MINNESOTA 4, WASHINGTON 3 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Wednesday, August 4.
Batting stars: Jimmie Hall was 2-for-5 with a run and an RBI. Bob Allison was 1-for-4 with a home run, his seventeenth). Jerry Kindall was 1-for-1 with a pinch-hit home run, his fifth.
Pitching stars: Dick Stigman struck out five in the shutout innings, giving up only a walk. Garry Roggenburk pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits with one strikeout.
Opposition stars: Jim King was 2-for-3 with a triple, a double, and a walk, scoring once and driving in one. Mike Brumley was 2-for-4 with a run. Don Lock was 1-for-3 with a walk.
The game: It was scoreless until the fourth, when King tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly to put the Senators up 1-0. Don Mincher hit an RBI double in the bottom of the fourth to tie it 1-1. The Senators got the lead again in the fifth, scoring one on a sacrifice fly and another on King's double to make it 3-1. Allison homered leading off the sixth to make it 3-2. The Twins still trailed going into the bottom of the ninth, when Kindall opened the inning with a pinch-hit home run off Howie Koplitz. Koplitz walked Zoilo Versalles and was replaced by Marshall Bridges. Tony Oliva greeted Bridges with a single and was followed by Hall's RBI single to win the game.
Of note: Oliva was 2-for-5. Earl Battey was 0-for-3. Starter Jim Perry pitched 4.2 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and one walk with two strikeouts.
Record: The win made the Twins 68-39. Baltimore swept a doubleheader from California, cutting the Twins' lead to five games.
Notes: Oliva was hitting .303. Hall was at .305. Battey fell to .294...Jerry Kindall hit only forty-four career home runs, with a high of thirteen in 1962. He would hit only six in 1965, his last season...Washington's starter was Leslie Ferdinand "Buster" Narum. He was a rotation starter (mostly) for the Senators for two seasons, 1964-65. In those two seasons, he went 13-27, 4.37, 1.44 WHIP. He hit a home run in his first major league at-bat, one of three he hit in his career (one each in 1963, 1964, and 1965). I could not find out why he was called "Buster". Maybe it's not a very interesting story, or maybe he wasn't good enough for anyone to care. Which is kind of a sad thought, really.
That is a sad thought ... except this guy was good enough to make it to the big show, so I don't feel too bad for him.
Was at the LCS* yesterday looking through a box of APBA game cards that he had, from 1971 and 1974. We only found a couple that did not have "nickname" on them, and some of the nicknames they chose to list were kind of laughable. They clearly were trying too hard.
*local card shop