Monthly Archives: January 2016

Keeping Track

1965 Rewind: Game One Hundred Ten

MINNESOTA 9, BOSTON 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Saturday, August 7.

Batting stars:  Zoilo Versalles was 2-for-5 with a home run (his fifteenth) a stolen base (his fifteenth) and two runs.  Jimmie Hall was 2-for-4 with a triple, scoring twice and driving in one.  Jerry Kindall was 2-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI.

Pitching star:  Mudcat Grant pitched a complete game, giving up four runs on nine hits and four walks with three strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Frank Malzone was 3-for-4 with a double and a run.  Felix Mantilla was 1-for-3 with a home run (his fifteenth) and a walk.  Lee Thomas was 2-for-3 with a walk and a run.

The game:  Each team scored once in the first, with the Twins run coming on a Versalles homer.  It stayed 1-1 until the fourth, when Don Mincher's two-run homer capped a three-run inning that put the Twins up 4-1.  Hall hit an RBI triple and later scored in a three-run fifth that made it 7-1.  Solo homers by Carl Yastrzemski in the sixth and Mantilla in the eighth cut the lead to 7-3, but that Twins scored two more in the bottom of the eighth to put to bed any thoughts of a Red Sox comeback.

Of note:  Tony Oliva was 0-for-2 with a walk, scoring once and driving in one.  Bob Allison was 1-for-3 with two RBIs.

Record:  The win made the Twins 71-39.  Baltimore once again lost to last-place Kansas City, this time 7-4, so the Twins lead increased to 7.5 games.

Notes:  Hall's average went up to .306, while Oliva fell to .301...Harmon Killebrew sat out a second consecutive game, with Mincher again at first and Rich Rollins at third.  He would not return until September 21...Jerry Zimmerman started the game, but was removed for Earl Battey in the third inning.  If he was injured it was nothing serious, as he played again a few days later.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 24

Dave Brain (1879)
Pinch Thomas (1888)
Cliff Heathcote (1898)
Flint Rhem (1901)
Jean Yawkey (1909)
Johnny Dickshot (1910)
Ray Kelly (1914)
Jack Brickhouse (1916)
Walter Haas (1916)
Dick Stigman (1936)
Sandy Valdespino (1939)
Jumbo Ozaki (1947)
Tim Stoddard (1953)
Atlee Hammaker (1958)
Neil Allen (1958)
Rob Dibble (1964)
Scott Kazmir (1984)

Jean Yawkey was the wife of Tom Yawkey and was owner of the Boston Red Sox from 1978 until her death in 1992.

Ray Kelly was a baseball writer in Philadelphia for fifty years.

Jack Brickhouse was a broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs from 1948-1981.

Walter Haas was the owner of the Oakland Athletics from 1980 until his death in 1995.

Better known as a professional golfer, Jumbo Ozaki played professional baseball in Japan for three seasons, pitching for two seasons and playing outfield for one.

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Keeping Track

1965 Rewind: Game One Hundred Nine

MINNESOTA 9, BOSTON 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, August 6.

Batting stars:  Zoilo Versalles was 2-for-5 with a three-run homer (his fourteenth) and a stolen base (his fourteenth), scoring twice.  Bob Allison was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his eighteenth) and a walk, scoring twice.  Don Mincher was 3-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Jim Merritt pitched six innings, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts.  Dwight Siebler pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up one hit and two walks.

Opposition stars:  Felix Mantilla was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fourteenth) and a walk.  Lenny Green was 2-for-5 with a double and a run.  Jim Gosger was 0-for-1 with three walks and a run.

The game:  It was close most of the way.  Tony Oliva singled in a run in the third to put the Twins up 1-0, but Mantilla homered leading off the fourth to tie it 1-1.  Merritt delivered an RBI single in the fifth to make it 2-1 but the Red Sox again immediately responded, as Green doubled and later scored on an error to tie it 2-2 in the top of the sixth.  In the sixth, however, the Twins scored six times to put the game away.  Allison hit a two-run homer and later Versalles hit a two-out three-run homer to make the score 8-2.  The Red Sox never threatened to get back into the game.

Of note:  Oliva was 1-for-5 with an RBI.  Jimmie Hall was 1-for-4 with a run.

Record:  The win made the Twins 70-39.  Baltimore lost 9-4 to Kansas City, so the Twins lead increased to 6.5 games.

Notes:  Oliva was now hitting .302.  Hall remained at .304...Harmon Killebrew sat this game out, with Mincher playing first and Rich Rollins at third...This was Merritt's second major league start (his first had come August 2) and first major league win.  He made nine starts for the Twins in 1965 and pitched well in them, going 4-3, 3.55.  He then went to the bullpen and pitched even better, going 1-1 with two saves and a 1.35 ERA...Lenny Green, as you probably know, was an original Twin, coming with the team from Washington in 1961.  He became a starting outfielder in 1960 and was a fine player from 1960-62.  He slumped in 1963, however, batting only .239, and was traded the following year.  1965 was his last season as at least a semi-regular player.  He bounced back pretty well, hitting .276 with an OPS of .790, but the next year he hit .241 in only 133 at-bats and he would play only a couple more years.  His drop-off was probably due to age:  he was already twenty-seven in 1960.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 23

Ben Shibe (1838)
Red Donahue (1873)
Bobby Burke (1907)
Randy Gumpert (1918)
Chico Carrasquel (1926)
Frank Sullivan (1930)
Joe Amalfitano (1934)
Don Nottebart (1936)
Paul Ratliff (1944)
Kurt Bevacqua (1947)
Charlie Spikes (1951)
Alan Embree (1970)
Mark Wohlers (1970)
Erubiel Durazo (1974)
Brandon Duckworth (1976)
Juan Rincon (1979)

Ben Shibe was the owner of the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 until his death in 1922.  Shibe Park was named in his honor.

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Friday Music Day

Friday Music Day

44 Comments

What is your attitude on deleting songs from an album on your song library? With I-tunes, it’s so simple to eliminate the songs you don’t like that you can basically re-create any album to your liking. Don’t think Yellow Submarine belongs on Revolver? One key stroke and it’s gone. Me? I’m an album guy and for the most part I don’t eliminate songs from albums. If I want to listen to an album, then I have to listen to the way the artist/producer envisioned it (doesn’t mean I don’t use the skip button if I want to). If an album only has one or two songs I like and the rest has no interest I will take those good songs and put them on some “greatest hits” collection. I will admit that in a few cases I have found a song so odious that I’ve had to delete it; but that’s very rare.

This, of course, brings me to Guided By Voices. Robert Pollard has penned, recorded, and released thousands of songs. Even if he batted a phenomenal .600, that’s literally hundreds of songs that are crap. And believe me, even a freak like me will admit there’s a lot of crap GBV songs out there -- dude could seriously use an editor. But then who knows? One person’s garbage song is another’s treasure.

The album Propeller is a great example of this. Released on 1992, this was the album that finally caught the eye of some record company swell from NYC and Guided By Voices got invited to play in the big City with a resulting record contract. It’s the record that propelled (my pun) GBV from obscure Dayton, OH band to at least a cultish indie-darling band. The album is pretty damn good, but as I mentioned above, there’s some just awful songs on it too. I’ve kept all the GBV songs on I-tunes by album but I’ve also created playlists of their best songs (still way into the multi-hundreds) and sometimes created albums that are all killer, no filler. Propeller is one album that is a go to. If interested below is a playlist for Propeller that in my opinion is much more listenable. Perhaps create it on Spotify and give it a listen.

So drop your lists, and share your attitude about changing albums on your personal song library, do you create albums based on how they should have been released?

Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox
Weedking
Quality of Armor
Metal Mothers
Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy
Red Gas Circle
Exit Flagger
14 Cheerleader Coldfront
Ergo Space Pig
Circus World
On the Tundra