Tag: Zoilo Versalles

Jose Valdivielso – a member of 1961 Twins passes away

Jose Valdivielso

One of the few remaining members, Jose Valdivielso, of the 1961 Minnesota Twins passed away on March 4, 2025 at the age of 90. José Martinez de Valdivielso Lopez was born on May 22, 1934 in Matanzas, Cuba.

Valdivielso started his professional baseball career as a shortstop with the Class C 1953 Lubbock Hubbers in the West Texas-New Mexico League. During the 1954 season Valdivielso was assigned to the Washington Nationals in an unknown transaction and was sent from Lubbock to the Class B Rock Hill Chiefs and then on to the Class A Charlotte Hornets. He started the 1955 season with Charlotte but was called up by the Washington Nationals and made his MLB debut on June 21, 1955 at Griffith Stadium against the Chicago White Sox in a 6-1 Nats loss in which Valdivielso went 0 for 3. Valdivielso split his time with the Nats and their minor league teams in 1955-1956.

Valdivielso with Minneapolis Millers in 1958

Somehow he ended up playing for the Chicago White Sox AAA Indianapolis Indians in 1957 and in 1958 he split his time with the AAA Boston Red Sox Minneapolis Millers and the AAA San Francisco Giants Phoenix Giants. He started the 1959 season with the AAA Baltimore Orioles Miami Marlins and then low and behold he showed back up with the Washington Nationals where he played in the rest of the 1959 and the 1960 season.

In 1960, the team’s sixtieth and last season in Washington, Valdivielso was the Senators’ most-used shortstop, starting in 92 games and playing a career-high 117 contests. But by late September he had lost his starting job to Zoilo Versalles, a 20-year-old fellow countryman.

Valdivielso spent the 1961 season with the Minnesota Twins but only played in 76 games mainly as a defensive replacement and had just 158 PA’s in which he hit .195 with 29 hits and 9 RBI. One of those 29 hits was his lone Twins home run a long blast to left field that took place on June 4, 1961 at Tiger Stadium off Frank Lary in a 10-4 Twins loss to the Detroit Tigers. Jose played his final major league game at Met Stadium against the Detroit Tigers and went 2 for 3 with an RBI on the 1961 season’s final game, which was called in the top of the sixth inning on account of rain.

Valdivielso never played in the major leagues again and finished his career with the Minnesota Twins AAA Vancouver Mounties in 1962, and the Chicago White Sox AAA Indianapolis Indians in 1963-1964. In total, Jose Valdivielso collected 213 hits in the majors, with 26 doubles and eight triples to go along with his nine home runs.

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Youngest Twins players to make their debuts

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.

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Twins retire Washington Senators ‘W’

The Twins retired the Washington Senators' "W" during a pregame ceremony honoring the Senators' 1924 World Series championship ahead of their series finale against the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024, at Target Field in Minneapolis. / Nolan O'Hara / Bring Me The News
The Twins retired the Washington Senators’ “W” during a pregame ceremony honoring the Senators’ 1924 World Series championship ahead of their series finale against the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024, at Target Field in Minneapolis. / Nolan O’Hara / Bring Me The News

The Twins retired the Washington Senators’ “W” during a pregame ceremony honoring the 100th anniversary of the 1924 World Series Senators team ahead of Sunday afternoon’s series finale against the Cleveland Guardians at Target Field in Minneapolis.

Here is what Wikipedia has about the Washington Senators 1924 World Series.

In 1924, Griffith named 27-year-old second baseman Bucky Harris player-manager. Led by the hitting of Goose Goslin and Sam Rice, and a solid pitching staff headlined by the 36-year-old Johnson, the Senators captured their first American League pennant, two games ahead of Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees.

“The Senators faced John McGraw’s heavily favored New York Giants in the 1924 World Series. Despite Johnson losing both of his starts, the Senators kept pace to tie the Series at three games apiece and force Game 7. The Senators trailed the Giants 3–1 in the eighth inning of Game 7, when Bucky Harris hit a routine ground ball to third which hit a pebble and took a bad hop over Giants third baseman Freddie Lindstrom. Two runners scored on the play, tying the score at three. In the ninth inning with the game tied, 3–3, Harris brought in an aging Johnson to pitch on just one day of rest – he had been the losing pitcher in Game 5. Johnson held the Giants scoreless into extra innings. In the bottom of the 12th inning, Muddy Ruel hit a high foul ball near home plate. The Giants’ catcher, Hank Gowdy, dropped his protective face mask to field the ball but, failing to toss the mask aside, stumbled over it and dropped the ball, thus giving Ruel another chance to bat. On the next pitch, Ruel hit a double and, then proceeded to score the winning run when Earl McNeely hit a ground ball that took another bad hop over Lindstrom’s head. It was the only World Series triumph for the franchise during their 60-year tenure in Washington.“

The “W” is the 10th number — or letter — retired by the Twins, joining Harmon Killebrew (No. 3), Rod Carew (No. 29), Tony Oliva (No. 6), Kent Hrbek (No. 14), Kirby Puckett (No. 34), Bert Blyleven (No. 28), Tom Kelly (No. 10), Joe Mauer (No. 7) and Jim Kaat (No. 36).

Twins Press Release 081124 _ _ MLB Pressbox

Top 10 offensive seasons by a Twins position player

Rod Carew’s .388 batting average in 1977 was the highest in baseball since Ted Williams in 1957. (National Baseball Hall of Fame)

It is always interesting to look back over the years and try to determine who has had the best offensive season for your favorite team. In the case of the Minnesota Twins I think that is a pretty easy answer, Rod Carew in 1977 and his run at hitting .400. I was lucky that I was able to witness that season as I was able to get out to Met Stadium and see a number of his games in person. Here is a short 3 minute video (don’t forget to turn on the sound) for you to watch about Rod. An interesting point is that none have taken place at Target Field.

But the Twins have had many great offensive seasons by their players and today we going to provide a list of the top 10 (actually 11) for you. All the players on this list have a WAR of 7.0 or above. As you go down the list you can picture the player in your mind or if you weren’t around or didn’t follow the Twins back then this website will hopefully learn more about that player and his contribution to Minnesota Twins history. As always we are going to use Baseball-Reference.com and their nifty tool “Stathead” to help us identify the players for this list by rating them using WAR.

Twins top 10 offensive seasons by a Twins player

Over the years, there have been 141 players with a WAR of 9.0 or more in a season, here is the list. Any surprises? Feel free to leave your comments.

Babe Ruth

List of 141 MLB players with WAR of 9.0 or higher

Using dWAR to determine Twins best gloves over the years

What is dWAR? Defensive WAR (dWAR): this takes only the player’s defensive contributions and positional adjustment into account in a WAR calculation. dWAR was created by Baseball-Reference. I am using this tool to look at Minnesota Twins players from 1961 thru 2023 to see what it determines as the best defensive Twins players by position for their entire Twins career. A player has to have played at least 51% of his games at that position to qualify. According to dWAR, Greg Gagne is the best defensive player the Twins have ever had.

Minnesota Twins Greg Gagne (7) in action, 6/16/1991 CREDIT: Chuck Solomon (Photo by Chuck Solomon /Getty Images

Catcher – Butch Wynegar 9.0 Glenn Borgmann 4.1

First Base – Ron Jackson -0.4 C.J. Cron -0.4

Second Base – Chuck Knoblauch 8.6 Steve Lombardozzi 3.7

Third Base – Gary Gaetti 11.3 Nick Punto 8.6

Shortstop – Greg Gagne 12.4 Zoilo Versalles 8.6

Left Field – Lew Ford 2.0 Gary Ward 1.2

Center Field – Byron Buxton 7.6 Torii Hunter 6.2

Right Field – Max Kepler 3.0 Tom Brunansky 1.2

Pitcher – Camilo Pascual -0.1 Mudcat Grant -0.1

So what do you all think? Is dWAR a fair way to help determine the best defensive players? Here is a B-R Stathead link to the best defensive players in all of MLB from 1961 thru 2023, does this list make you a believer?

Some of the best Twins we saw at Metropolitan Stadium

Minnesota Twins home from 1961-1981

Baseball was fun to watch at Metropolitan Stadium from 1961-1981 and a lot of MLB and Minnesota Twins “greats” played there. Here is a short list of some of the Twins leaders in some hitting and pitching categories. Keep in mind these are stats accumulated only while playing at Met Stadium.

Games played – Harmon Killebrew-963, Tony Oliva-842, Rod Carew-817

Hits – Rod Carew-1,046, Tony Oliva-935, Harmon Killebrew-844

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Twins 1965 World Series star Mudcat Grant passes away at 85

Mudcat Grant

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.

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Opening Day Complete Games

Bert Blyleven

As you watch the 2021 MLB Opening Day games tomorrow one of the things that you are unlikely to see is a complete game win by a starting pitcher. Back in the day, it was normal to see starting pitchers throw complete games in their final one or two spring training exhibition starts and complete games on OD were a normal occurrence. Not so in todays baseball.

Last year Chicago Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks pitched a complete game throwing 103 pitches as he shutout the Milwaukee Brewers 3-0 on July 24. It was the first complete game on OD (not counting a five inning effort by Gerrit Cole in 2020) since April 1, 2013 when Clayton Kershaw shutout the San Francisco Giants 4-0. The last complete game on OD in the American League goes back even farther, back to April 1, 2011 when Felix Hernandez got a CG 6-2 win against the Oakland A’s. The last pitcher to pitch a complete game against the Twins was Rick Rhoden when he was pitching for the New York Yankees on April 5, 1988 after the Minnesota Twins won the 1987 World Series.

The Minnesota Twins OD complete games are documented below.

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Remembering the Twins first season from 1961 – Week 1

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.

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Twins Top 10 list for lowest batting average with 500+ AB’s

It is always fun to look back and see if former Minnesota Twins players were as good as you remember them.

Zoilo Versalles

Today we look back and see what Twins players had the lowest batting average in a season in which they had 500 or more at bats.  Not a great list for Zoilo to appear on just two years removed from winning the American leagues MVP award. I was surprised to see a current Twins player on this list. Some pretty good players on this list but you have to be a good player to get 500 at bats in a big league season.

Results
Rk Player BA AB Year Age G R H HR RBI
1 Zoilo Versalles .200 581 1967 27 160 63 116 6 50
2 Max Kepler .224 532 2018 25 156 80 119 20 58
3 Tom Brunansky .227 542 1983 22 151 70 123 28 82
4 Gary Gaetti .229 577 1990 31 154 61 132 16 85
5 Gary Gaetti .230 508 1982 23 145 59 117 25 84
6 Roy Smalley .231 584 1977 24 150 93 135 6 56
7 Brian Dozier .236 628 2015 28 157 101 148 28 77
8 Torii Hunter .240 521 2015 39 139 67 125 22 81
9 Zoilo Versalles .241 568 1962 22 160 69 137 17 67
10 Brian Dozier .242 598 2014 27 156 112 145 23 71
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/19/2019.