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
The 1965 Minnesota Twins had 35 different players suit up and play ball wearing a Twins logo across their chest against the nine other members of the American league. Their manager, Sam Mele had four coaches at his disposal to help guide the team. Here are the images of the players and coaching staff that made up the 1965 American League champions. Team owner Calvin Griffith also served as the teams General Manager.
Just click on any player image to see a larger image
Earl Battey - Catcher
Don Mincher - 1B
Jerry Kindall - 2B
Zoilo Versalles - SS
Rich Rollins - 3B
Bob Allison - OF
Jimmie Hall - OF
Tony Oliva - OF
Harmon Killebrew - 1B/3B/OF
Sandy Valdespino - OF
Joe Nossek - OF/3B
Jerry Zimmerman - Catcher
Frank Quilici - 2B/SS
Andy Kosco - OF/1B
Bernie Allen - 2B/3B
Frank Kostro - 2B/3B/OF
Cesar Tovar - 2B/SS/3B/OF
Ted Uhlaender - OF
John Sevcik - Catcher
Rich Reese - 1B/OF
Jim "Mudcat" Grant - Pitcher
Jim Kaat - Pitcher
Camilo Pascual - Pitcher
Jim Perry - Pitcher
Dave Boswell - Pitcher
Jim Merritt - Pitcher
Dick Stigman - Pitcher
Al Worthington - Pitcher
Mel Nelson - Pitcher
Johnny Klippstein - Pitcher
Bill Pleis - Pitcher
Garry Roggenburk - Pitcher
Jerry Fosnow - Pitcher
Dwight Siebler - Pitcher
Pete Cimino - Pitcher
Sam Mele - Manager
Billy Martin - Coach
L-R: Johnny Sain - Pitching Coach with Manager Sam Mele
The Minnesota Twins hosted a 59th anniversary celebration on July 31 and August 1 for the 1965 American League champions. On July 31st the organization put on a “Championship Breakfast” that was attended by about 250 Twins fans and 11 players from the 1965 championship team that won a Twins record 102 games. Twins TV broadcaster Dick Bremer served as the master of ceremonies.
I was able to attend the breakfast which was held in the Metropolitan Club at Target Field and had a great time meeting other Twins fans and chatting briefly with some of the players. The cost of the breakfast was $75 for season ticket holders and $100 if you were not a Twins season ticket holder with the proceeds going to the Twins Community Fund.
John Sevcik and Bill Pleis were unable to attend due to family health issues. Jimmie Hall also was invited but was not in attendance. Why he was not here is unclear, I saw some where that he was not able to change his schedule in time to attend and the other reason that has floated around for a long time is that Hall likes to stay close to home and that he is not a huge fan of the Twins organization due to some conflicts that have arisen in the past over medical claims. I have no idea why Dwight Siebler or Pete Cimino were not in attendance other than Siebler only appeared in seven games and Cimino only appeared in one game.As nored earlier, coach Hal Naragon was in attendance.
Manager Sam Mele who is 93 was not able to attend due to health concerns but he did make a short video that was played for the crowd. Coaches Billy Martin, Johnny Sain, and Jim Lemon have also passed on. Coach Hal Naragon as mentioned earlier was in attendance.
I took a few pictures at the championship breakfast that I will share with you here. Just click on the first thumbnail image to get started.
The Twins were kind enough to provide me with a group picture from the Saturday celebration. Clicking on the picture will enlarge it slightly.
BACK ROW L – R: Jim Merritt, Jerry Kindall, Dick Stigman, Rich Reese, Mel Nelson, Andy Kosco, Frank Kostro, Garry Roggenburk, Jerry Fosnow, Bernie Allen, Hal Naragon FRONT ROW L – R: Joe Nossek, Sandy Valdespino, Rich Rollins, Jim Perry, Camilo Pascual, Al Worthington, Frank Quilici, Jim Kaat, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, Tony Oliva
Between August 1 and August 19 the Twins were 12-7 and and in first place with a 8.5 game lead over the Chicago White Sox. Their record for the year was 77-34 (.636). The Twins played in three doubleheaders during this period winning one and splitting the other two.
Frank Quilici
There is a nice piece in the August 7 issue of the Sporting News about the Twins new second baseman Frank Quilici. “Quilici never shuts up,” said manager Sam Mele. WOW! that is a real shocker to those people that know Frank at all. On that same page you can read about the Pirates planning to leave their spring training facility in Ft. Myers in their rear view mirror.
The August 14 has a lengthy piece on Jim Perry who came out of the bullpen to become a starter when Twins starters starting rotation suffered through a rash of injuries and illness. Al Worthington the Twins 36 year old closer who had never tasted post season play and the rest of the relief staff had to work over-time with some many injuries to the starting staff. “Housemaid knees” might not be politically correct today but according to Jim Grant that is what was troubling him even though he had a league leading 12-3 won/lost record.
I ran across this short article about Zoilo Versalles on the D.C. Baseball History web site that was written by an individual that had a personal encounter with Versalles back in 1959 when he was first called up by the Washington Senators.
The D.C. Baseball History web site is a great site if you are interested in learning more about the 1901-1960 Washington Senators who become our Minnesota Twins in 1961. The site also obviously covers the Washington Nationals.
Ricky Nolasco earned career win #100 in the Twins’ win over the Red Sox. Nolasco is the 14th pitcher to earn career win #100 while wearing a Twins uniform, and ten of them did it in a home game. Some notable pitchers whose 100th career win came as a Minnesota Twins player are Camilo Pascual (1963), Mudcat Grant (1966), Jim Kaat (1967), Dean Chance (1968), Jim Perry (1968) and Frank Viola (1988). Source: ELIAS
As we get to the middle of May it is time once again to revisit the 1965 Twins. The attached page of the May 15, 1965 Sporting News has a nice story on how Twins trainer George Lentz suggested that Tony Oliva use a knobless bat to lessen the pain that he endured with his knuckle on his right hand when swinging the bat. There is also a short piece on bench players Sandy Valdespino and Rich Reese.
The Twins on-going hunt for starting pitchers never seems to change and Twins skipper Sam Mele had the same issue back in 1965. The May 22, 1965 issue of the Sporting News has a nice spread on Twins starter Jim Grant and a new pitch he learned form pitching coach John Sain. There is also mention of the May 6 Twin Cities infamous tornado outbreak that did some relatively minor damage to the homes of Howard Fox and owner Calvin Griffith. Just as an FYI, the Lake Minnetonka former home of Griffith was bulldozed a couple of months ago for what I would expect will be a new McMansion.
On May 15, 1965 the Twins record was 18-8 having won seven out of their last eight games and they were in second place just a half game out of the league lead. As good as the team was, the fans were not coming out to watch them play at Met Stadium. The biggest home crowd they had to date was 17,664 for a Sunday afternoon game against the Mighty Whitey’s which the Twins won 6-1 when Camilo Pascual pitched a complete game bringing his record to 4-0 and hitting a home run to boot. Their home opener on April 12 albeit in bad weather had a crowd of only 15,388.
As well as the Twins were playing, they would throw in a clinker now and then, for example, a 13-5 loss to the White Sox on May 7 when the Twins gave up 10 unearned runs due to seven errors in a game at the Met.
The Minnesota Twins have a new pitching coach in Neil Allen this season. Heading into the 1965 season the Twins also had a new pitching coach and his name was Johnny Sain. It turns out that both Allen and Sain were right-handed and both pitched in the big leagues during all or parts of 11 seasons. Allen is getting his first shot as a big league pitching coach in 2015 while Sain had already served as a pitching coach for the Kansas City A’s in 1959 and the New York Yankees from 1961-1963 before he joined Minnesota in 1965 where he would last for two years before going on to serve as pitching coach for the Tigers from 1967-1969, the White Sox from 1971-1975 and the Atlanta Braves in 1977 and again from 1985-1986. Most pitchers loved Sain as their pitching coach and Twins pitcher Jim Kaat was one of those. Matter of fact, when owner Calvin Griffith and the Twins let Sain go, Kaat went public about how stupid he thought that move was but that is a another story for another time.
The Twins had switched to a five man rotation in 1962 but new Twins pitching coach Sain thought that he had the pitchers in Minnesota to go back to a four man starting rotation and it was not a hard sell. Here is a piece that appeared in the Sporting News on February 13, 1965. Feel free to click on the article a couple of times if your eyes are like mine and need a bit larger font.
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.
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.
September 20, 1965 – Just 537 fans paid to watch the Kansas City A’s Jim “Catfish” Hunter beat Jim “Mudcat” Grant 8-2 at Met Stadium in a makeup game in a cool 52 degree drizzle. Fortunately the game was over in two hours and 10 minutes. Don Mincher hits two home runs and gets two of the Twins four hits. It is the smallest paid crowd to watch the Twins play at home. B-R shows attendance of 547 but Twins media guide states 537. You would think that a team that was on its way to the 1965 World Series would draw a bit better than that. Box Score.
Earl Battey - Catcher
Don Mincher - 1B
Jerry Kindall - 2B
Zoilo Versalles - SS
Rich Rollins - 3B
Bob Allison - OF
Jimmie Hall - OF
Tony Oliva - OF
Harmon Killebrew - 1B/3B/OF
Sandy Valdespino - OF
Joe Nossek - OF/3B
Jerry Zimmerman - Catcher
Frank Quilici - 2B/SS
Andy Kosco - OF/1B
Bernie Allen - 2B/3B
Frank Kostro - 2B/3B/OF
Cesar Tovar - 2B/SS/3B/OF
Ted Uhlaender - OF
John Sevcik - Catcher
Rich Reese - 1B/OF
Jim "Mudcat" Grant - Pitcher
Jim Kaat - Pitcher
Camilo Pascual - Pitcher
Jim Perry - Pitcher
Dave Boswell - Pitcher
Jim Merritt - Pitcher
Dick Stigman - Pitcher
Al Worthington - Pitcher
Mel Nelson - Pitcher
Johnny Klippstein - Pitcher
Bill Pleis - Pitcher
Garry Roggenburk - Pitcher
Jerry Fosnow - Pitcher
Dwight Siebler - Pitcher
Pete Cimino - Pitcher
Sam Mele - Manager
Billy Martin - Coach
L-R: Johnny Sain - Pitching Coach with Manager Sam Mele
Jim Lemon - Coach
Hal Naragon - Coach
Calvin Griffith - Owner and GM
