KANSAS CITY 8, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, September 20.

Batting stars:  Don Mincher was 2-for-3 with two home runs, his twentieth and twenty-first.  Frank Quilici was 2-for-3 with a double.

Pitching star:  Mudcat Grant pitched eight innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on seven hits and one walk with six strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Larry Stahl was 3-for-3 with a home run (his fourth) and two runs.  Catfish Hunter pitched seven innings, allowing two runs on four hits and one walk with three strikeouts.  Jose Tartabull was 2-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.

The game:  RBI singles by Tartabull and Dick Green led to a three-run third that put the Athletics up 3-0.  Stahl homered in the fifth to make it 4-0.  Mincher put the Twins on the board with a homer in the bottom of the fifth and hit another one in the seventh to cut the lead to 4-2.  In the ninth, however, three singles, three walks, and an error led to four Kansas City runs and put the game out of reach.  The Twins had only two hits other than the Mincher homers, both coming from the bat of Quilici.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-4.  Ted Uhlaender was 0-for-4.  Sandy Valdespino was 0-for-4.  Jimmie Hall was 0-for-4.

Record:  The Twins went to 96-56.  Chicago did not play, so they moved to nine games back.

Notes:  A win would have clinched a tie for first place...Earl Battey took an 0-for-4, dropping back below .300 at .298...Bob Allison and Tony Oliva sat this one out, with Uhlaender and Valdespino, respectively, taking their places...John Wyatt pitched two perfect innings for Kansas City to get the save.  He was a fine relief pitcher in the 1960s, before there was much glory in the position.  He had double-digit saves from 1962-67, with a high of twenty-one in 1963.  His best year, however, was probably 1964, when he went 9-8, 3.59, 1.27 WHIP with twenty saves.  He led the league in appearances that year with eighty-one and pitched 128 innings, all in relief.  He made his only all-star appearance that season.  After a poor start in 1966, the Athletics traded him to Boston, where he was a key part of the Impossible Dream season in 1967.  He went 10-7 with twenty saves that year, posting a 2.74 ERA.  He again got off to a slow start in 1968 and was sold to the Yankees.  They sold him to Detroit a month later and Wyatt went to the World Series again, going 1-0, 2.37, 1.22 WHIP with two saves in 30.1 innings (22 appearances).  He went to Oakland for 1969 but was released in late May, ending his career.  He then went into real estate development, building apartments for the underprivileged.  He passed away in April of 1998, shortly before his sixty-third birthday.