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 players listed below had just one hit while wearing a Minnesota Twins uniform. Most had more than one big league hit in their big league careers but for our purposes we are just looking for those players that had just one hit while wearing Minnesota Twins colors.
As you might suspect, since this list covers players that played for the Minnesota Twins from 1961 (when pitchers still batted) through 2019 the list has a lot of pitchers on it. The right-hand column on the list shows you the positions played by that player.
Everyday is a good day to thank a Veteran for his service but Veterans Day is even more meaningful. With the national election behind us and a new President waiting his turn to sit in the Oval office we should all be thankful to the Veterans who have made this possible. It makes no difference if you voted for the President-elect or not, it is now time to respect the wishes of the people and the laws of this country and to roll up our sleeves and move on to make it even better than what is already is.
Here is a list of former Minnesota Twins players that have served their country. Please take a few moments to thank them for their service.
The Minnesota Twins open their 2015 exhibition season by playing the Minnesota Gophers on March 4 and they will play their final spring training game on Saturday April 4th at Hammond Stadium against the Boston Red Sox. When early April rolls around we will all have a pretty good idea who will make this years opening day roster. Having said that, I don’t think that Twins fans should get too attached to the players on the opening day roster because I have a feeling that the “roster will be a-changing” and I can’t wait to see some of that new blood when it heads north to Minnesota and Target field.
The Minnesota Twins played their first ever exhibition game on March 11, 1961 at Tinker Field in Orlando. Cookie Lavagetto and his boys took on the Detroit Tigers and their first game turned out to be a 4-1 loss. Paul Giel started the game for Minnesota and took the loss and Bob Bruce who started for the Tigers was credited with the victory. You will notice in the box score that although this was the first game of spring training and players were not in the shape that they are in today that a number of the pitchers that pitched in this game logged three innings not the one inning that you will probably see tomorrow.
Paul Giel (courtesy of the Minnesota Twins)
The box score below was provided courtesy of Stew Thornley, Thanks Stew, we appreciate it!
The Twins play their first ever exhibition game and lose 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers at Tinker Field. Paul Giel was the starting pitcher for Minnesota and Zoilo Versalles was the first Twins batter.
With the World Series now in the books all the teams in major league baseball are reviewing what went wrong and what they can do to make their teams better for 2013 and beyond. Two quick ways to solve some problems are by signing free agents or by making some trades. Free agency is relatively new to baseball and came into play as part of baseball’s 1976 collective bargaining agreement and changed the landscape of baseball forever. Thanks to players like Curt Flood, Catfish Hunter, Andy Messersmith, and Dave McNally players were no longer tied forever to the team that signed them to their first contract.
Baseball trades however; have taken place since baseball began. Today, outside of players that were drafted this past season and players that have no-trade clauses in their contracts, any player currently under contract can be sent packing in hopes of improving the team’s record. Trades sound simple, all you have to do is to agree on what you are willing to give up to get what you want. But that is easier said then done. In the past, trades were much easier to make than they are today, the money involved was much smaller and very few players had multi-year contracts. In the past, most trades were made strictly to improve the product on the field but in today’s world baseball trades may be made for a variety of reasons including player performance on and off the field, salaries, length of contracts, arbitration, trade demands by the player, medical issues, legal concerns, up-coming free agency deadlines and even the teams fan base needs to be considered because trading a popular player can raise all kinds of havoc with ticket sales.
The Twins made their first trade back on June 1, 1961 when owner and GM Calvin Griffith agreed to send 3B Reno Bertoia and pitcher Paul Giel to the Kansas City A’s in return for outfielder Bill Tuttle and since that time the Twins have made 276 trades, some have turned out great and others have been nothing to brag about. We all think we can make better trades than our current teams GM can but then again it is always easy to be an arm-chair quarterback and to be able to spend other people’s money.
So what about the Minnesota Twins trading history? Over the years the Twins have traded the most frequently with the Cleveland Indians (20 times) and only traded once with the Tampa Bay Rays and there are more than just a few fans that will tell you that they wish that the Twins had never traded with Tampa, but that is a whole different story. The Twins have not been able to make a deal with the Kansas City Royals since 1978, that is 34 years ago, what is up with that? I have put together a chart showing how many trades the Twins have made with each of the other teams and in which decade the deals were made.
The Twins opening day 3B and hitting star of the game was 1 for 2 with a two-run home run and 2 runs scored.
April 18, 2011 – The Twins opening day third-baseman in the Minnesota Twins first ever game back on April 11, 1961 against the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium I, Reno Peter Bertoia, passed away on April 15th after a brief battle with lymphoma cancer. Reno Bertoia is the fifth member of that opening day line-up to pass on.
Bertoia was born in St. Vito Udine, Italy on January 8, 1935 but his family moved to Windsor, Canada when he was just an infant. He grew up next door to another famous Windsor athlete, Hank Biasatti who made it to the majors and Reno is reported to be the last Italian-born player to reach the major leagues.
Bertoia graduated from Assumption College high school and in August of 1953, Reno was voted Most Outstanding Prospect in the City of Detroit, and sent to play in the Hearst All-Star game in New York City. He’d also been given a baseball scholarship to the University of Michigan. After New York, John McHale, general manager for the Tigers pursued him, and offered Reno his first major-league contract. Without playing a minor league game, Reno Bertoia was in the majors. Bertoia’s first major league at bat came at the tender age of 18 at the Tigers Briggs Stadium against the St. Louis Browns on September 22, 1953. His first at bat is a well known bit of local Windsor lore because it came against Hall of Famer Satchel Paige. “He told us he swung once, he swung twice, he swung three times and he sat down” recalled Beth Daly, his stepdaughter. That one appearance was Bertoia’s only big league plate appearance that first big league season because shortly after his first at bat, Bertoia was spiked while playing 2B and he was forced to leave the game. That was some welcome to the “big leagues”. Bertoia played for the Tigers through the 1958 season before being traded to the Washington Senators where he had his most productive season in 1960. When the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1961, Bertoia became a Minnesota Twin and was the starting third-baseman, but on June 1, 1961 the Twins traded Bertoia and pitcher Paul Giel to the Kansas City Athletics for Bill Tuttle. In his brief 35 game career as a Minnesota Twin, Reno had 104 at bats, 1 home run, 8 RBI’s and finished with a .212 batting average. Bertoia’s stay in Kansas City was also short-lived and he was again traded back to the Detroit Tigers where he finished his big league career in 1962. Bertoia played in the minors in 1963 and then went to Japan in 1964 where he played for one season with the Hanshin Tigers.
Reno Bertoia
Bertoia was a Canadian baseball pioneer and blazed the way for Canadian players of today like Justin Morneau and Joey Votto. Reno Bertoia was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988. Retired Windsor Star columnist Marty Gervais wrote a book about Bertoia’s baseball career, simply called “Reno”.
Reno then went on to his second career of teaching and he taught for 30 years for the Windsor Catholic school board. “He was in many ways prouder of his teaching career,” Daly said because he felt he impacted a lot of people’s lives. Bertoia also spent some time scouting for the Detroit Tigers and the Toronto Blue Jays after his retirement from baseball.
Bertoia is survived by his wife Joan Daly, three children and three step-children. The funeral mass will be held on Tuesday, April 19 in Windsor.
September 13, 2009 – Paul Robert Giel was born on September 29, 1932 in Winona, Minnesota. Giel attended the University of Minnesota where he was a star in both baseball and football. For the Gopher baseball team, he was a three-time all-American pitcher and still holds the school record with 243 strikeouts in his three seasons. Football however; may have been Giel’s best sport. As a single-wing tailback, he also played quarterback on offense, punted, returned kicks, and played in the defensive backfield. Giel was selected as the Big Ten’s MVP in 1952 and again in 1953. Giel was selected twice as a football All-American and after his senior year in 1953 the Minnesota Gophers captain finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting to Notre Dame QB Johnny Lattner. Giel was also selected as the UPI player of the year and AP back of the year as a senior. Many years later, Paul Giel was elected as a member of the National Football Foundation Football College Hall of Fame.
The Canadian Football League offered Giel $75,000 over three years, and the Chicago Bears held his National Football League rights. Seven or eight baseball teams, including all three in New York, the Giants, the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers all wanted him. Giel signed with the Giants for a $60,000 bonus, their highest ever at the time. Paul had a “live” fastball, a good slider and an ordinary curveball and needed minor league seasoning, but the rules at the time required such so-called bonus babies to spend at least their first two years in the major leagues. In his major league debut on July 10, 1954 at the Polo Grounds against the Pirates, Giel pitched the ninth inning with the Giants trailing 10-7 and he struck out all three batters that he faced. He played sparingly, appearing in only 40 games in his first two seasons. Giel served as an Army officer in 1956 and 1957 before returning to baseball and the Giants in 1958 that by this time had moved to San Francisco. The Giants waived Giel in 1959 and he was picked up by the Pittsburgh Pirates where he pitched for 2 seasons before being sold to Minnesota in February of 1961.
Paul Giel became the first Minnesota native to appear in a Twins uniform when he came in to pitch in relief on April 15, 1961 against the Baltimore Orioles at Memorial stadium. The Twins were losing to the Orioles 6-0 when Giel was called to the mound in the top of the 5th inning. Paul pitched 3 innings that day giving up 3 hits (one was a two run home run to future HOF manager Dick Williams), 2 runs, both earned, issued a walk while striking out two Orioles.
Paul only pitched in 12 games for the Minnesota Twins before he was traded in a very unusual deal to the Kansas City Royals on June 1, 1961 in what is considered the Twins first ever trade. Giel’s career numbers with the Twins were not all that impressive, he only pitched 19.1 innings giving up 24 hits, 21 earned runs for an ERA of 9.78 while walking 17 and striking out 14. The unusual deal started on June 1, 1961 when the Minnesota Twins traded Paul Giel, Reno Bertoia, and a player to be named later to the Kansas City Athletics for outfielder Bill Tuttle and a player to be named later. He is where things get a little strange, on June 10, the Twins sent cash to Kansas City instead of a player to be named later, nothing special here yet, correct? Well, Kansas City still owed Minnesota a player to be named later and guess who that turned out to be, yup, it was Paul Giel. So in the end Giel was traded to the A’s but they shipped him back to the Twins as their player to be named later. In a manner of speaking, Giel was traded for himself after pitching in only one game for the A’s. Paul Giel never appeared in another major league game after being traded back to Minnesota.
After retiring from pro baseball, Giel served stints as a business manager for the Minnesota Vikings and sports director at WCCO radio. In 1972 Paul Giel became Athletic Director at the University of Minnesota. Giel served as the AD during some turbulent times at the U of M and in 1988 he was let go by the University of Minnesota after nearly three years of controversy that included rape allegations against basketball players visiting Madison, Wis., in 1986. Eventually the players were acquitted and many felt at that time and still feel today that Paul Giel was made the scapegoat and lost his job through no fault of his own. After he left the Gophers AD’s position, Giel spent 12 years as the U of M’s vice president of public affairs and chief fund raiser for the Minneapolis Heart Institution Foundation. Paul Giel was plagued by heart issues late in life and died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on May 22, 2002. It is fitting that a person of this caliber is credited as being the first Minnesota native to play for the Minnesota Twins.
