1969 Rewind: Game Seventy-four

MINNESOTA 7, CHICAGO 3 IN CHICAGO

Date:  Monday, June 30.

Batting stars:  Johnny Roseboro was 3-for-4 with a double and a stolen base, his fourth.  Harmon Killebrew was 3-for-5 with three RBIs.  Rich Reese was 2-for-4.

Pitching star:  Bob Miller pitched 7.1 innings, giving up one run on six hits and two walks and striking out four.

Opposition stars:  Buddy Bradford was 3-for-4 with a triple.  Bill Melton was 2-for-4 with a home run, his twelfth.  Joel Horlen pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on six hits and a walk and striking out two.

The game:  Ted Uhlaender led off the game with a double and Killebrew delivered a two-out single to give the Twins a 1-0 lead in the first inning.  Neither team really threatened again until the fifth, when the White Sox opened the inning with consecutive singles by Carlos May, Bradford, Melton, and Rich Morales, tying the score and leaving the bases loaded with none out.  Horlen hit into a 1-2-3 double play and Ken Berry grounded out, leaving the score 1-1 through five.

The Twins had only one hit in innings two through six.  In the seventh, however, singles by Killebrew and Reese and a double by Roseboro put the Twins up 2-1.  They missed a chance for more--Leo Cardenas was intentionally walked, but Miller struck out and Uhlaender grounded out to end the inning.

The Twins took control in the ninth, however.  With one out, consecutive singles by ReeseRoseboro, and Leo Cardenas gave the Twins a 3-1 lead.  With Ron Perranoski up to bat, Roseboro and Cardenas pulled off a double steal of third and second, respectively.  Perranoski could not bring anyone home, however, and with two out Uhlaender was intentionally walked to bring up Carew.  That worked about as well as you might think, as Carew doubled home two runs to make the score 5-1.  Oliva was then intentionally walked to bring up Killebrew.  That didn't work very well, either, as Killebrew singled home two runs to make it 7-1.

The White Sox tried to get back into the game.  Melton led off the ninth with a home run and Bradford followed with a triple.  All Chicago could get after that, however, was a Walt Williams sacrifice fly and the Twins won 7-3.

WP:  Miller (1-2).  LP:  Horlen (4-9).  S:  Perranoski (13).

Notes:  Carew was 1-for-5, making his average .371.  Oliva was 0-for-4 and was batting .317.  Reese raised his average to .303.

Charlie Manuel got the start in left field and went 0-for-5.  The standard defensive changes were made, with Cesar Tovar going to left, Frank Quilici going to third, and Killebrew replacing Reese at first.

I don't know how often someone was intentionally walked to get to Rod Carew, but I doubt that it happened very often.  Walking Oliva to get to Killebrew I can see, in that it was already 5-1, a hit of any kind would probably drive in two and put the game out of reach, and Oliva would be more likely to get a hit than Killebrew.  it's not a great option, but the White Sox were out of great options at that point.

For a part-time outfielder, Buddy Bradford (given name:  Charles William Bradford) had a long career.  He was with the White Sox from 1966-1970, with Cleveland from 1970-1971, went to Cincinnati for the end of 1971, was back with the White Sox from 1972-1975, finished 1975 with St. Louis, and came back to the White Sox again for 1976.  He also played in Japan in 1977.  Through all of that, he never had more than 313 plate appearances in a season or more than 281 at-bats.  He was generally a fourth or fifth outfielder.  One assumes he was good on defense, because he could not hit--his lifetime numbers are .226/.311/.364.  He was a right-handed batter, but he did not hit lefties particularly better than right-handers.  One also assumes he was a pretty nice guy, because if he was a jerk they wouldn't have kept him around that long.  He apparently had a successful career in business after his baseball career ended.

Record:  The Twins were 41-33, in second place in the American League West, one game behind Oakland.