The Twins completed a four game sweep in Detroit yesterday with a 10–4 win. They won the first three games of the series 12–1, 7–3, and 10–4, outscoring the Tigers 39–12 in the series. On only one other occasion since moving to Minnesota in 1961, the Twins swept a 4-game series with that high a scoring margin: they outscored the Red Sox 33–6 in a four game sweep at Fenway Park, July 18–21, 1991. Kirby Puckett and Chili Davis combined for 13 RBIs between them in the series. The Twins would go on to defeat the Braves 4–3 in the World Series that season.
Joe Mauer rapped out three hits in the Twins’ win over the Brewers yesterday. It was the 162nd three-hit game of Mauer’s career, third most for any Twins player since the franchise moved to Minnesota from Washington in 1961, behind Hall of Famers Rod Carew (214 three-hit games for the Twins) and Kirby Puckett (208).
At the 2017 All-Star break the Twins record from 1961 to current stands at 4,461 wins and 4,560 losses. The Twins have won a total of 410 games in walk-off fashion and lost 412 games via the walk-off. The means that 09.11% of the Twins games end via a walk-off in one fashion or another.
The best season the Twins have ever had for walk-off wins was 1987 when they had 16 walk-off victories. The fewest walk-off wins occurred in 1982 when they had just two. So far in 2017 they have also had just two walk-off wins.
Naturally there is the other side of the coin and the Minnesota Twins suffered 15 walk-off defeats in 1964 but only had three in 1993 and 2006. So far this season they have just one walk-off loss.
Twins walk-off King
So who is the Twins walk-off king? That would be non other than Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett who had 12 walk-off hits in his Twins career, Kent Hrbek was not far behind with 11.
I recently bought a book called “Extra Innings Baseball” at an estate sale and it has some interesting facts and stories and I thought I would share a couple of items from the book even though I just started reading it.
Did you know that: Kirby Puckett was the first player born in the 1960s to be elected to the Hall of Fame?
Socks Seybold
Did you know that: One of the oddest home runs in history took place at American League Park which was the home of the Washington Senators from 1904 to 1910. In this ballpark there was a doghouse near the outfield flag pole. The groundskeeper stored the flag in the doghouse between games. One afternoon the doghouse door was left open, and a member of the Senators hit the ball inside of it. Philadelphia A’s center fielder Socks Seybold crawled to retrieve the ball and got stuck allowing the batter to circle the bases for an “inside the doghouse” home run.
Did you know that an outfielder is sometimes referred to as a “gardener”?
Did you know that: The great Hall of Famer Walter Johnson who pitched for the Washington Senators from 1907 to 1927 and who many consider the greatest pitcher ever won 417 games and yet had a 5.3 SO/9 rate? Still he had 3,509 career strikeouts, maybe it had something to do with a 2.17 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP and a 0.1 HR/9 ratio.
I will let you know when I find more “cool” stuff. Have a wonderful Memorial Day week-end and don’t forget why you can celebrate Memorial Day!
Both of today’s major league debuts as Minnesota Twins took place in the same game at Anaheim Stadium in a 5-0 win over the California Angels.
Kirby Puckett (OF) – May 8, 1984 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (3rd pick) of the 1982 amateur draft (January). An impressive major league debut indeed!
Mike Hart
Mike Hart (OF) – May 8, 1984 – Signed as a Free Agent with the Minnesota Twins on January 31, 1983.
The season opener for your favorite team is always a special day and that day has arrived for my favorite team the Minnesota Twins. I won’t be at the game in person as I am still in Florida but you can bet your bippies that I will be watching the Twin take on the Royals.
I have high hopes for this team, no, not playoff type hopes but I want to see this team breakout and take a giants step forward and show all those baseball experts that they are a team that will need to be reckoned with in the near future. The team is due to hit on some players that they didn’t expect to be stars, it happens all the time but it hasn’t happened in Minnesota since Brian Dozier came on the scene.
The Twins have suffered some bad luck since they moved into Target Field and some folks still say it was those 13 trees that were removed from Target Field after the inaugural 2010 season that started the down hit slide. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, but this spring like every spring brings new hope, even for us old-timers that got to go to Met Stadium and the HHH Metrodome to see the Killer, Carew, Puckett, Hrbek, and Santana take the Twins to heights that today’s fans can old dream about.
But our team this season is the 2017 version of the Minnesota Twins, how much do you know about these guys? I have put together a little quiz for you to test your knowledge about this years team and staff. Have fun and good luck.
Know your 2017 Twins
Here is a 25 question quiz to see how well you know your 2017 Minnesota
Twins players and staff. The information is based on the Opening Day roster and
includes players that start the season on the DL. Give it a shot, it is
multiple choice so if nothing else you can always guess. Most of all have fun!
The Minnesota Twins have had a strong history of good center field play and when you look at this list you can certainly see why. The rankings are in Baseball-Reference WAR order and the player needed to have played center field in at least 50% of his games.
How many of these guys did you get to see play? An old fossil like me gets to say he saw them all play and one of my favorites although he did not play here very long was Lenny Green. I am not saying that Green was in Puckett’s or Hunter’s class as a center fielder but I enjoyed watching him play.
Todays Twins center fielder is still tying to prove he belongs on this list and he just might but he is going to have to show us his stuff. Can he prove to be even better than hall of famer Kirby Puckett? That is a tall order, we will just have to wait and see and it should be fun. I am expecting a HUGE breakout season from Buxton in 2017.
The players on the list below had 400 or more plate appearances in a season as Minnesota Twins but hit no home runs. That didn’t necessarily mean they had a bad season, as you can see that second baseman Rod Carew led the American League in batting that year. Al Newman and Ben Revere make the list twice each.
The most famous eye issue in Minnesota Twins history has to be the Kirby Puckett glaucoma issue that led to the future Hall of Famer’s premature retirement. In a meaningless fall game against the Indians at the Metrodome on September 28, 1995 with the Twins in last place and 42 games out of first place, Puckett was hit in the face by a fastball from Dennis Martinez in the bottom of the first inning. When Puckett who was the DH that afternoon and in the third spot in the batting order stepped to the plate, Chuck Knoblauch was on third base after he too was hit by a Martinez pitch leading off the game. Knobby stole second and advanced to third on a fly ball to center by Matt Lawton. On a 0-2 count Martinez hit Puckett in the face and blow shattered his jaw and put him out of play for the rest of the season. My wife and I were at that game along with just 9,440 others and when Puckett fell to the ground the silence was amazing, you could have heard a pin drop before Indians catcher Tony Pena and the Twins medical staff rushed to Puckett’s aid.
At spring training camp the following March he was batting well, but on March 28 he woke up unable to see out of his right eye. Doctors discovered he had glaucoma. The problem could not be corrected, even after four surgeries, and on July 12, 1996, he announced his retirement as a player.
This past summer Philadelphia Phillies pitching prospect Matt Imhof was injured in a freak accident when he was struck in the face by a resistance band that was anchored to a wall following a minor league game in Florida. The mounted base broke off the wall and damaged Imhof’s right eye. Doctor’s were unable to save the eye. At last report Imhof had not decided if he would continue his professional baseball career as a pitcher. Imhof, a left-hander was a Phillies second round selection in the June 2014 draft.
Almost 50 years ago back in the fall of 1968 a freak injury caused a Minnesota Twins minor league catching prospect to also lose an eye playing the game he loved.
Many players can say that they played ball in the Minnesota Twins minor league system but few can say that they were good enough and fortunate enough to wear a MLB Minnesota Twins uniform. Because of a tragic accident nearly fifty years ago on October 6, 1968 catcher Franklyn Sands big league dreams took a sharp detour and his dreams of becoming a big leaguer would never happen and his life was forever chnaged.
The Bahamas are not exactly a hot-bed for major league talent but at last count six players born in the Bahamas have worn a big league uniform. According to some, Frank Sands was one of the best catchers to ever come out of the Bahamas when the Houston Astros signed Sands to a contract to play pro ball as a 17-year old and sent him to play class A ball in Bismarck-Mandan in the Northern league in 1966. After the 1966 season the Astros chose not to protect Sands and the Minnesota Twins drafted him and assigned him to AAA Denver in 1967 where he appeared in just 46 games. The following season the Twins organization decided to send Sands to play class A ball for the Wilson Tobs. Sands caught 116 of the teams 139 games and gained a reputation as a good receiver with a whip like arm but his hitting remained a work in progress.
Then on October 6, 1968 while taking part in the Twins Florida Instructional League tragedy struck, here is how B-R Bullpen describes the incident.
“Sands was warming up pitcher Tom Hall. Hall bounced a breaking ball in the dirt, and it caromed up and off Sands’ mitt into his cheekbone. A sliver of bone punctured his eye from the inside. Sands knew immediately that he had lost the eye. Scipio Spinks observed, “After his accident, it was mandatory for catchers to wear a mask while warming up pitchers.”
Frank spent four weeks in the hospital, and as soon as he got out, the first thing he wanted to do was put on his uniform and get out for batting practice. He was determined to come back, despite the obstacle he faced in batting with impaired depth perception. Twins owner Calvin Griffith liked the young man very much and gave him every opportunity. In fact, Griffith said that Sands would have a job for life with the organization if he wanted it.”
Sands reported for spring training in 1969, this time as a pitcher but was farmed out early in training camp to the class A Orlando Twins where he appeared in just three games pitching just four innings before breaking his arm throwing a pitch. Frank Sands professional baseball career was over but he still caught in the Bahamas Baseball Association for several years playing a game he loved.
Scipio Spinks was a pitcher and a teammate of Sands in the Northern League in 1966 and today is a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Here is what Scipio wrote in a e-mail to me about Frankie Sands.
“It’s been a long time, he mostly hung out with Roy Bethel and other Bahamian players. He was a very good catcher and had a cannon for an arm, very friendly and sure of himself, I threw to him some as he was a very good catcher. He wasn’t a good hitter though and he struggled at the plate. We only played together for a few years as he was ruled 5 by the Twins, I believe he could have become a decent hitter and I do believe he would have made it to the Big Leagues.”
With a few exceptions the Minnesota Twins appear to have gone belly up and are just walking through the motions as they continue their march to 100 or more losses. There isn’t much good news coming out of Target Field lately so we have to search for some to watch and cheer for and one of those items is Brian Dozier‘s hitting streak which has now hit 22 games. The Twins have a dozen games left to play in 2016, the first six are at home against the Tigers and the Mariners and the next six are on the road at Kansas City and in Chicago against the the White Sox.
If Dozier plays in every game and his hitting streak continues he could tie the Twins hitting streak record of 31 in Kansas City and then go for the record in Chicago. That would be pretty awesome since we plan to be in Chicago that final baseball week-end of the season catching a few Twins games at US Cellular Field which is a field I have never been at, but I have watched a game at White Sox Park back in 1965.
Keep it up Brian Dozier, we need something exciting to watch and the 2016 season winds down for us Twins fans.
UPDATE: September 21, 2016 – Dozier’s hit streak now stands at 23.
UPDATE: September 23, 2016 – Dozier’s hit streak comes to an end at 24 games in game 2 of a DH against the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander on 9/22/2016. Nice run by Mr. Dozier.
