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
Who is the youngest Minnesota Twins player to make his major league debut wearing a Twins uniform? That would be right-handed pitcher Jim Manning who was born in L’Anse, Michigan on July 21, 1943 and went on to become a legendary high school basketball player winning All-State honors as a junior and as a senior. Jim held the U.P. record of most points scored in his four-year career with a total of 2,137 points, all without playing with a 3-point line. While in high school he was offered a full scholarship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in basketball and according to Tom Briere of the Minneapolis Tribune, Manning was all set to sign a baseball-basketball scholarship with the Minnesota Gophers, but declined because his first love was always baseball and the Minnesota Twins snatched him up.
Jim Manning
After signing with the Twins for $20,000 fresh from high school, the Michigan native pitched in 12 games for Wytheville of the short-season Class D Appalachian League in 1961. Dividing his time between starting and relief, he went 2-2 with a 4.40 ERA. Others playing at Wytheville that season included future Hall of Famer Tony Oliva, who hit .410 in 64 games, and future Twins infielder and manager Frank Quilici.
Manning entered spring training 1962 with the Twins with the slimmest of chances to make the team. The Twins went with a youth movement in 1962, their second season in Minnesota after relocating from Washington, with The Sporting News commenting on the team’s “incubator infield” of 23-year-old third baseman Rich Rollins, 22-year-old second baseman Bernie Allen, and 22-year-old shortstop Zoilo Versalles. Joe Bonikowski, a 21-year-old pitcher, made the team with a strong spring training, as did a relative graybeard, 25-year-old rookie Lee Stange. (Starting pitcher Jim Kaat was 23 but was no newcomer, beginning his fourth season with the franchise. Manning, just 18 also pitched his way on to the team. He secured another niche in Twins history when he was issued jersey number 42, becoming the first Twin to wear that number although this point has been questioned.
Manning’s big league career consisted of just 5 games, all with the Minnesota Twins. The amazing part is that he did it at the age of 18 after appearing in just 12 games in the Appalachian League a year earlier.
Jim “Mudcat” Grant was born on August 13, 1935 in Lacoochee, Florida, a small town of about 500 people in central Florida. According to the Cleveland Indians, Mudcat Grant died peacefully in Los Angeles, California on June 11, 2021. Jim Grant was 85 years old.
With no baseball being played and “classic” games being broadcast on the radio and television I thought I would do something a bit different, at least for awhile, since no baseball is being played. I thought I would give up a brief recap of Minnesota Twins games from 1961.
I have been working on a very long term project whereas I do a brief recap of Twins games on my “In This Day in Twins History Pages.” So my plan is to give you a brief recap of the Twins first season as it plays out on a weekly basis. For more info on a particular game you can also click on the date and go to the appropriate “In This Day in Twins History Page” as there you will often get to see some player pictures and supporting documentation. We will see how long I can keep up with it, no promises. So let’s see what we have for week one.
Yankee manager Ralph Houk inspects the jacket of Twins manager Cookie Lavagetto prior to the Twins first ever game, played April 11, 1961 at Yankee Stadium. Twins win 6-0.
Regardless if you believe in Quality Starts (QS) or not, the term is used now days in MLB. A QS is defined as pitching six innings or more while allowing three or fewer earned runs. I would be happier if a QS was seven innings and two or fewer earned runs but that is just my age showing. The new “opener” strategy could put a kink in QS but I don’t think the opener strategy is a fit for most teams and will not be a big deal down the line.
Today we are taking a look at consecutive QS for Minnesota Twins starters and we have one pitcher that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Twins pitchers in QS and that is Johan Santana who had 21 QS in a row in 2004. Impressive or not? You bet your bippy it is, no American League pitcher between 1961-2018 has thrown that many QS in a row. In the National league only four pitchers have thrown that many QS in a row since 1961, Bob Gibson leads with 26 in 1967, Jacob deGrom (2018) and Jake Arrieta (2015) have 24 and Chris Carpenter has 22 in 2005.
The closest to Santana’s streak of 21 in Minnesota is Bert Blyleven who had 12 in 1972 and Jim Merritt who also had 12 in 1967. The biggest surprise on this list to me is Rick Aguilera with 10 QS in 1989. I certainly remember Aggie starting for Minnesota when they first traded for him but I don’t remember him as pitching that well, maybe it was the fact that his record was only 3-4 during the streak.
Albert Lee (Stinger) Stange, born on October 27, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois, passed away at the age of 81 in Melbourne, Florida after losing his battle with cancer. Stange was a great athlete in high school playing baseball, basketball, and football (with Ray Nitschke) and winning all-state honors in the latter two sports. After graduating from high school Stange went to Drake University on a football scholarship but a knee injury his freshman season ended his football career, but it did not end his dream of being a professional athlete.
“Two years later, I called a scout (Washington Senators scout Ossie Bluege) who saw me play baseball in high school, and I said I wanted to play ball. He sent me a contract for $200 a month (to play) in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.”
Lee Stange
Lee signed as a free agent with the Washington Senators in 1957. Stange spent 1957 and 1958 in class “D” ball at Fort Walton Beach before moving up to class “B” in 1959. In 1960 while still in class “B”, Stange won 20 games while losing 13 when he threw for 251 innings and finished the season with a 3.59 ERA. The following spring, 1961, in the Minnesota Twins initial spring training, Lee made the big league club, pitching in a couple of games before getting sent down and spending most of the season in AAA Syracuse before he was recalled to Minnesota in September. Stange spent the entire 1962 season with the Twins, starting 6 games but pitching primarily in relief. In 1963 Stange again started the season with Minnesota but in early May was again sent down to AAA where he ripped off a string of victories that forced the Twins hand and he was once again in the majors. After being recalled, Stange pitched primarily as a starter and won 12 games including two shutouts while losing just 5 and putting up an exceptional 2.62 ERA in 164+ innings. During his Twins career between 1961-1964 Stange appeared in 97 games, starting 37 times and posting a 20-14 record with a 3.61 ERA. Stange was more of a throw to contact pitcher then a power pitcher but his pitching skills served him well. Stange had 10 complete games, two shutouts and 3 saves on his resume at Minnesota. Stange was an excellent bowler, so good in fact that the Brunswick bowling company signed Stange to tour Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas during the winter on exhibition tours. One year, Stange said, he was offered a sponsorship to go on the pro tour, but he declined.
In June of 1964 Lee Stange and George Banks were traded to the Cleveland Indians for Jim Grant. That September the Stinger struck out four Washington Senator batters in one inning. After pitching for the Indians for a couple of seasons Stange was once again traded, this time to the Red Sox in 1966.
Stange pitched very well for the 1967 Red Sox and was involved in one of the greatest pennant races the American league history. Even though he finished with an 8-10 record, he led the Red Sox pitching staff with an ERA of just 2.77. The race was so tight that it was thought that a playoff game might be necessary to determine a pennant winner and Red Sox manager Dick Williams saved Stange to pitch that game. It turned out that an extra game was not needed and the Red Sox won the pennant and got the right to play the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Losing to Bob Gibson three times, the Red Sox went on to lose the World Series to the Cardinals 4 games to 3. Stange pitched for the Red Sox until June of 1970 when he was sold to the White Sox. After the 1970 season Stange’s body told him that enough was enough and Lee retired as an active player and went on to coaching and managing in the minors as well as serving as a pitching coach in the major leagues for the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland A’s, and the Boston Red Sox on two separate occasions.
Stange was twice the pitching coach of the Red Sox, from 1972-74 and again from 1981-84. He then became a minor league pitching instructor for the Sox from 1985-94. Stange also had coaching stints with the Twins (1975) and Athletics (1977-79). In all he spent 40 years in professional baseball, 23 of them with the Boston Red Sox. Stange spent nine years as the pitching coach for Division 2 Florida Tech before retiring from baseball at age 78. Lee Stange participated in Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox fantasy baseball camps for many years and was always a fan favorite.
Survivors include his wife, Barbara and three children, Tim, Jim and Jana. Stange also had two stepchildren, former Sox infielder Jody Reed and Paul Reed.
RIP Lee Stange and thank you for all the wonderful memories. Stange is the 25th member of the 1961 Minnesota Twins team to pass away. There were 42 players that played for the Minnesota Twins in 1961.
In their final July game the Twins were helpless against Lee Stange, a former Twins pitcher and current Red Sox starter. Stange had a perfect game going until Harmon Killebrew singled with two out in the seventh inning at Fenway Park. The Twins final two hits took place in the ninth but Stange retired Tony Oliva and Killebrew on fly balls and he and the Red Sox closed out the 4-0 win. The Boston crew had only 4 hits themselves but three of them including a 3 run home run belonged to Carl Yastrzemski and Stange had the other Boston hit. Even though the Sox lost the five game series three games to two they held on to second place just 2 games out of the lead.
With 2/3 of the 1967 season in their rear-view mirror the Twins find themselves with a 53-47 record, good enough for fourth place tie and 5 games behind the league leading White Sox. With 17 wins and 13 losses in July the Twins scored 122 runs and held the opposition to just 94 runs.
The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.
Minnesota Twins pitchers allowed 147 home runs in 2014. The fewest home runs allowed by a Twins pitching staff in a full season of 162 games occurred in 1976 when that pitching staff gave up just 89 round trippers to the opponents and the Twins went on to finish with an 85-77 record. On the opposite end of the spectrum the 1996 Twins pitching staff allowed a franchise record 233 home runs and finished the season with a 78-84 record. It only took one season for Ricky Nolasco to make the list but he can pitch his way off this list, the others can’t.
Twins career HR/9 with minimum of 120 innings pitched
The list below show The Twins pitching staff leader board of home runs allowed. Bert Blyleven loves to talk about how many home runs he has allowed but he is only third best or worst, depending on how you want to look at it.
The Twins have been in Minnesota for 53 years and have played 8,455 games winning 4,204 and losing 4,243. (just a FYI, the Angels who also started play in 1961 have won 4,220 games). Over the 53 years and 8,455 games Twins starters have pitched 9 innings or more in a start exactly 300 times (3.55%). Keep in mind that I am talking 9 innings or more pitched in a start, not complete games.
But sometimes just going 9 innings does not get the job done as you can see in the table below. In these 71 games the Twins starter took the mound in inning number 10 and sometimes even innings 11 and 12. The last Twins starter to hurl more than 9 innings in a start was Brad Radke in 1997.
But only one starting pitcher for the Twins, Jim Merritt has gone 13 innings and that remains a team record that in today’s pitch count world will probably never be broken. The franchise record is 18 innings held by Hall of Famer Walter Johnson who went the distance in a 1-0 Washington Senators win over the Chicago White Sox at Griffith Stadium in just 2 hours and 50 minutes on May 15, 1918.
But it is not just starting pitchers that have toiled long and hard to win a game. Here I look at relievers who have pitched 7 or more innings of relief in a game and Ray Corbin holds the team record for pitching 10.1 innings of relief against the Tigers in 1975. Corbin who was a starter/reliever during his five years in Minnesota pitched in just 11 more big league games after this long relief outing allowing at least one earned run in each appearance and never again pitched in a big league game.
The Twins will have three starters that will start 20 or more games during this 2013 season. Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, and Scott Diamond have all passed that mark and there is no chance of anyone else joining that group. Samuel Deduno had 18 starts but he is done for the season. In 2012 the Twins had just one starter with 20 or more starts and that was Scott Diamond. 2012 was the first time in Twins history that they had only one starter with 20 or more starts. The Twins had only two starters with 20 or more starts only twice and those were the strike shortened 1981 and 1995 seasons. The Twins have had three starters start 20 or more games 12 times, four starters with 20 or more starts 17 times and five starters with 20 or more starts on eight occasions with the last two being 2010 and 2011. Only 6 teams in AL history have had 6 starters with 20 or more starts in a season and they were the 1937 White Sox, the 1942 Tigers, the 1944 Philadelphia A’s, the 1962 Senators, and the 2001 Rays. The Rays will be joining that group again on Monday when Alex Cobb makes his 20th start of 2013.
