Monthly Archives: March 2017

Keeping Track

1987 Rewind: Game One Hundred Fifty-three

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MINNESOTA 4, TEXAS 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, September 24.

Batting stars:  Greg Gagne was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer, his tenth.  Gary Gaetti was 1-for-3 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.  Kent Hrbek was 1-for-2 with two walks.

Pitching stars:  Frank Viola struck out ten in eight shutout innings, giving up three hits and three walks.  Juan Berenguer struck out three and walked two in a scoreless inning.

Opposition stars:  Charlie Hough pitched a complete game, striking out eight in eight innings while allowing four runs on six hits and three walks.  Tom Paciorek was 1-for-3 with a walk.

The game:  In the second, Gaetti doubled and eventually scored on a wild pitch to put the Twins up 1-0.  Gaetti's sacrifice fly in the third made it 2-0.  With a man on first and one out in the sixth, Gagne hit a line drive to short center field which got past Bob Brower for an inside-the-park home run, giving the Twins a 4-0 lead.  Meanwhile, the Rangers did not get a hit until the sixth inning.  When they did, though, they got singles by Steve Buechele and Geno Petralli, followed by a one-out walk that loaded the bases.  Viola got Ruben Sierra to ground into a double play to end the threat.  Texas got men to first and second with two out in the seventh and the ninth, but could not dent the plate.

Notes:  Al Newman led off and played second base, replacing Steve Lombardozzi...Mark Davidson batted second and played left field, replacing Dan Gladden...Hrbek returned to the lineup after a nine-day absence...Viola lowered his ERA to 2.89...Berenguer got his ERA under four at 3.99...Hough pitched 107 complete games in his career.  In 1987 he led the league in starts (40), innings (285.1), and batters faced (1231).  All of those are his career highs.  He also led the league in hit batsmen (19), which is also his career high.  He hit three batters in this game, Don Baylor, Kirby Puckett, and Gagne...Puckett went 1-for-3, keeping his average at .329.

Record:  The win was the sixth straight for the Twins, who were 83-70, in first place by six games over Oakland, who lost to Chicago 4-2.  The Twins gained 2.5 games over Oakland in the six game winning streak.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–March 5

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Sam Thompson (1860)
Jeff Tesreau (1888)
Lu Blue (1897)
Elmer Valo (1921)
Del Crandall (1930)
Phil Roof (1941)
Katsuo Osugi (1945)
Kent Tekulve (1947)
Doug Bird (1950)
Mike Veeck (1951)
Mike Squires (1952)
Steve Ontiveros (1961)
Brian Hunter (1971)
Jeffrey Hammonds (1971)
Ryan Franklin (1973)
Paul Konerko (1976)
Mike MacDougal (1977)
Erik Bedard (1979)
Joe Benson (1988)

Katsuo Osugi was the first player to have a thousand hits in the Japanese Central League and the Japanese Pacific League.

The son of Bill Veeck, Mike Veeck is president of the Goldklang Baseball Group, which owns a variety of minor league teams, including the St. Paul Saints.

We would also like to wish a happy birthday to brianS’ daughter.

We would also like to wish a happy birthday to spookymilk’s father.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–March 5 →

Keeping Track

1987 Rewind: Game One Hundred Fifty-two

MINNESOTA 4, TEXAS 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, September 23.

Batting stars:  Dan Gladden was 2-for-3 with a home run (his eighth), a triple, and a walk, driving in three.  Don Baylor was 1-for-1 with an RBI.

Pitching stars:  Bert Blyleven pitched 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and five walks with five strikeouts.  Juan Berenguer retired all four batters he faced, striking out one.  Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Oddibe McDowell was 3-for-4 with two home runs, his thirteenth and fourteenth.  Tom O'Malley was 1-for-1 with a double.

The game:  Neither team got a hit through the first two innings.  That ended with the first batter of the third, when Blyleven left a pitch up to McDowell, who put the Rangers ahead 1-0.  There were no more hits in the game until the first batter of the fifth, when Blyleven again left a pitch up to McDowell, who put the Rangers ahead 2-0.  The Twins got their first hit in the fifth, a two-out single by Tom Brunansky, and tied the game in the sixth on Gladden's two-run homer.  Texas had the bases loaded with two out in the seventh, but Berenguer came in and retired Ruben Sierra on a ground out to end the threat.  In the eighth, Roy Smalley delivered a pinch-hit single and scored the go-ahead run on Gladden's triple.  Baylor came through with a two-out single later in the inning to make the score 4-2.  O'Malley hit a two-out double in the ninth to bring the tying run to bat, but Reardon got Jerry Browne on a fly to center to end the game.

Notes:  Kent Hrbek remained out of the lineup, with Randy Bush again playing first base and batting third.  Hrbek did come in to play defense in the ninth after Bush had been removed for a pinch-hitter...Kirby Puckett, batting fourth, was 0-for-4, dropping his average to .329...The scoreless inning dropped Reardon's ERA to 4.36, the lowest it had been since he pitched a scoreless inning in his first appearance of the season.  It would not go lower, and he would end the season with an ERA of 4.48...McDowell hit fourteen homers in 1987.  Six of them came against the Twins...The effects of September roster expansion can be noticed in this game, as the teams combined to use four pinch-hitters and five pinch-runners.

Record:  The Twins were 82-70, in first place by five games over Oakland, which lost to Cleveland 8-6.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–March 4

Red Murray (1884)
Jeff Pfeffer (1888)
Dazzy Vance (1891)
Lefty O'Doul (1897)
Buck Canel (1906)
Clyde McCullough (1917)
Mel Queen (1918)
Leo Righetti (1925)
Cass Michaels (1926)
Bob Johnson (1936)
Jack Fischer (1939)
Danny Frisella (1946)
Tom Grieve (1948)
Harry Saferight (1949)
Sam Perlozzo (1951)
Mark Wagner (1954)
Jeff Dedmon (1960)
Tom Lampkin (1964)
Giovanni Carrera (1968)
Dave Stevens (1970)
Mark Wegner (1972)

Born in Argentina, Buck Canel broadcast major league baseball to Latin America for over four decades, calling forty-two World Series.

The father of Dave Righetti, Leo Righetti played in the minors for twelve years, eight of them in AAA.

Harry Saferight made it to the majors with Pittsburgh in 1979, but did not appear in a game.  He got to the on-deck circle three times, but each time the last out was made before he had a chance to bat.

St. Paul native Mark Wegner has been a major league umpire since 1998.

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Friday Music Day

FMD: Stealth Attack

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Pepper shared the following quote with me from some thing she read that I admittedly haven't gotten around to reading yet (it'll happen... it hasn't even been 24 hours since she sent me the link):

As a delivery device for moments of inner emergency, no art form can approach the immediacy of popular song. A novel cannot assault you while you wait in line at the supermarket; a painting cannot reach out and turn your head as you walk on by; a poem’s feet cannot chase you down the street; a movie cannot screen itself. A song, though, can steal upon you in the dark, on a road, far from home, blow out your tires and leave you sobbing, in gratitude, at the wheel. All other art lives and dies in a medium that mandates we engage if we are to receive its gifts. Songs live in the air.

It's a great enough idea that I'm sure different parts will hit people differently, but the thing that really stuck out for me was the idea of a song "steal[ing] upon you in the dark". A song can come out of nowhere and hit you, big time. It seems like these are often sad songs, but not exclusively. I've had the same happen happily too.

So this week, I'd like to talk about stories of a time a song hit you, by surprise. What song. When and where were you, what were the emotions, how do you relate to that song now, have you ever captured that lightning in a bottle again, etc. I think I like this topic.

Keeping Track

1987 Rewind: Game One Hundred Fifty-one

MINNESOTA 6, TEXAS 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, September 22.

Batting stars:  Tom Brunansky was 2-for-4 with a home run (his thirty-first) and a double, driving in two.  Gary Gaetti was 3-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.  Kirby Puckett was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his twenty-seventh)  and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Keith Atherton retired all seven batters he faced, striking out one.  Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless inning, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Pete O'Brien was 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBIs.  Oddibe McDowell was 1-for-3 with a home run (his twelfth), a walk, and a stolen base (his twenty-first).  Jeff Russell pitched 4.2 innings of relief, giving up one run on two hits and no walks with two strikeouts.

The game:  Most of the scoring came early.  Puckett hit a two-run homer in the first to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.  McDowell homered in the second to make it 2-1.  O'Brien hit a two-run double in the third to put the Rangers up 3-2, but in the bottom of the third Greg Gagne homered to tie it and Gaetti hit an RBI single to put the Twins in front 4-3.  Brunansky homered in the fourth to make it 5-3, but Bob Brower created a run in the fifth on a single, a stolen base, and a stolen base-plus-error, cutting the margin to 5-4.  Then the scoring pretty much ran dry.  The Rangers put a man on third with one out in the sixth and one second with one out in the ninth, but could do nothing with them.  The last Twins run came in the eighth on Brunansky's RBI double.

Of note:  Kent Hrbek remained out of the lineup, with Randy Bush again playing first base and batting third with Puckett dropping to fourth...Gene Larkin was the DH in this game and the prior game.  Apparently TK believed that Bush's first base defense was superior to Larkin's.  Or, possibly, he believed that Bush would hit better if he played in the field...Puckett held his average at .332.

Record:  The Twins were 81-70, in first place by four games over Oakland.  Oakland had lost the previous day while the Twins were idle; they won this day, defeating Cleveland 10-2.