MINNESOTA 6, BOSTON 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, July 5 (Game 1 of doubleheader).

Batting stars:  Jimmie Hall was 2-for-4 with two doubles, two stolen bases (his fifth and sixth) and a walk, scoring once and driving in one.  Tony Oliva was 1-for-3 with a triple and two walks, scoring three times.  Bob Allison was 3-for-5 with two doubles and an RBI.

Pitching star:  Dave Boswell struck out eight in ten innings, giving up two runs on six hits and two walks.

Opposition stars:  Tony Horton was 2-for-4 with a home run, his second.  Lee Thomas was 1-for-3 with a home run (his fourteenth) and a walk.  Bob Duliba struck out two in two shutout innings, allowing two hits and a walk.

The game:  Hall had an RBI double in the first inning, with Oliva scoring from first, to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.  Oliva circled the bases on a triple-plus-error in the third to make it 2-0.  Horton homered in the fourth to cut the lead in half at 2-1, but Zoilo Versalles delivered an RBI single with two out in the bottom of the fourth to give the Twins a two-run lead again.  It was still 3-1 in the sixth when a single and two walks loaded the bases for the Twins with one out.  Harmon Killebrew drove in two with a single and Allison singled in another to give the Twins a 6-1 advantage.  Thomas homered in the ninth and the Red Sox put two on with two out, but Russ Nixon grounded out to end the game.

Of note:  Versalles was 2-for-4 with an RBI.  Killebrew was 2-for-5 with two RBIs.

Record:  The win put the Twins at 47-28, in first place, and a game ahead of Cleveland, which lost to the White Sox 3-1.

Notes:  There were no doubleheaders on Sunday, July 4, but five of them on Monday, July 5...Hall raised his average to .314...With Allison back in the lineup, Killebrew returned to the fourth spot in the order, but Oliva moved up to second, with Hall third...Earl Battey returned to the lineup as well, going 2-for-3 with a walk and a run to raise his average to .303...Largely forgotten now, first baseman Tony Horton was a pretty good ballplayer.  In 1965, as a twenty-year-old, he would hit .294/.361/.485 in 163 at-bats for the Sox.  He went back to AAA in 1966 in favor of George Scott, had an outstanding season there, started 1967 with Boston, and was traded to Cleveland in June, where he spent the rest of his career.  In almost four seasons with the Indians, he hit .269/.316/.439, numbers that don't sound like anything special now but were pretty good for the time.  He was an extremely intense player, a perfectionist, and eventually the pressure of playing major league baseball got to him.  He had what was termed a nervous breakdown in late August of 1970 and never played professional baseball again, his career over at age twenty-five.  He apparently had a successful business career and at last report was living in Pacific Palisades, California.