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
There were 55,920 baseball fans at Dodger Stadium to watch the Dodgers tie the World Series at 2 games each when Don Drysdale turns the tables and beats Mudcat Grant 7-2 in game 4. Drysdale allowed just five hits, two walks and struck out 11 Twins batters enroute to his game four win. The Twins trailed from the first inning on and played bad baseball through-out the game, being charged with two errors and making numerous mental mistakes that the Dodgers took advantage of. Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva both hit home runs in a losing effort. Box score.
Claude Osteen shuts out Camilo Pascual and the Twins 4-0 in game 3 of the World Series in Los Angeles but the Twins still lead the series 2 games to one. The Dodgers out hit the Twins 10 to 5 and Osteen a 25-year-old left hander acquired from the Washington Senators as part of the Frank Howard trade the previous off-season pitched a complete game for the win. Did you know that every winning pitcher in the 1965 World Series for the Twins and the Dodgers pitched a complete game?
This was also the game when catcher Earl Battey was injured. An injury he sustained in the seventh inning when he hit his throat against a dugout railing in Chavez Ravine while chasing a foul pop hit by Willie Davis. He left the game, but returned to start every game in the Series. Box score.
This site is about baseball and the Minnesota Twins but every now and then I run across a story or a picture that I think is worth sharing that has nothing to do with the great game of baseball. Earlier this year The Atlantic did a piece called “50 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1965”. There are 50 wonderful photo’s that you all should see and it will give you a chance to see what life and the world was like in 1965. Those were the good old days?
It has started raining shortly after game one ended and rained until nearly game time. The Twins ground crew used flame-throwers and two helicopter’s to help dry the field and prepare it for game two.
Jim Kaat
Under dark skies which required the lights to be on for the entire game the Twins win game 2 of the World Series when Jim Kaat beats Sandy Koufax 5-1 in front of 48,700 delirious fans at the Met. In addition to pitching a complete game, Kaat was one for four with the bat knocking in two runs. Bob Allison makes a fantastic catch sliding across the left field line and to this day this is one of the finest fielding plays ever seen in a World Series. Box score
The Twins chances for a 2015 wild card spot are “slim and none” as they prepare to play their final two games of 2015 at Target Field. Yes, mathematically they still have a chance but the odds are stacked against them. The Twins have had a wonderful season and stranger things have happened so there is still hope.
But 50 years ago the 1965 Minnesota Twins were playing their final game of the season at their home park (Metropolitan Stadium) too and they would go on to beat the California Angels 3-2 to post win number 102, the most ever wins in the Senators/Twins franchise history. Just a few days later this great team would take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1965 World Series.
A new book about that team and its players has just hit the market and if you are a fan of Minnesota Twins baseball you have to get your hands on that book. I have my book on order and can’t wait to start reading it. The book is called “A Pennant for the Twins Cities: The 1965 Minnesota Twins” and the author is Gregory H. Wolf.
Here is a portion of how the book is described on Amazon.com: “Included are the life and baseball stories of all 35 roster players, the coaches, and manager of the 1965 Twins, plus team owner Calvin Griffith; broadcasters Herb Carneal, Halsey Hall, and Ray Scott; and sportswriters Dick Gordon and Max Nichols. A comprehensive summary of the regular season, as well as meticulous essays highlighting important games and the All-Star Game played in Minnesota, an overview of the 1965 Dodgers, and thorough summaries the World Series games are included. Chapters about how the Griffith family built its pennant winner, the fate of the Twins after 1965, Metropolitan Stadium, and the 1965 season “by the numbers” round out the book. Members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) researched and wrote all of the biographies and essays in this book“.
I am proud to say that I played a small part in this book by contributing the BIO on Twins catcher John Sevcik and as I said earlier, I can’t wait to get my hands on this book to read the rest of the story. The is definitely a book that you want on your book shelf and it will make a great gift for any Minnesota Twins fan.
The below material came from a column that Sid Hartman wrote in the Star Tribune on August 19, 1990.
The payroll for the Twins, the American League West’s last-place team, is about $16 million, an average of more than $400,000 a player. In 1965, when the Twins won the pennant in a 10-team league with no playoffs, the payroll for 25 players was about $1.5 million, less than half what Kirby Puckett is paid per season. There wasn’t any free agency then and the reserve clause was in effect. There wasn’t any arbitration, either, and it was either take it or leave it.
How things have changed in favor of the player. Harmon Killebrew, a big star on the team, didn’t make $100,000 until 1967. And Bob Allison, another big star, earned about $35,000. The team drew 1,463,288 fans and sold only 3,318 season tickets. Owner Calvin Griffith made a lot of money.
And when members of the 1965 Twins World Series team, here to play in an old-timers game Saturday night, reminisced about winning the pennant and losing the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games, they had to recall that it wasn’t all peaches and cream in the clubhouse. Pitching coach Johnny Sain didn’t get along with third-base coach Billy Martin, and manager Sam Mele sided with Martin. Many times Martin and Sain almost came to blows.
The pitchers were on the side of Sain, who believed a pitcher never threw a bad pitch or lost a game. But they never would have won without Martin’s inspiration. Still, they won the pennant and might have won the World Series had Jim Gilliam not made a sensational fielding play on a hard ground ball hit to third in the fifth inning of Game 7. Gilliam handled shortstop Zoilo Versalles‘ shot toward third with Rich Rollins on first and Frank Quilici on second. The score was 2-0 at the time and that is how it ended, with Sandy Koufax winning for the Dodgers.
Yes, baseball has sure changed in the last 25 years.
Sabath Anthony “Sam” Mele was born in Astoria, New York on January 21, 1922. Sam Mele‘s parents were born in Avellino, Italy although they met in America. Mele’s mother was sister to big league brothers Al and Tony Cuccinello. Mele, a natural all-around athlete and a Queens Park baseball legend attended New York University where he lettered in both baseball and basketball but he excelled in basketball. After his time at NYU Mele served his country by joining the Marines during World War II. Mele however; wanted to play pro baseball and was signed as a free agent by the Boston Red Sox in 1946. In his first year of organized ball, Mele played 119 games for Scranton (A ball in the Easter League) hitting .342 with 18 home runs before being moved up to Louisville in the AAA American Association where he played all of 15 games. Mele made his major league debut with the Red Sox the following year against the Washington Senators on April 15, 1947. His rookie season may have been one of the best of his career as Sam hit 12 home runs and knocked in 73 runs in 123 games while hitting .302. Mele would never hit over .300 again in his 10 year major league career. During his playing career spanning 1947 to 1956, Mele, who batted and threw right-handed, saw duty with six major league clubs: the Boston Red Sox, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians, batting .267 with 80 home runs in 1,046 games. Sam Mele played his final major league game as a Cleveland Indian on September 16, 1956. Mele played AAA ball with for the White Sox and Athletics in 1957 and 1958 but never returned to the majors as a player.
Sam Mele in his playing days
Mele turned to coaching and served under manager Cookie Lavagetto in 1959 and 1960 for the Washington Senators before the team moved to Minnesota in 1961 and became known as the Twins. With the ‘61 Twins struggling, Calvin Griffith asked Lavagetto to take a week off to go fishing and clear his head in early June and during this period Mele filled in as manager. When Cookie Lavagetto was fired on June 23, 1961, Sam Mele who was 39 with no managerial experience stepped in as manager full-time and became the Minnesota Twins second manager. The Twins moved up two places in the standings under Mele, finishing seventh.
But the Twins, building with young home-grown players like future Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, Jim Kaat, Zoilo Versalles and Bob Allison, challenged the powerful New York Yankees in 1962 before finishing second. After finishing third in 1963, the team suffered through a poor season in 1964, leading to speculation that Mele would be replaced by his new third base coach, Billy Martin.
Finally, in 1965 the Twins broke the Yankees’ string of five World Series appearances by winning their first ever American League pennant and sent the Bronx Bombers on a tailspin where the New York Yankees would not appear in another World Series for 12 years. Led by Versalles, who was named the American League’s Most Valuable Player, batting champion Tony Oliva, and pitcher Mudcat Grant, who won 21 games, Minnesota won 102 games and coasted to the league title. The Yankees finished sixth, 25 games out. No Twins team has ever won 102 games since and Mele was named as the 1965 Sporting News Manager of the Year and back then there was only one manager of the year named for both the AL and NL. Minnesota took a two-game lead in the 1965 World Series, but the superior pitching of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Claude Osteen took its toll, and Los Angeles won in seven games. During the 1965 season Mele was involved in a an incident with home plate umpire Bill Valentine. The usually mild-mannered Mele’s hand apparently hit Valentine’s jaw and he was fined $500 and suspended five days.
The 1966 Twins won 13 fewer games, and ended up as runners-up to the Baltimore Orioles. Mele had clashed publicly with two of his coaches, Hal Naragon and pitching tutor Johnny Sain and both were fired after the 1966 season much to the dismay of star pitcher Jim Kaat who wrote an “open letter” to Twins fans voicing his displeasure on the Sain firing. The “letter” made national news and caused a ruckus during the 1966 World Series when major league baseball wanted the World Series front and center. The club swung a major trade for pitcher Dean Chance during the offseason and unveiled star rookie Rod Carew in 1967. Hopes and expectations were high in Minnesota, but when the Twins were only .500 after 50 games, Mele was fired. His successor was not Martin, as had been anticipated, but long time minor league manager Cal Ermer. Mele’s record as a manager was 524-436 (.546). He never managed again, but returned to the Red Sox as a scout for 25 years.
Now days Sam Mele is retired and is living in Quincy, Massachusetts. I was lucky enough to interview Sam Mele back in May of 2009 and the interview is about a 1/2 hour-long so grab the beverage of your choice, sit back, relax and listen to Sam tell you a little about himself and what it was like to manage the Minnesota Twins.
The interview with Sam Mele was done in May 2009 and is about 35 minutes long.
The 1964 Minnesota Twins were a disappointing 79-83 under manager Sam Mele after winning 91 games the previous season and they finished tied for sixth with the Cleveland Indians in the 10 team American league. Twins owner and GM Calvin Griffith felt that his team had suffered some bad luck in 1964 and he expected his team to be much improved in 1965.
The 1965 Twins would go on to win 102 games (most in franchise history) and lose only 60 in 1965 and walked away with the AL pennant seven games ahead of the Chicago White Sox. The 1965 Twins were the first Minnesota Twins team to taste post season action as they went on to play the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series that Fall but ended up losing the series in game seven to Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax. Previous to 1965 the last team in franchise history to appear in the World Series were the 1933 Washington Senators who lost that series four games to one to the New York Giants.
It will be 50 years this season since that 1965 Minnesota Twins team won 102 games and went to the World Series so this year we at twinstrivia.com are going to try to bring back memories of what transpired that year and relive 1965 as the season progresses. So follow us this season as we bring back some fun and interesting facts about that 1965 Twins team who some say was the best Twins team to ever step on a baseball diamond.
The beginning of this series starts with a page out of the January 23, 1965 Sporting News which was truly thee baseball Bible back in those days. Check out the Twins roster, I believe it has 42 players and some of the names there would never play for the Minnesota Twins and of course team owner Calvin Griffith wasn’t about to over pay his players even though team star Harmon Killebrew would become the first player in Twins history to make over $50,000 in a single season.
If you remember the 1965 Twins season and have special memories that you would like to share with today’s Twins fans please feel free to share them in the comments section. I only witnessed that season through early August of 1965 and missed the Twins post season play because I had chosen to join the US Navy and by early August I was on a train from Minneapolis to the Great Lakes Naval Training center to start boot camp. Back in 1965 Navy boot camp had no TV, radio, newspapers and certainly no computers and internet, it was all business so following the Twins run to the pennant was not in the cards for me. I hope we can bring back some great memories for you Twins fans that were lucky enough to witness that great year in Twins history.
As a side note, after boot camp was over for me in late 1965 I was assigned to Radar “A” school, again at Great Lakes and the following spring on April 16, 1966 when I did get a few hours of liberty where did I go? I went to Comiskey Park to see the Chicago White Sox play the Kansas City A’s. I remember it was kind of cool that day and of course the game went into extra innings, the White Sox won the game 2-1 in the bottom of the 11th inning on a walk-off walk of all things. Back then the White Sox let active military personnel attend the games for free I believe. Here are a few pictures I took that day of old Comiskey Park in 1966.
Comiskey Park April 16, 1966Comiskey Park scoreboard April 16, 1966April 16, 1966 White Sox host the Kansas City A’s – note the green and gold A’s in the field.
A couple of weeks ago while doing some research for this site I ran across an auction web site that was selling a 1965 American League championship ring so I had to stop and investigate.
“Hal Naragon used his skills behind the plate to craft a ten-year career in the major leagues, ending his playing days in 1962 as a member of the Minnesota Twins. Immediately after that he took a job as a Twins coach and was on-hand for the teams unforgettable run to the 1965 American League championship. Offered here is Hal’s actual AL Championship Ring awarded to him for his efforts in that season that came only inches away from producing a World Series championship when Sandy Koufax downed the Twins 2-0 in a Game 7 duel with Jim Kaat. Dazzling diamond is centered on the face of this Jostens 14K ring is a brilliant round stone set upon a deep-blue background. Encircling the stone is “American League Champions.” On one shank, “MINNESOTA” is engraved above a raised “TC” logo. The bottom of the shank bears a baseball and two crossed bats with “1965” engraved within the ball. The other shank is topped with the name “NARAGON.” An image of the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities logo is above another baseball and two crossed bats. It would seem that Hal has always appreciated how special this ring is and what it represents as he has clearly taken exceptional care of it over the past five decades. In comparing this to the one other 1965 Twins ring that we’ve seen, there is no question that this is a far superior example and it grades NM with spectacular visual qualities.
When the bidding closed, there were 14 bids and the final bid was $3,585. I am not sure why Hal Naragon who is now 86, chose to sell his 1965 AL Championship ring but to me it is always sad to see something personal like this get sold to anyone other than the person that earned it. I did an interview with Hal Naragon, who is one of the original Minnesota Twins back in September 2010 that you can listen to here.
As 2014 is coming to an end it is a good time to look back on another Twins season, their fourth in a row without post season play. But you have to be a winner to make post season play and the Twins have been anything but a winner the last few years. It has been a toss-up when you try to determine who has been more inept, the Twins players on the field or the ownership and Twins executives that sit behind their desks and make the decisions that determine the experience that Twins fans will have to live with during the up-coming season.
The Twins have had many losing seasons over the years and the real core Twins fans complained but they accepted the team they had and they looked forward to the next season with renewed hope for more wins “next year”. But it is seems different now, I am not sure why, maybe the fans are more passionate, maybe it is social media that allows Twins fans to better express their frustrations but today’s Twins fans are just plain mad and disgusted with the caliber of play their home team has displayed since the 2010 ended. Hopefully the Minnesota Twins organization feels some of the passion that Twins fans have and will start to look at the product from the fans perspective and see what they can do to make the fans experience a little more fun and and not so tough on the wallet.
Since the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season and became the Minnesota Twins the team has played 8,617 regular season games, winning 4,274, losing 4,335 and playing to a tie on eight occasions in 54 seasons of play. Boy, how time flies by, I still remember that 1961 season.
Looking back at Twins history they have two World Series winners and a third World Series appearance in which they lost game seven to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In addition to the 8,617 regular season games the team has played a total of 64 post season games winning 25 and losing 39. Their last post season appearance was in 2010 and that brief playoff run lasted just three games when they were swept by the New York Yankees 3 games to zip. The teams last post season win was back in 2004 (if I am not mistaken that is about 10 years ago, YIKES!) when they beat the Yankees in game 1 of the ALDS series before losing the next three games.
So let’s take a look at the hitting and pitching statistics of the Minnesota Twins in post season play. Let’s see who stood out under the bright lights of post season play and who couldn’t or didn’t deliver when the pressure was on. The names you will see below will bring back many memories, some good, some bad, some sad and in some cases you will say “who in the hell is so and so, I don’t remember him”. But it is fun looking back.
Since the Twins started play in 1961 through the 2014 season a total of 751 players have put on a Minnesota Twins uniform and appeared in a game either as a hitter or a pitcher. Only 162 of them or 21.57% have appeared in a Twins post season game over the 54 seasons the Twins have called Minnesota home.
According to Elias – Danny Santana was 3-for-5 with a double, triple, and stolen base in the Twins’ 8-4 home win over the Tigers. It was the second time this season that Santana delivered at least three hits, two extra-base hits, and a steal from the leadoff slot; he also did it against the White Sox on August 3. The only other Twins leadoff hitters to have more than one such game in a season since the team moved to Minnesota in 1961 were Dan Gladden (3 in 1988) and Jacque Jones (2 in 2002).
The Chattanooga Lookouts are pleased to announce that the organization has signed a four-year player development contract with the Minnesota Twins. Chattanooga is part of the 10 team Southern League which is split into the Northern and Southern Division. The Lookouts are in the Northern Division. The Lookouts who were affiliated with the Los Angeles Dodgers this past season will replace the previous Twins Double-A affiliate the New Britain Rock Cats (Eastern league) who had been the Twins Double-A home since 1995. New Britain has announced a new two-year player development agreement with the Colorado Rockies.
Glen Perkins
The Twins finally announced that Glen Perkins will be under-going an MRI, what took them so long? In his last eight games going back to August 26 Perkins has pitched 6.1 innings giving up 12 hits, two walks, five home runs, and 10 earned runs while striking out two batters. Did I mention that in those 6+ innings he has faced 32 batters and posted a 14.21 ERA? You think there is a problem here? Is this another case of a Twins player hiding an injury? Can’t be sure, but I am getting tired of players that keep playing when they are injured, they are no better in my eyes than the players that beg out of a game when they have a hang-nail. These players are professionals that are paid big money to play major league baseball, it is a shame a number of them don’t act like it. Just what the Twins need, another question mark heading into the 2015 season.
So what will happen with manager Ron Gardenhire? Will the Twins fire him or will Gardy announce that he has resigned? My guess is that Gardy will walk away after the 2014 season finally ends to recharge his batteries and spend more time with his family and take a job with MLB TV for the 2015 season and then take another managing job next season when a manager gets axed or after the 2015 season ends. Just think how much fun it will be to watch Gardy on MLB TV, they should give him his own show. The Twins still don’t like firing people and a Gardenhire resignation will work best for everyone involved. Everyone except the current Twins coaching staff, but they have all earned the right to become free agents and a clean sweep of the Twins coaching ranks is in order. The term “getting it right” has been used a lot in the Twin Cities the last week or so with another professional team that calls Minnesota home and the Twins can borrow that phrase and put it to good use. I have always liked Ron Gardenhire but the time has come when a change needs to be made, it is kind of like when we have to get rid of a car that we have had for a long time and we really liked. The car has served us well over the many years we owned it and we have gotten used to its many idiosyncracies and most of the time it got us to where we needed to go but now it has broken down again and it is time to call the tow truck and have it taken away. There is always someone out there that thinks another mans junk is another mans treasure and Gardy is too young to be sent to the manager scrap heap so you will see him managing again soon, maybe against our Minnesota Twins.
