1965 Rewind: Game Fifty-nine

NEW YORK 5, MINNESOTA 3 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Saturday, June 19.

Batting stars:  Rich Rollins was 2-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs.  Joe Nossek was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Johnny Klippstein pitched three innings, giving up one run on two hits and three walks.  Al Worthington pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Joe Pepitone was 1-for-2 with a home run (his seventh) and two walks.  Whitey Ford pitched 7.2 innings, allowing three runs (two earned) on eight hits and one walk with four strikeouts.  Tom Tresh was 2-for-5 with two runs and an RBI.

The game:  The first three Yankee batters got hits, a double and two singles, leading to a 2-0 lead.  Pepitone homered leading off the second and Elston Howard delivered an RBI single in the third to make it 4-0.  It was 5-1 after seven.  In the eighth, Killebrew hit a two-run triple to center to cut the lead to 5-3.  That was as close as the Twins would come, however, as Don Mincher flied out to end the inning and the Twins could only come up with a lone single in the ninth.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-4 with a run.  Tony Oliva was 1-for-3 with a walk and a run.  The Twins again got a short start, as Mudcat Grant pitched only two innings, giving up three runs on five hitsand no walks with no strikeouts.

Record:  The Twins dropped to 36-23 but remained in first place by a half game, as Chicago lost to Boston.

Notes:  Jerry Kindall was back in the lineup at second base, but was replaced by Frank Kostro in the third inning.  Killebrew hit twenty-four triples in his career.  He hit seven in 1961 but never hit more than two in any other season.  I remember, when I was a kid, watching a game on TV in which Killebrew hit a triple into the monuments in Yankee Stadium's center field, which were in play back then.  I can't prove that this was the game, but this triple was hit to center field.  There were very few Twins games televised where I was at that time, and with this being a Saturday game in Yankee Stadium it seems like there's a good chance it would have been a Game of the Week, so it seems likely to me.

2 thoughts on “1965 Rewind: Game Fifty-nine”

  1. Killebrew hit four triples at Yankee stadium in his career. One was to left, one was to left-center. The other two were to center. The one you describe here, and one in 1972, which was also on a Saturday

    1. I remember absolutely nothing about the game other than the sight of the Yankees center fielder running through the monuments to try to track down the ball. So, probably a fifty-fifty chance.

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