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.
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
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.