1969 Rewind: Game Twenty-four

CLEVELAND 1, MINNESOTA 0 IN CLEVELAND

Date:  Tuesday, May 6.

Batting stars:  Cesar Tovar was 2-for-4.

Pitching star:  Dave Boswell pitched an eight-inning complete game, giving up one run on five hits and a walk and striking out three.

Opposition stars:  Sam McDowell pitched a complete game shutout, giving up three hits and no walks and striking out six.  Tony Horton was 1-for-3 with a home run.

The game:  The Twins had three baserunners.  Tovar led off the first with a single but was erased when Harmon Killebrew hit into a double play.  Frank Quilici led off the third with a single--he was replaced by Ted Uhlaender on a forceout and Uhlaender was caught stealing.  Tovar led off the seventh with a single, was bunted to second, and stayed there as Killebrew and Bob Allison each flied out.

The Indians didn't do a lot better, getting just five hits.  However, one of them was a one-out home run by Horton, the only run of the game.

WP;  McDowell (2-3).  LP:  Boswell (3-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Leo Cardenas was 0-for-2 and was batting .319.  Uhlaender was 0-for-3 and was batting .310.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-3 and was batting .306.  Killebrew was 0-for-3 and was batting .304.

Rod Carew was apparently still off with the National Guard, because Quilici played second base.  Tovar was at third.

Normally, Oliva and Killebrew manned the three and four spots in the order, sometimes in that order, sometimes reversed.  In this game, however, Oliva was dropped to the number five spot, with Allison batting fourth.  Possibly that had to do with the left-handed McDowell being on the mound.

Not that he wasn't valuable at the time, but a man like Tovar, who could play pretty much anywhere on the field, would be incredibly valuable in today's era of short benches.  For his career, he played 469 games in center, 394 games in left, and 207 games in right.  As an infielder, he played 227 games at third, 215 games at second, and 77 games at short.  He also famously played one game at first, catcher, and pitcher, the game in 1968 in which he played an inning at each position.  He received MVP votes in each year from 1967-1971, finishing seventh in 1967.  He led the league in hits in 1971 and led in both doubles and triples in 1970.

Both pitchers threw complete games.  I suspect one could count the number of times that happened in 2018 on one hand.  Not making a commentary on which is better or worse, just noting that the game has changed.

The Indians had a terrible team in 1969, finishing 62-99.  After beating the Twins here, they were 4-18.  It sure wasn't McDowell's fault, though.  Because he played on a lot of bad teams in a pitcher's era, people have forgotten how awesome Sudden Sam McDowell was.  He made the all-star team six times.  He led the league in ERA and also in strikeouts in 1965, incredibly not getting a single Cy Young vote that season.  In fact, the only season in which he did receive Cy Young votes was 1970, when he led the league with 305 innings, went 20-12, 2.92 and had 304 strikeouts.  He led the league in strikeouts five times.  He had an ERA under three six times, with his best coming in 1968 (1.81).  In his eight seasons in the Cleveland rotation, the worst ERA he posted was 3.85, in 1967.  He still had 236 strikeouts in 236.1 innings that season.

Record:  The Twins' eight-game winning streak was ended.  They were 16-8, in first place, leading Oakland by 1.5 games.

Happy Birthday–October 25

Jack Doyle (1869)
Smoky Joe Wood (1889)
Jack Kent Cooke (1912)
Lee McPhail (1917)
Russ Meyer (1923)
Bobby Thomson (1923)
Bobby Brown (1924)
Roy Hartsfield (1925)
Chuck Schilling (1937)
Al Cowens (1951)
Roy Smalley (1952)
Rowland Office (1952)
Tito Landrum (1954)
Danny Darwin (1955)
Andy McGaffigan (1956)
Steve Decker (1965)
Keith Garagozzo (1969)
Pedro Martinez (1971)
Wilkin Ramirez (1985)

Jack Kent Cooke, better known as the owner of the Washington Redskins and the Los Angeles Lakers, owned the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team in the International League from 1951-1964.  He made several unsuccessful attempts to bring major league baseball to Toronto and is a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Lee MacPhail was the general manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1958-1965 and of the New York Yankees from 1966-1973.  He was the president of the American League from 1974-1983.  He is the son of Larry MacPhail and the father of Andy MacPhail.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–October 25

Happy Birthday–October 24

Ned Williamson (1857)
Bill Kuehne (1858)
Lou Sockalexis (1871)
Ossie Bluege (1900)
Jack Russell (1905)
Jim Brosnan (1929)
Rawly Eastwick (1950)
Omar Moreno (1952)
Gary Serum (1956)
Ron Gardenhire (1957)
Junior Ortiz (1959)
Danny Clay (1961)
Rafael Belliard (1961)
Gene Larkin (1962)
Arthur Rhodes (1969)
Rafael Furcal (1977)
Chris Colabello (1983)

Third baseman Ossie Bluege played for the franchise in Washington for eighteen years and remained in the organization for many years after that. He is credited as being the first third baseman to guard the lines in the late innings. He is also credited as the scout who discovered Harmon Killebrew.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–October 24

1969 Rewind: Game Twenty-three

MINNESOTA 4, CHICAGO 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Sunday, May 4.

Batting stars:  George Mitterwald was 3-for-3.  Cesar Tovar was 2-for-5 with a triple.  Graig Nettles hit a pinch-hit home run, his third.

Pitching stars:  Dick Woodson pitched 6.2 innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and three walks and striking out none.  Joe Grzenda pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up a walk.  Ron Perranoski pitched a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Luis Aparicio was 2-for-4 with a triple, a double, a walk, and a stolen base, his sixth.  Bill Melton was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The Twins started the scoring in the second.  Mitterwald doubled with one out but was thrown out trying to stretch it to a triple, leaving the Twins with two out and none on.  Frank Quilici walked and advanced to third on a pair of wild pitches.  Ted Uhlaender walked, and the pair pulled off a double steal of second and home, giving Minnesota a 1-0 lead.  It went to 2-0 in the third when Tovar tripled and scored on a Leo Cardenas sacrifice fly.

The White Sox were putting men on base, but could not do anything with them.  They had a pair of walks in the first, a leadoff double by Aparicio in the fourth, a walk and a single with one out in the fifth, and one-out singles by Melton and Pete Ward in the sixth, all to no avail.  Duane Josephson got a leadoff single in the seventh.  The next two batters went out, but this time Carlos May singled to score Josephson and Aparicio tripled to tie the game.  Charlie Walters came in to replace Woodson but gave up a double to Melton, putting Chicago ahead 3-2.  Grzenda came in to retire the side, but the damage had been done.

The Twins came back in the eighth.  With one out, Nettles pinch-hit for Mitterwald, who had gone 3-for-3, and hit a home run to tie the score 3-3.  A walk, an error, and an intentional walk loaded the bases and Tovar delivered a single to put the Twins ahead 4-3.  Uhlaender was thrown out at the plate, but it did not cost the Twins, as Perranoski came in to retire the White Sox on three ground outs to end the game.

WP:  Grzenda (1-1).  LP:  Bob Locker (1-1).  S:  Perranoski (5).

Notes:  Rod Carew did not start, but came in as a defensive replacement.  He went 0-for-1, making his average .395.  It's kind of an interesting move--Carew came in to play second, Quilici moved from second to third, and Tovar went from third to left to replace Bob Allison.  Billy Martin obviously felt that gave him a better defense.  Whether it actually did seems at least somewhat debatable.

In the eighth, not only did Nettles pinch-hit for Mitterwald, but Charlie Manuel pinch-hit for Quilici.  After that, Martin's defensive move was to put Nettles in left field, rather than play Manuel or to leave Tovar there, and to move Tovar back to third base, rather than to play Nettles there.  Nettles obviously did not have the reputation for defense at third that he would later gain, but it again seems debatable whether that was the best defensive move Martin could have made.

Cardenas was 0-for-4 and was batting .326.  Uhlaender was 0-for-2 with two walks and was batting .321.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-2 with two walks and was batting .316.  Oliva was 0-for-4 and was also batting .316.  Grzenda's ERA was 2.93.  Perranoski's ERA was 0.37.

Tommy John started for the White Sox.  He pitched just four innings before being removed for a pinch-hitter with Chicago down 2-0, but with men on first and second with one out.  Pinch-hitter Walt Williams popped up to second.  John gave up two runs on five hits and three walks and struck out three.

Bill Melton looked like he was going to be really good when he was young.  In fact he was really good for a couple of years, but then it fell apart for him.  He was twenty-three in 1969 and in his first full season in the big leagues he hit .255/.326/.433.  He posted an OPS of over .800 his next two seasons.  He made the all-star team for the only time in 1971, but the two seasons were remarkably similar.  He hit 33 home runs in each season, and his slash lines are very close.  He missed much of 1972, but came back in 1973 to hit twenty homers and post an OPS of .802 at age twenty-seven.  That was as good as it would get for him, though.  He had a couple more down years for the White Sox, bounced to California in 1976 and to Cleveland in 1977, then was done at age thirty-one.  It was a back injury that cost him a lot of the 1972 season, and while no one comes right out and says so, one gets the impression that his back bothered him the rest of his career.

Record:  The Twins had won eight in a row and were in first place with a record of 16-7.  They led Oakland by 2.5 games.

World Series Game 1 — Dodgers at Red Sox

It’s opening night of the 114th World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. Two teams with the top payrolls in baseball representing two of the top nine media markets in the country. Two teams with long, storied histories. West Coast cool versus East Coast angst. One would think that the Dodgers would have a better history in the World series but even though both teams have participated in 12 World Series each, the Dodgers are 6-6 versus the Red Sox overall 8-4 World Series record. Dodgers haven’t won a World Series since 1988, Red Sox 2013. The teams have met once in the Worlds Series -- 102 years ago as Babe Ruth's Boston Red Sox took down the then Brooklyn Robins (and their offensive star Casey Stengel) 4 games to 1.

Clayton Kershaw v. Chris Sale so it should be quite the pitcher’s duel. First pitch scheduled for 7:09p from Fenway on Fox TV.