Finnish Folk Power Metal. Ha.
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1991 Rewind: Game Forty-six
MINNESOTA 9, TEXAS 1 IN TEXAS
Date: Wednesday, May 29.
Batting stars: Kent Hrbek was 3-for-4 with a home run (his fourth), a double, and two runs. Greg Gagne was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fifth), a double, and four RBIs. Gene Larkin was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, a stolen base, and two runs. Shane Mack was 2-for-4.
Pitching star: Jack Morris pitched a complete game, giving up one run on four hits and two walks and striking out eight.
Opposition stars: Ruben Sierra was 2-for-3. Eric Nolte pitched two perfect innings and struck out one.
The game: The Rangers took the early lead, getting on the board in the first inning as Brian Downing doubled and Sierra singled him in. It was all Twins after that, and they started in the very next inning. Hrbek and Chili Davis started the inning with back-to-back doubles to tie the score. Brian Harper walked. The next two batters went out, but Gagne hit a three-run homer to give the Twins a 4-1 lead.
The Twins added a run in the fourth when Larkin hit a two-out single, stole second (!), and scored on a Shane Mack single. They put it out of reach in the sixth. Hrbek hit a solo homer with one out. With two out, Harper walked and Larkin hit a two-run homer. Mack followed with a single and scored on Gagne's double. It was 9-1 Twins, and that's where it stayed.
WP: Morris (5-5). LP: Nolan Ryan (3-4). S: None.
Notes: Mack started in left field, with Dan Gladden out of the lineup. Gladden entered the game in the seventh to give Kirby Puckett a break, with Mack moving to center. Chuck Knoblauch moved into the leadoff spot, with Al Newman, who was at third base, batting second. Larkin was in right field. Scott Leius came into the game in the eighth inning at shortstop to give Gagne the rest of the game off.
Harper was 0-for-2 with two walks. His average fell to .355. Puckett was 0-for-4 and dropped to .337. Gagne went up to .312. Davis was 1-for-4 and was batting .307.
Leius went 0-for-1 to drop his average to .171.
Morris threw 123 pitches in the complete game.
This was one of two stolen bases in 1991 for Larkin. The other would come on September 28. He was 2-for-5 in stealing bases that year. For his career, he was 23-for-40. His career high in stolen bases was seven in 1992. He went 7-for-9 that season. It was also one of two home runs Larkin hit in 1991. The other would come on August 6. For his career, he hit 32 home runs, with a high of eight in 1988. My guess would be that this was the only time he hit a home run and stole a base in the same game, but I didn't actually check to see if that's true.
I doubt that many people would've predicted that, with May nearly over Gagne would have more home runs than Hrbek. It would not stay that way all season, of course.
Nolan Ryan lasted just four innings for Texas, allowing five runs on five hits and a walk and striking out four. Ryan was forty-four in 1991, but he was still an effective pitcher. He went 12-6, 2.91 and led the league in WHIP at 1.01. 1991 was the first time in five years that he did not lead the league in strikeouts, and that's largely because injuries limited him to 173 innings--he still led the league in strikeouts per nine innings. We remember Nolan Ryan as a great pitcher, but we sometimes forget that he was a great old pitcher, quite possibly the best old pitcher there's ever been.
Record: The Twins were 22-24, in fifth place in the American League West, but just two percentage points ahead of sixth-place Chicago. They trailed first-place Texas by 5.5 games and were two games behind fourth-place Seattle.
Happy Birthday–November 23
This is a great day for names:
Chief Zimmer (1860)
Hi Church (1863)
Socks Seybold (1870)
George Stovall (1877)
Jimmy Sheckard (1878)
Runt Marr (1891)
Freddy Leach (1897)
Beans Reardon (1897)
Bubber Jonnard (1897)
Prince Hal Schumacher (1910)
Bill Gates (1918)
Charles Osgood (1926)
John Anderson (1929)
Jack McKeon (1930)
Luis Tiant (1940)
Tom Hall (1947)
Ken Schrom (1954)
Brook Jacoby (1959)
Dale Sveum (1963)
David McCarty (1969)
Adam Eaton (1977)
Jonathan Papelbon (1980)
Justin Turner (1984)
Lewis Thorpe (1995)
Runt Marr played in the minor leagues for nineteen years, managed in the minors for fifteen years, and was also a scout for many years.
Beans Reardon was a National League umpire from 1926-1949.
Bubber Jonnard was a long-time coach and scout.
Bill Gates was a minor league pitcher from 1938-1940 and 1946-1951.
Jack McKeon was a long-time manager and general manager, leading the Florida Marlins to a World Series victory in 2003. In 2011, he became the second-oldest manager in major league history at age 80. He also managed in the minor leagues for the Senators/Twins from 1957-64 and again in 1968, scouting for the Twins from 1965-67.
November 22, 2019: Future Me
...can’t wait for the new Beths album to come out.
The Okee Dokee Brothers – Keep me Warm
We interrupt our weird metal program to honor of the Minnesotan-by-choice Okee Dokee Brothers, who were again Grammy-nominated for their 2018 album Winterland.
They're still a bedtime staple at our house, and everything they do is great.
The Abominable Yeti is currently the most asked-for, followed by Snowpeople. My daughter likes to comment on the artwork.
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FMD: Weird Shtick
Thanks for engaging and entertaining my amusement with weird metal bands this week. I have one more tomorrow to add, but I'm going to skip the Pirate Metal.
So drop your lists and if you feel up to it, do you have a weird shtick band? The one that you feel the need to justify or explain because, well, you're not usually into that sort of thing, and some parts of it seem kind of objectionable, but you're going to listen anyway...
1991 Rewind: Game Forty-five
MINNESOTA 3, TEXAS 0 IN TEXAS
Date: Tuesday, May 28.
Batting stars: Kirby Puckett was 2-for-3 with two RBIs. Greg Gagne was 2-for-4. Dan Gladden was 1-for-4 with a home run (his third) and two runs.
Pitching stars: Scott Erickson pitched eight shutout innings, giving up seven hits and three walks and striking out seven. He threw 119 pitches. Rick Aguilera pitched a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Jose Guzman pitched 7.2 innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and a walk and striking out three. Geno Petralli was 2-for-3 with a walk. Ruben Sierra was 2-for-4.
The game: Gladden led off the game with a home run to give the Twins a 1-0 lead. The Rangers got a pair of one-out singles in the bottom of the first, but a pop up and a strikeout ended the inning. The Twins scored again in the third when Gagne singled, was bunted to second, and scored on Puckett's two-out single.
Texas threatened again in the fourth with a pair of two-out singles, but Denny Walling flied out to end the inning. The Twins added a run in the fifth on singles by Gagne and Chuck Knoblauch and a Puckett sacrifice fly, making the score 3-0.
The Rangers had two more threats come to nothing. Two singles in the fifth went for naught when Julio Franco hit into a force out. A walk and an error put men on first and second with none out in the seventh, but two ground outs and a strike out put that threat away. That was it, as Texas did not get a hit after the fifth.
WP: Erickson (7-2). LP: Jose Guzman (0-1). S: Aguilera (9).
Notes: With Erickson pitching, Junior Ortiz was again behind the plate. Gene Larkin was in right field and Kent Hrbek was at first base at the start of the game, but Hrbek came out after batting in the first inning. Shane Mack went to right and Larkin went to first. Hrbek would start the next game, so whatever was wrong must not have been too serious.
Scott Leius pinch-hit for Mike Pagliarulo in the ninth inning and remained in the game at third base.
Puckett raised his average to .344. Chili Davis was 1-for-4 and was batting .308. Gagne raised his average to .303. Erickson's ERA was 1.63. Aguilera went down to 1.61.
Leius was 0-for-1 and was batting .175.
The Rangers stranded nine and were 0-for-7 with men in scoring position.
I tended to get Jose Guzman confused with Juan Guzman in the nineties, and sometimes I still do. Jose had been a solid starter for the Rangers from 1987-1988, then missed all of 1989 due to injury and was able to make only ten minor league appearances in 1990. He came back strong in 1991, though, going 13-7, 3.08 in 25 starts. He had another good year for the Rangers in 1992, then became a free agent and signed with the Cubs. He got hurt almost immediately and was able to make only four starts for the Cubs. He kept pitching, when he could, in the minors through 1996. He made a comeback, sort of, in 2001-2002, pitching in independent ball with the Fort Worth Cats. His career numbers are 80-74, 4.05, 1,37 WHIP. Nothing special, but not bad, either. And for a few seasons, he was a pitcher anyone would've been happy to have in their rotation.
Record: The Twins were 21-24, sixth in the American League West, a mere two percentage points ahead of seventh-place Kansas City. They trailed first-place Texas by 6.5 games.
Happy Birthday–November 22
Harry Rice (1901)
Dick Bartell (1907)
Lew Burdette (1926)
Wade Blasingame (1943)
Rich Chiles (1946)
Greg Luzinski (1950)
Lyman Bostock (1950)
Wayne Tolleson (1955)
Lee Guetterman (1958)
Mike Benjamin (1965)
Jay Payton (1972)
Ricky Ledee (1973)
Joe Nathan (1974)
Jonny Gomes (1980)
Yusmeiro Petit (1984)
Mike Benjamin was drafted by Minnesota in the seventh round in January, 1985, but did not sign.
POWERWOLF – Amen & Attack
Powerwolf, by request. You can thank Cheaptoy.
Again, weird shtick. This time it's a combination of religion and combat (Amen & Attack, Incense & Iron, Christ & Combat, Blessed & Possessed, etc...). Not totally sure what they're getting at. Very dramatic, though.
Again, I'm here for the tempo and the triumphant, choral delivery.
I'm still trying to figure out what it is with European metal bands and this whole power genre.
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1991 Rewind: Game Forty-four
TEXAS 11, MINNESOTA 4 IN TEXAS
Date: Monday, May 27.
Batting stars: Kirby Puckett was 4-for-5. Dan Gladden was 2-for-5 with two runs. Kent Hrbek was 1-for-4 with a home run (his third) and three RBIs. Chuck Knoblauch was 0-for-1 with four walks.
Pitching stars: None.
Opposition stars: Juan Gonzalez was 3-for-5 with a double, two runs, and three RBIs. Rafael Palmeiro was 3-for-5 with two runs. Steve Buechele was 2-for-3 with a walk. Julio Franco was 2-for-5 with a home run (his fifth), a triple, two runs, and three RBIs. Mike Stanley was 2-for-5 with a double. Brian Downing was 1-for-3 with a triple, two walks, and two RBIs.
The game: Well, the Twins got off to a good start. Gladden led off with a bunt single, Chuck Knoblauch walked, and Puckett delivered an RBI single, giving the Twins a run before anyone was retired. A double play and a ground out took them out of the inning, though, and it was all downhill from there.
With one out in the bottom of the first, Palmeiro singled and Ruben Sierra doubled. A ground out held the runners at second and third and gave the Twins hope, but the hope was dashed as Gonzalez hit a two-run double and Stanley followed with an RBI single, putting the Rangers up 3-1.
The Twins opened the second with a single and a walk, but a double play again took them out of the inning. They got men to second and third with one out in the third, but again could not tally.
Texas added a run in the third on singles by Buechele, Stanley, and Mario Diaz. The Rangers put it out of reach in the fourth. Downing led off with a walk, Palmeiro singled, and Sierra's sacrifice fly made it 5-1. Franco had an RBI triple and scored on Gonzalez' single and the score was 7-1.
Hrbek hit a two-run homer in the fifth to cut the margin to 7-3. The Twins put men on second and third in the seventh but could not bring them home. Texas padded their lead with a two-run triple by Downing in the bottom of the seventh and a two-run homer by Franco in the eighth.
The Twins tried to rally in the ninth. Gladden led off with a single, Knoblauch walked, Puckett singled, and Hrbek walked, forcing in a run and leaving the bases loaded with none out. "Leaving the bases loaded", however, is exactly what the Twins did, as Kenny Rogers came in to strike out Chili Davis, get Brian Harper on a short fly ball, and strike out Pedro Munoz to end the game.
WP: Kevin Brown (4-3). LP: Allan Anderson (1-4). S: None.
Notes: Munoz was in right field. Al Newman was at third base. Scott Leius came into the game in the eighth inning to play shortstop, replacing Greg Gagne.
Harper was 1-for-5 and was batting .361. Puckett raised his average to .339. Davis was 1-for-5 and was batting .310. Munoz was 1-for-4 with a walk and was batting .302.
Anderson lasted just 3.1 ininngs, allowing seven runs on eleven hits and a walk and striking out two. It was his third poor start out of four, and his ERA was up to 5.20.
Paul Abbott relieved Anderson, making his 1991 debut. He had made seven starts for the Twins in 1990. He did not pitch particularly well, either, going 3.1 innings and giving up two runs on three hits and four walks. He did strike out three. He would stay on the team until mid-August, then come back as a September call-up.
Terry Leach finished up. He had his second consecutive bad game, pitching 1.1 innings and allowing two runs on one hit and a walk and striking out three. Over his last two games, his ERA rose from 2.08 to 3.66.
Texas starter Brown pitched five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and five walks and striking out two.
The Twins stranded twelve men and were 2-for-15 with men in scoring position.
The Twins had lost three in a row, seven of eight, and nine of twelve.
I'd forgotten that Kenny Rogers spent his first four major league seasons in the bullpen. In fact, he led the league in appearances with 81 in 1992. He would become a starter the following season, 1993, jumping from 78.2 innings to 208.1. He would remain in a major league rotation through 2008, when he was forty-three. He was clearly on the down side by then, but he had an excellent season in 2006, when he was forty-one: He went 17-8, 3.84, 1.26 WHIP and finished tied for fifth (with Joe Nathan) in Cy Young voting. For his career, he was 219-156, 4.27, 1.40 WHIP. That may not sound super, but he was in a major league rotation for sixteen consecutive seasons and made thirty or more starts in fourteen of them, and that's pretty good.
Record: The Twins were 20-24, in sixth place, mere percentage points ahead of seventh-place Kansas City. They were 7.5 games behind first-place Texas and one game behind fifth-place Chicago.