MINNESOTA 5, NEW YORK 2 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Wednesday, August 13.

Batting star:  Rich Reese was 4-for-4 with two home runs (his thirteenth and fourteenth) and three RBIs.

Batting star:  Tom Hall pitched a complete game, giving up two runs on seven hits and three walks and striking out four.

Opposition stars:  Roy White was 3-for-4 with two doubles.  Frank Fernandez was 2-for-4 with a double.  Horace Clarke was 2-for-4 with a double.

The game:  The Yankees got three singles in the first inning, but Hall picked Clarke off base and no runs scored.  Reese led off the second with a home run to put the Twins up 1-0.

There was not much more offense until the fifth.  Leo Cardenas and Johnny Roseboro led off with singles.  A bunt moved them to second and third.  Cesar Tovar hit a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0 and Rod Carew delivered an RBI single to make it 3-0.  The Twins opened the sixth with a walk and a single, but a double play took them out of the inning and it remained 3-0.  New York threatened in the sixth, as Gene Michael led off the inning with a walk and White followed with a double, but Michael was thrown out trying to score on the double and the Yankees remained scoreless.

The Twins added to their lead in the eighth, as Harmon Killebrew hit a two-out double and Reese followed with a two-run homer.  New York got on the board in the bottom of the eighth.  Clarke hit a one-out double and with two down White and Fernandez hit back-to-back RBI doubles, bringing the score to 5-2.  Hall retired Bill Robinson on a liner to left and retired the side in order in the ninth.

WP:  Hall (5-4).  LP:  Mel Stottlemyre (16-9).  S:  None.

Notes:  The double was Killebrew's eighteenth.  He had only two seasons in which he hit more doubles than home runs.  One was 1954, when in thirteen at-bats he hit one double and no homers.  The other was 1973, when in 248 at-bats he hit nine doubles and just five home runs.  For his career he hit nearly twice as many home runs as doubles, 573 to 290.

This was Hall's third complete game of the season.  He would be sent to the bullpen for a couple of appearances after this game, making his next start on August 24.

Carew was 1-for-3 and was batting .352.  Reese raised his average to .338.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-4 and was batting .323.

This would be Carew's last game until September 1.  I don't recall, and did not have time to research, whether he was injured or had a National Guard commitment.  He was in a slump, though.  His last multi-hit game was July 29.  Since then, he was 7-for-41, an average of .171.  He had no extra-base hits and had drawn just five walks.  His average fell from .375 to .352.

Frank Fernandez had a six-year career as a part-time/backup catcher.  He got a September call-up in 1967, batting .214 in 28 at-bats.  He was the backup to Jake Gibbs in 1968 and shared the position with him in 1969.  Then a guy named Thurman Munson came along, and the Yankees traded him to Oakland.  He shared catching duties with Dave Duncan in 1970, then started moving around.  The Athletics traded him to Washington in May of 1971 in a trade that brought Darold Knowles to Oakland.  The Athletics bought him back in June, then traded him to the Cubs at the trade deadline.  Through all of that, he got just eighty major league at-bats in 1971 and just three more in 1972.  He never hit--1969 was his best offensive season, when he batted .223/.399/.415 in 229 at-bats.  That high OBP carried through his career--his lifetime numbers are .199/.350/.395.  He has the highest number of both hits and walks for a man who drew more walks than hits in his career (164 to 145).  He also hit more home runs (39) than any other player with a lifetime average of under .200.  OBP was presumably not valued as much then, but even today it's hard to stay in the lineup with an average of .199.  If he could've just hit a few more singles, he probably would've had a much longer career.

Record:  The Twins were 69-47, in first place in the American League West, two games ahead of Oakland.

NEW YORK 10, MINNESOTA 3 IN NEW YORK

Date:  Tuesday, August 12.

Batting stars:  Jim Kaat was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer (his second) and a double.  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-4.  Leo Cardenas was 1-for-3 with a home run (his eighth) and a walk, scoring twice.

Pitching star:  Bill Zepp retired all four batters he faced, striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Horace Clarke was 3-for-4 with a triple and a walk, scoring twice and driving in two.  Len Boehmer was 2-for-4.  Gene Michael was 2-for-5 with a triple and a double, scoring twice.

The game:  The Yankees jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first.  Clarke singled, Michael doubled, Roy White hit a sacrifice fly, and an error brought home the second run.  It stayed 2-0 until the third, when Cardenas walked and Kaat hit a two-run homer to tie it 2-2.

The Yankees had two on with two out in the third and the fourth, but did not score.  The Twins had two on with one out in the fourth, but did not score.  So, we were still 2-2 going to the seventh.

Cardenas broke the tie with two out in the seventh, hitting a home run to put the Twins up 3-2.  Then the roof fell in (if there had been a roof).  With one out, Clarke walked and Michael tripled, tying the score at three.  White was intentionally walked and Al Worthington came in to pitch.  He faced three batters and walked them all, two of them with the bases loaded, giving the Yankees a 5-3 lead.  Ron Perranoski came in.  He struck out Bobby Cox but gave up singles to Boehmer and Bill Robinson and a triple to Clarke.  Zepp came in to get the last out, but it was 10-3 New York by that time and there it stayed.

WP:  Steve Hamilton (3-3).  LP:  Kaat (11-9).  S:  Lindy McDaniel (3).

Notes:  Rod Carew was back to play second base, with Cesar Tovar returning to center field and Ted Uhlaender going to left.

Carew was 0-for-4 and was batting .352.  Rich Reese was 1-for-4 and was batting .329.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-4 and was batting .326.

Perranoski was charged with two runs on three hits in two-thirds of an inning.  His ERA went up to 2.02.

Hamilton faced one man to get the win, striking out Carew with men on first and second and one out in the seventh.  The starters were Kaat and Stan Bahnsen.  Kaat pitched 6.1 innings, allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits and five walks, striking out one.  Bahnsen pitched 6.2 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and three walks and striking out two.

This was the major league debut for Bill Zepp.  He made four appearances with the Twins in 1969; this was the only one in which he did not allow a run.  He had a fine year for them in 1970, however, going 9-4, 3.22 in 151 innings.  In his twenty starts that season, he was 6-4, 3.68, 1.50 WHIP.  In his twenty-six relief appearances, however, he was 3-0, 2 saves, 1.75, 0.92 WHIP.  It was only thirty-six innings, but that still looks like a darn good reliever, and that was his age twenty-three season.  According to wikipedia, however, Zepp refused to sign a contract for 1971 and threatened to retire unless he was traded to Detroit, where he was from.  The Twins ultimately obliged, trading him for Mike Adams and a player to be named later (Arthur Clifford).  It did not go well for him there.  He went 1-1, 5.12, 1.83 WHIP in 16 appearances and finished the season in the minors.  He later said that he had torn a tendon in his pitching arm.  Rather than have what was then a new and risky "Tommy John" surgery, he chose to retire.

I had no idea that there was once a major league player named "Len Boehmer".  He was primarily a first baseman.  He went 0-for-3 for Cincinnati in 1967, but 1969 was the only year in which he got any noticeable playing time as a backup for Joe Pepitone.  He appeared in forty-five games for the Yankees that year, batting .176/.233/.213 in 108 at-bats.  He would get five more at-bats with the Yankees in 1971, going 0-for-5.  After baseball, he went back to his home town of Flint Hill, Missouri and joined his family's plumbing supply business.  He is retired now, but two of his sons still run the business.

Record:  The Twins were 68-47, in first place in the American League West, one game ahead of Oakland.  They had lost five in a row and six of their last seven.