CALIFORNIA 5, MINNESOTA 0 IN CALIFORNIA

Date:  Wednesday, June 30.

Batting stars:  None.  The Twins had only two hits, both singles.

Pitching stars:  Jim Perry pitched three innings of relief, giving up one run on one hit and two walks with one strikeout.  Jerry Fosnow struck out three in three shutout innings, giving up one hit and one walk.

Opposition stars:  Fred Newman pitched a complete game shutout, allowing two hits and one walk with two strikeouts.  Buck Rodgers was 2-for-3 with a triple, scoring once and driving in two.  Joe Adcock was 2-for-4 with a run.

The game:  All the scoring came early.  A single, a Buck Rodgers triple, and three more singles produced three Angels runs in the second.  In the third, California loaded the bases with none out and hit a pair of sacrifice flies.  And that was it.  The closest the Twins came to a threat was in the second inning, when a one-out walk to Harmon Killebrew and a two-out single by Jerry Kindall put men on first and second.  Jerry Zimmerman grounded out to end the inning.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-4.  Sandy Valdespino was 0-for-4.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-3.  Jimmie Hall was 0-for-3.  Killebrew was 0-for-2 with a walk.  Starter Bill Pleis pitched two innings, giving up four runs on seven hits and one walk with no strikeouts.

Record:  The loss made the Twins 43-28 and kept them in second place, a game behind Cleveland.  The top four teams in the league all lost, with Chicago dropping a doubleheader.

Notes:  So who is this awesome pitcher, Fred Newman?  Well, he played for the Angels in parts of six seasons.  He had two seasons in which he was very good, 1964 and 1965.  His won-lost record doesn't show it--he was 13-10 in 1964 and 14-16 in 1965--but he had ERAs below three both seasons.  Even granting that it was a pitchers' era, that's pretty good.  He was never a strikeout pitcher, averaging less than four strikeouts per nine innings.  He pitched 260 innings in 1965 at age twenty-three, which appears to have led to both injury and ineffectiveness.  He made nineteen starts with an ERA well over four in 1966, was injured most of 1967, was a minor league relief pitcher in 1968, and then was done.  He passed away due to injuries suffered in an automobile accident in June of 1987.