KANSAS CITY 10, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, July 16.

Batting stars:  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk, scoring once.  Jimmie Hall was 2-for-4 with an RBI.  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-4.

Pitching star:  Bill Pleis pitched two perfect innings with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Diego Segui pitched a complete game, allowing two runs on nine hits and one walk with five strikeouts.  Johnny Blanchard was 2-for-3 with a walk, scoring twice and driving in one.  Tommie Reynolds was 1-for-3 with two walks, scoring twice and driving in one.

The game:  The Athletics jumped on Mudcat Grant early.  There was no one big hit--in fact, the first two batters went out--but then came a walk, four singles, another walk, and another single.  Seven consecutive batters reached, resulting in four runs and an early exit for Grant.  Jerry Fosnow got the last out of the first and got through the second, but in the third a walk, an error, and three more singles led to three more runs and a 7-0 Kansas City lead.  It was never close after that.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-5.  Earl Battey was 0-for-2.  Grant pitched only two-thirds of an inning, giving up four runs on five hits and two walks with no strikeouts.

Record:  The loss made the Twins 54-31.  Their lead over Cleveland dropped to four games, as the Indians beat Boston 4-3 in ten innings.

Notes:  Hall raised his average to .320...Battey's average dropped to .310...The Athletics had eleven hits, ten of them singles.  The lone exception was a seventh-inning triple by Nelson Mathews...Kansas City certainly bunched their hits, getting five in the first (when they scored four), three in the third (when they scored three), and two in the seventh (when they scored three).  They had only one hit in the other six innings.  The Twins had nine hits, but only twice had more than one in an inning.

MINNESOTA 11, KANSAS CITY 3 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, July 15 (Game 1 of doubleheader).

Batting stars:  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his thirteenth and fourteenth) and a walk, scoring three times.  Sandy Valdespino was 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs.  Earl Battey was 2-for-2 with two walks, scoring twice and driving in one.

Pitching stars:  Jim Kaat pitched six innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and a walk with one strikeout.  Johnny Klippstein struck out six in three shutout innings, giving up one hit and three walks.

Opposition stars:  Ken Harrelson was 2-for-4 with a home run, his ninth.  Dick Green was 2-for-4 with a home run, his seventh.  Rene Lachemann was 1-for-3 with a home run (his sixth) and a walk.

The game:  Oliva homered in the first to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.  In the second, two singles and a hit batsman filled the bases with one out, a wild pitch scored one run, and Kaat delivered a sacrifice fly to make the score 3-0.  The Twins then scored seven in the fourth to put the game out of reach.  Two singles and a walk filled the bases with none out.  Kaat hit his second sacrifice fly of the game to bring home one run.  Zoilo Versalles struck out, but with two out and two on the next five batters walked, forcing in four runs.  Three different pitchers issued the five walks, which must have been extremely frustrating to Athletics manager Heywood Sullivan.  Valdespino then delivered a two-run single to put the Twins up 10-0.  Kaat gave up three solo homers in the next two innings but was never really in trouble.

Of note:  Versalles was 0-for-5.  Jimmie Hall was 0-for-4 with a walk, scoring once and driving in one.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with two walks, scoring once and driving in one.

Record:  The win made the Twins 54-29 and kept them in first place by four and a half games over Cleveland.

Notes:  One of Bud Selig's many "contributions" to the game is the four-day all-star break.  In 1965, when Men were Men, you not only got by with three days, you played a doubleheader when you got back.  In fact, not every team even got three days.  There were three major league games played on Wednesday, the day after the all-star game...Kaat, as stated above, had two sacrifice flies in the game.  Only twelve players have hit three sacrifice flies in a game, with the most recent being Jose Lopez in 2008, and none of them were pitchers, so it appears that Kaat tied a record...I could not quickly find out what the record is for most consecutive walks, but I did see that Bill "Dolly" Gray walked seven consecutive batters in 1909.

NATIONAL LEAGUE 6, AMERICAN LEAGUE 5 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, July 13.

National League stars:  Willie Stargell was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer and scored twice.  Willie Mays was 1-for-3 with a home run and two walks, scoring twice.  Juan Marichal started and pitched three innings, allowing only one hit.

American League stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer and two walks.  Dick McAuliffe was 2-for-3 with a two-run homer and two runs.  Pete Richert struck out two in two innings, giving up one hit.

The game:  Mays led off the game with a home run and Joe Torre hit a two-run homer later in the first inning, both off Milt Pappas, to give the NL a 3-0 lead.  In the second, Stargell hit a two-run homer off Mudcat Grant to make it 5-0.  The Americans got on the board in the fourth on Rocky Colavito's RBI single.  In the fifth, McAuliffe and Killebrew each hit a two-run homer off Jim Maloney to tie it 5-5.  In the sixth, Ron Santo delivered an RBI single to put the Nationals up 6-5.  The AL got a man to third with two out in the eighth and Tony Oliva led off the ninth with a double, but they could not tie the score.

Twins:  Jimmie Hall was 0-for-2 with a walk and a run.  Oliva was 1-for-2 with a double.  Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-1 with a walk.  Grant struck out three in two innings but gave up two runs on two hits and a walk.

MINNESOTA 6, NEW YORK 5 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Sunday, July 11.

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer (his sixteenth) and a walk, scoring twice.  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-4 with a home run (his tenth) and two walks, scoring twice.  Rich Rollins was 1-for-4 with a double and a walk, scoring once and driving in one.

Pitching stars:  Bill Pleis pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two walks with one strikeout.  Johnny Klippstein struck out both batters he faced.

Opposition stars:  Elston Howard was 3-for-4 with a double and a walk, scoring twice and driving in two.  Mickey Mantle was 2-for-4 with a walk and two runs.  Hector Lopez was 2-for-4 with a walk.

The game:  It was close all the way.  The Yankees got an RBI single from Lopez in the first to go up 1-0, but Versalles homered in the third to tie it 1-1.  In the fourth, two singles, a sacrifice fly, and an Earl Battey run-scoring single put the Twins up 3-1, but the Yankees got the two runs right back in the fifth when Howard came through with a two-run double.  Rollins doubled in a run in the bottom of the fifth to put the Twins ahead again at 4-3, but a walk, a single, a walk, and a wild pitch tied it for the Yankees in the seventh.  In the ninth, a single and two errors gave the Yankees a 5-4 advantage but with two out in the bottom of the ninth, Killebrew delivered a walk-off two-run homer to give the Twins the victory.

Of note:  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4 with a run.  Jimmie Hall was 1-for-3 with an RBI.  Battey was 2-for-4 with an RBI.  Jim Kaat pitched 4.1 innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on seven hits and three walks with one strikeout.

Record:  The win made the Twins 53-29 and gave them a five-game lead heading into the all-star break.  Baltimore and Cleveland were now tied for second.

Notes:  Hall now had an average of .325...Battey raised his average to .313...I don't remember Joe Nossek as having a reputation as a great defender, but he was in center field in this game, with Hall moving to left in place of Allison, who remained out of the lineup.  Don Mincher pitch-hit for Nossek in the seventh and stayed in to play first, with Killebrew moving to left and Hall to center.  It was one of only two games in which Killebrew would play in the outfield that season.  He had been the Twins' regular left fielder from 1962-64, with Vic Power manning first base from 1962-63 and Allison as the primary starter there in 1964...Mantle was obviously back in the starting lineup but played left field.  I hadn't realized this, but probably as a concession to age and/or injury, Mantle was no longer in center in 1965 but was the regular in left.