All posts by Jeff A

Happy Birthday–June 28

Ken Williams (1890)
Haruyasu Nakajima (1910)
A. Ray Smith (1915)
Oscar Rodriguez (1931)
Fred Gladding (1936)
Ron Luciano (1937)
Fred Talbot (1941)
Al Downing (1941)
Don Baylor (1949)
Chris Speier (1950)
Joe Sambito (1952)
Clay Christiansen (1958)
John Elway (1960)
Jay Schroeder (1961)
Mark Grace (1964)
Ron Mahay (1971)
Corey Koskie (1973)
Richard Hidalgo (1975)
Brandon Phillips (1981)

Haruyasu Nakajima is in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

A. Ray Smith owned minor league baseball teams from 1961-1986.

Oscar Rodriguez is in the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ron Luciano was an American League umpire from 1969-1979.

NFL quarterbacks John Elway and Jay Schroeder each played minor league baseball.  Elway hit .318 in 151 at-bats as an outfielder for Class A Oneonta in 1982.  Schroeder was primarily an outfielder for four years in the Toronto system, never getting higher than Class A.  He hit .213 with 36 homers in 1,304 minor league at-bats.

Mark Grace was drafted by Minnesota in the fifteenth round of the January draft in 1984, but did not sign.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–June 28

Happy Birthday–June 27

Rube Benton (1890)
Fred Saigh (1905)
Dick Terwilliger (1906)
Wendell Smith (1914)
Lou Kretlow (1921)
Gus Zernial (1923)
Wayne Terwilliger (1925)
Charles Bronfman (1931)
Chuck Coles (1931)

Eddie Kasko (1932)
Rico Petrocelli (1943)
Takashi Nishimoto (1956)
Jeff Conine (1966)
Jim Edmonds (1970)
Daryle Ward (1975)
Chris Woodward (1976)
Luis Rodriguez (1980)

Fred Saigh was the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1947-1953, selling Anheuser-Busch.

Wendell Smith was an African-American sportswriter who was influential in the choice of Jackie Robinson as the first African-American major league player.

Charles Bronfman was the owner of the Montreal Expos from 1969-1991.

Takashi Nishimoto was a star pitcher in Japan from 1977-1993.

Daryle Ward is the son of ex-Twin Gary Ward.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–June 27

Game Recap #76: Trombones 2, Big Paraders 6

Well, let's see.  The bullpen pitched really well.  Joe Mauer had two hits.  Oswaldo Arcia hit a home run and kept his average (barely) above the Mendoza line.

That seems to be about it for the positives.  Danny Santana got hurt, and at this writing I know nothing about how serious that is.  If it is serious, one assumes we'll get a lot of Escobar at short and Fuld and/or Hicks in center.  That's better than the days when we were using people like Rene Tosoni and Luke Hughes, but losing Santana is still going to hurt if it happens.  Not that I think he'd hit .324 with an .806 OPS all season--he'd never done anything close to that in the minors--but he does look like a major league ballplayer, and he's succeeded while spending part of his time learning a new position.  Perhaps he'll be back soon.  We can hope.

Yohan Pino did not have a good game.  It appeared that he simply threw too many pitches that were about belt high, and like many pitchers, he can't get away with doing that.  I doubt he could get away with doing it at AAA, either, so he may have simply had a bad game, which happens to everyone sometimes.  As they don't seem ready to bring up Trevor May yet, and as they don't have a lot of other options, one assumes Pino will get at least a couple more chances.  It's too bad they sent Pinto down--perhaps at some point will get a Pino/Pinto battery, reminding us of the days when Allan Anderson pitched to Andy Allanson.  It's just too bad we won't have Gordo around to announce it.

The Twins play an afternoon game today, so this is the last of the games that start about when I go to bed.  Why these West Coast teams can't start their games at a civilized time is more than I can understand.  Come to think of it, that's probably why we lost these last two games--the Twins players had to stay up way past their bedtimes and were tired.  At any rate, the Twins are going to send Ricky Nolasco out there, still looking for that elusive actually good outing rather than the almost good ones he's been giving us.  He's due!  Today we start a season-ending eighty-six game winning streak!  We'll just have to settle for 122-40!

Happy Birthday–June 26

Topsy Hartsel (1874)
Babe Herman (1903)
Debs Garms (1907)
Willard Brown (1915)
Howie Pollet (1921)
Bill Robinson (1943)
Dave Rosello (1950)
Mike Myers (1963)
Rodney Myers (1969)
Derek Jeter (1974)
Jason Kendall (1974)

Outfielder Willard Brown was a star for the Kansas City Monarchs from 1935-1948.  He played briefly for the St. Louis Browns in 1947.

There do not appear to be any players with connections to the Minnesota Twins born on this day.