CHICAGO 3, MINNESOTA 2 IN CHICAGO
Date: Wednesday, September 10.
Batting stars: Tom Hall was 2-for-3. Rod Carew was 2-for-5 with two stolen bases, his seventeenth and eighteenth.
Pitching star: Hall pitched 7.2 innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on eight hits and five walks and striking out three.
Opposition stars: Tommy John pitched eight innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on eleven hits and five walks and striking out seven. Don Pavletich was 2-for-2 with a home run (his sixth) and a walk, driving in two. Bobby Knoop was 2-for-4 with a double.
The game: Walt Williams opened the first inning. He was still on first with two out, but back-to-back singles by Bill Melton and Pavletich put the White Sox on the board with a 1-0 lead.
The Twins loaded the bases with two out in the second, but did not score. They loaded the bases with one out in the third, but Carew was caught stealing home and the Twins again did not score. Consecutive one-out singles by Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, and Bob Allison loaded the bases with one out in the fifth, but Rick Renick hit into a double play and the Twins once more did not score. In the sixh, Pavletich homered to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead.
The Twins finally broke through in the seventh. With one out, Carew singled, Killebrew walked, and John threw two wild pitches to bring home a run. The Twins could not get him to throw a third one, however, and they still trailed 2-1. With two out in the Chicago eighth, Bob Christian singled and scored on Knoop's single-plus-error to get the run back for the White Sox and put their lead back to two.
George Mitterwald and Cesar Tovar opened the ninth with singles. A passed ball put Herman Hill, who pinch-ran for Mitterwald, on third. An error scored him, but Tovar was thrown out trying to score on the play and the Twins trailed 3-2. The error put Carew on second with one out and he stole third, putting the tying run ninety feet away. But there he stayed, as Killebrew struck out and Oliva bounced back to the pitcher.
WP: John (7-11). LP: Hall (8-5). S: Wilbur Wood (12).
Notes: Renick was at third, with Killebrew moving to first and Rich Reese out of the lineup. Allison was in left field with Ted Uhlaender out of the lineup. Tom Tischinski caught, with Johnny Roseboro out of the lineup.
Carew was batting .346. Oliva was batting .316.
The Twins stranded eleven men and were 2-for-11 with men in scoring position. Chicago stranded eight and was 1-for-8 with men in scoring position.
Tommy John was in his fifth full season. He would last another twenty years, with his last year coming in 1989 with the Yankees at age forty-six. Wilbur Wood was in his fifth full season. He would last only nine more years, with his last year coming with the White Sox at the young age of thirty-six.
Hall had allowed more than three earned runs in a start only twice since April 25, and both of those times he allowed exactly four earned runs. He was not in the rotation all that time--he made twelve starts and eight relief appearances over that span. One of the relief appearances was an eight-inning win in which he allowed one run.
Bob Christian got his biggest chance in 1969. He had gone 1-for-3 in three games for Detroit in 1968. He spent a week with the White Sox in June, then came up in early August for two weeks, then got a September call-up. He was Chicago's regular left fielder in September, taking over for Carlos May. It did not go well, as he batted .217/.273/.318 in 143 plate appearances for the season. it went better in September, when he had regular play, but he still batted just .250/.306/.364 in that span. On the other hand, he was just twenty-three. He got sixteen more plate appearances in 1970, then his major league career was over. He'd had an excellent 1970 season in AAA Tucson, batting .335/.418/.445, and at age twenty-four one would've thought he looked like a prospect. Instead, they let him go to Japan for two seasons. Sadly, Bob Christian passed away in 1974 from leukemia at the young age of twenty-eight.
Record: The Twins were 86-55, in first place in the American League West, 9.5 games ahead of Oakland.