Just to put a cherry on the sundae of the 1965 season, we take a look at the Twins' team leaders in various categories.

BATTERS

GAMES

Zoilo Versalles, 160
Tony Oliva, 149
Jimmie Hall, 148

RUNS

Versalles, 126
Oliva, 107
Hall, 81

HITS

Oliva, 185
Versalles, 182
Hall, 149

DOUBLES

Versalles, 45
Oliva, 40
Hall, 25

TRIPLES

Versalles, 12
Bob Allison, 5
Oliva, 5

HOME RUNS

Harmon Killebrew, 25
Allison, 23
Don Mincher, 22

RBI

Oliva, 98
Hall, 86
Allison, 78

STOLEN BASES

Versalles, 27
Oliva, 19
Hall, 14

WALKS

Allison, 73
Killebrew, 72
Oliva, 55

AVERAGE

Oliva, .321
Earl Battey, .297
Hall, .285

OBP

Killebrew, .384
Oliva, .378
Battey, .375

SLUGGING

Mincher, .509
Killebrew, .501
Oliva, .491

OPS

Killebrew, .885
Oliva, 870
Mincher, .853

TOTAL BASES

Versalles, 308
Oliva, 283
Hall, 242

PITCHERS

WINS

Mudcat Grant, 21
Jim Kaat, 18
Jim Perry, 12

WINNING PERCENTAGE

Grant, .750
Camilo Pascual, .750
Johnny Klippstein, .750

ERA

Al Worthington 2.13
Klippstein, 2.24
Perry, 2.63

GAMES

Worthington, 62
Klippstein, 56
Kaat, 45

STARTS

Kaat, 42
Grant, 39
Pascual, 27

COMPLETE GAMES

Grant, 14
Kaat, 7
Pascual, 5

SHUTOUTS

Grant, 6
Kaat, 2
Perry, 2

SAVES

Worthington, 21
Klippstein, 5
Dick Stigman, 4
Bill Pleis, 4

INNINGS PITCHED

Grant, 270.1
Kaat, 264.1
Perry, 167.2

STRIKEOUTS

Kaat, 154
Grant, 142
Pascual, 96

FIP

Worthington, 3.34
Kaat, 3.35
Jim Merritt, 3.57
Pleis, 3.57

WHIP

Perry, 1.13
Merritt, 1.15
Grant, 1.16

And that's it for 1965 Rewind.  Hope you enjoyed it.  God willing, next off-season we'll pick another great Twins season of the past and do a rewind on it.  But now, it's almost time for the 2016 season!  Play ball!

Just to put a bow on the 1965 season, here are the Twins who were on the league leaderboards.  We'll look at Twins team leaders tomorrow.

WAR

• 1. Sam McDowell, 7.9
• 2. Zoilo Versalles, 7.2
• 5T Tony Oliva, 5.4

AVERAGE

• 1. Tony Oliva, .321
• 8.  Jimmie Hall, .285

OBP

• 1. Carl Yastrzemski, .391
• 4. Tony Oliva, .378

SLUGGING

• 1. Carl Yastrzemski, .536
• 5.  Tony Oliva, .491

OPS

• 1. Carl Yastrzemski, .932
• 3, Tony Oliva, .870

RUNS

• 1. Zoilo Versalles, 126
• 2.  Tony Oliva, 107
• 9T Jimmie Hall, 81

HITS

• 1. Tony Oliva, 185
• 2. Zoilo Versalles, 182

TOTAL BASES

• 1, Zoilo Versalles, 308
• 3. Tony Oliva, 283

DOUBLES

• 1T. Zoilo Versalles, 45
• 1T Carl Yastrzemski, 45
• 3. Tony Oliva, 40
• 8T Jimmie Hall, 25

TRIPLES

• 1T Zoilo Versalles, 12
• 1T Bert Campaneris, 12

HOME RUNS

• 1. Tony Conigliaro, 32
• 8. Harmon Killebrew, 25
• 9T Bob Allison, 23

RBI

• 1. Rocky Colavito, 108
• 3. Tony Oliva, 98
• 6. Jimmie Hall, 86

WALKS

• 1. Rocky Colavito, 93
• 6T Bob Allison, 73
• 9T Harmon Killebrew, 72

STOLEN BASES

• 1. Bert Campaneris, 51
• 3. Zoilo Versalles, 27
• 6. Tony Oliva, 19
• 10. Jimmie Hall, 14

WPA

• 1. Harmon Killebrew, 6.0
• 2. Tony Oliva, 4.8

ERA

• 1. Sam McDowell, 2.18
• 9. Jim Perry, 2.63

WINS

• 1. Mudcat Grant, 21
• 3. Jim Kaat, 18

W-L PERCENTAGE

• 1. Mudcat Grant, .750
• 10. Jim Perry, .632

WHIP

• 1. Eddie Fisher, 0.97
• 9. Jim Perry, 1.13

SAVES

• 1. Ron Kline, 29
• 6T. Al Worthington, 21

INNINGS PITCHED

• 1. Mel Stottlemyre, 291
• 3. Mudcat Grant, 270.1
• 4. Jim Kaat, 264.1

STARTS

• 1. Jim Kaat, 42
• 2. Mudcat Grant, 39

COMPLETE GAMES

• 1. Mel Stottlemyre, 18
• 2T. Mudcat Grant, 14

SHUTOUTS

• 1. Mudcat Grant, 6

 

LOS ANGELES 2, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a walk.  Frank Quilici was 1-for-3 with a double.

Pitching stars: Jim Merritt retired all four batters he faced.  Johnny Klippstein struck out two in 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk.  Al Worthington pitched two shutout innings, giving up a walk.

Opposition stars:  Sandy Koufax struck out ten in a complete game shutout, allowing three hits and three walks.  Johnny Roseboro was 1-for-2 with a double and two walks.  Lou Johnson was 1-for-4 with a home run.

The game:  Both runs were scored in the fourth inning.  Johnson led off with a home run.  Ron Fairly then doubled and scored on a single by Wes Parker.  Both runs were scored off Twins started Jim Kaat, who was pulled after the Parker single.  Twins relievers pitched six shutout innings, but to no avail.  The Twins threatened in the first on two-out walks to Tony Oliva and Killebrew, but Earl Battey struck out to end the threat.  They had another threat in the fifth, when Quilici hit a one-out double and pinch-hitter Rich Rollins walked, but a pair of ground outs ended the inning.  The Twins did not get another man on until the ninth, when Killebrew hit a one-out single.  The game and the series ended with consecutive strikeouts of Battey and Bob Allison.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-4.  Joe Nossek was 0-for-4.  Oliva was 0-for-3 with a walk.  Kaat pitched three innings, giving up two runs on five hits and a walk with two strikeouts.

Record:  The Twins lost the series to Los Angeles, four games to three.

Notes:  Nossek once again started in place of Jimmie Hall.  Nossek started five of the seven World Series games and hit .200/.200/.200.  It's hard to imagine that Hall would have done worse.  On the other hand, it might not have made any difference, as it's doubtful anyone was going to hit Koufax on this day...In the two games Sandy Valdespino started in place of Allison, he was 2-for-8 with a double...Both Kaat and Koufax started on two days' rest.  The difference, of course, is that Koufax had pitched a complete game in Game Five, while Kaat had pitched only 2.1 innings...For the World Series, Koufax was 2-1, 0.38, 0.75 WHIP with 29 strikeouts in 24 innings.

MINNESOTA 5, LOS ANGELES 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, October 13.

Batting stars:  Bob Allison was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer, a walk, and a stolen base, scoring twice.  Mudcat Grant was 1-for-3 with a three-run homer.  Earl Battey was 1-for-4 with a triple and a run.

Pitching star:  Grant pitched a complete game, giving up one run on six hits and no walks with five strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Ron Fairly was 2-for-4 with a home run.  Claude Osteen pitched five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits and three walks with two strikeouts.

The game:  It was scoreless through three, with the Twins wasting a leadoff triple by Battey in the second.  Allison hit a two-run homer in the fourth to put the Twins on the board.  In the sixth, Allison stole second with two out.  The Dodgers then intentionally walked Frank Quilici to face Grant, who hit a three-run homer that put the Twins ahead 5-0.  The lone Dodger run came on Fairly's home run leading off the seventh.  They put only one other man on second base and did not get a hit until the fifth inning.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-3 with a walk.  Joe Nossek was 0-for-4.  Tony Oliva was 2-for-4.  Harmon Killebrew was 0-for-4.

Record:  The win tied the series at three games apiece.

Notes:  Nossek once again started in center field in place of Jimmie Hall...Grant did not hit a home run in the regular season in 1965.  The last home run he had hit came on May 17, 1964...For all the talk of Sandy Koufax pitching on two days' rest in game seven, it somehow has gotten lost that Grant came back on two days' rest in this game...Another thing that's been lost is the great series Ron Fairly had.  After six games, he was hitting .400 with two home runs and an OPS of 1.120.  In two prior World Series, 1959 and 1963, Fairly had been a reserve and gone 0-for-4 with three walks.

LOS ANGELES 7, MINNESOTA 0 IN LOS ANGELES

Date:  Monday, October 11.

Batting stars:  None.  The Twins had only four hits, all singles.

Pitching star:  Dave Boswell struck out three in 2.2 innings, giving up one run on three hits and two walks.

Opposition stars:  Sandy Koufax struck out ten in a complete game shutout, allowing four hits and one walk.  Maury Wills was 4-for-5 with two doubles and a stolen base, scoring twice and driving in one.  Ron Fairly was 3-for-5 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.

The game:  The Dodgers scored two in the first and two in the third to take a 4-0 lead.  Jim Gilliam and Lou Johnson had RBI singles and Fairly had a run-scoring double.  Gilliam had another RBI single in the fourth and Koufax and Wills each had a run-producing single in the seventh.  The Twins did not get a hit until Harmon Killebrew's leadoff single in the fifth, and he was immediately erased by a double play.   The Twins only had two innings in which they sent more than three men to the plate and only once, in the ninth, got a man as far as second base.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 0-for-4.  Joe Nossek was 1-for-4.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-3.  Killebrew was 1-for-3.  Jim Kaat lasted only 2.1 innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on six hits and no walks with one strikeout.

Record:  The Twins now trailed the series three games to two.

Notes:  Nossek again started in center in place of Jimmie Hall to gain a platoon advantage.  While Hall did substantially worse against left-handers than righties in 19965, he still did better against them than Nossek, who in 114 at-bats against left-handers hit .228/.262/.325 against them.  Hall had slumped badly in September, however, which may have been part of the reason for the move.  Nobody was hitting Sandy Koufax this day, though, so whether this decision was wise or dumb or somewhere in between, it probably made no difference in the outcome of the game.

LOS ANGELES 7, MINNESOTA 2 IN LOS ANGELES

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-2 with two walks and a home run.  Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 with a home run.

Pitching star:  Al Worthington struck out two in two innings, giving up an unearned run on two hits and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Don Drysdale struck out eleven in a complete game, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks.  Wes Parker was 2-for-4 with a home run and a stolen base, scoring twice.  Lou Johnson was 2-for-4 with a home run.

The game:  The Dodgers caught some breaks early.  They scored once in the first on two infield hits, a stolen base, and a ground out and got another run in the second on a bunt single, a stolen base, a wild pitch, and an error.  Killebrew and Parker exchanged home runs in the fourth to make it 3-1 Los Angeles.  Oliva homered in the top of the sixth to cut the lead to 3-2, but in the bottom of the sixth a two-run single by Ron Fairly and a bunt single by Johnson made it 6-2.  The Twins did not threaten after that.  Johnson homered in the eighth to round out the scoring.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-4.  Sandy Valdespino was 1-for-4.  Mudcat Grant was not hit particularly hard, but pitched five innings and gave up five runs (four earned) on six hits and a walk with two strikeouts.

Record:  The series was now tied 2-2.

Notes:  Sam Mele again played Valdespino in left rather than Bob Allison to gain a platoon advantage.  Allison actually hit right-handers better than left-handers in 1965 and while his batting average against them was lower than Valdespino's, his OBP was higher and his slugging average was a lot higher...Six of the Dodgers' ten hits did not leave the infield.  Three of them were bunts...The Dodgers were 2-for-4 in stolen bases in the game.

LOS ANGELES 4, MINNESOTA 0 IN LOS ANGELES

Date:  Saturday, October 9.

Batting star:  Zoilo Versalles was 2-for-3 with a walk and a double.

Pitching star:  Johnny Klippstein pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a walk with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Claude Osteen pitched a complete game shutout, allowing five hits and two walks with two strikeouts.

The game:  Versalles led off the game with a double, but was ultimately thrown out at the plate when he and Harmon Killebrew tried a second-and-home double steal with two out.  The Dodgers opened the scoring in the fourth on a two-run single by Johnny Roseboro.  Lou Johnson doubled home a run in the fifth and Maury Wills did the same in the sixth.  The Twins put men on first and third with one out in the sixth, but Tony Oliva grounded into a double play.  The only other Twins threat came in the eighth, when an error and a walk put men on first and second with two out.  Eighteen of the Twins' outs came on infield grounders.

Of note:  Joe Nossek was 0-for-4.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-4.  Harmon Killebrew was 0-for-3 with a walk.  Camilo Pascual started and pitched five innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and a walk with no strikeouts.

Record:  The Twins led the series two games to one.

Notes:  Sam Mele once again used Joe Nossek in center rather than Jimmie Hall to try to get a platoon advantage.  On the one hand, while Hall had a fine season, he had slumped badly down the stretch and did not have a good record against left-handed pitchers.  On the other hand, Nossek had shown no particular ability to hit either left or right-handed pitching...I'm not one hundred percent sure about that first-inning double steal, but the Twins had men on first and third with two out and the play-by-play reads "Versalles Caught Stealing Hm (C-SS-C-3B)".  My assumption is that, while it may not have been a straight steal, Killebrew at least went far enough toward second to draw a throw and Versalles was trying to catch the Dodgers by surprise...Claude Osteen is kind of "the other guy" on those 1960s Dodgers teams, after Koufax and Drysdale, but he was a fine pitcher in his own right.  He posted an ERA under four every year from 1962-74.  In four of those years his ERA was under three and all but three of them in was under 3.50.  His WHIP was under 1.3 in all but two of those seasons.  He also pitched over two hundred innings every year from 1963-73, pitching over two hundred fifty in all but three of those years.  His won-lost record was usually around .500, partly because of the poor offense the Dodgers had.  He did win twenty games in 1969 and 1974, though.  For his career, which went from 1957-75, he was 196-195, 3.30 ERA, 1.28 WHIP.  His average season as a Dodger (1965-73) was 16-14, 3.09, 1.22 WHIP, 37 starts, 266 innings...The time of game was 2:06.  I wonder when the last time was a World Series game came that close to two hours.

MINNESOTA 5, LOS ANGELES 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, October 7.

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.  Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-5 with a triple and two runs.

Pitching star:  Jim Kaat pitched a complete game, giving up one run on seven hits and one walk with three strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Sandy Koufax struck out nine in six innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on six hits and one walk.  Ron Fairly was 2-for-4 with a run.  Jim Lefebvre was 2-for-4.

The game:  No one got a hit until the fourth and there was no scoring until the sixth.  There nearly was in the fifth, though, as with none out and a man on first Bob Allison made an amazing sliding catch of a line drive down the left field line which is still talked about in Twins history.  The Twins broke through in the sixth when Oliva delivered an RBI double and Killebrew followed with a run-scoring single.  The Dodgers got on the board in the seventh when future Twin John Roseboro came through with an RBI single.  The Dodgers had men on second and third with one out, but Kaat struck out Don Drysdale (who was used as a pinch-hitter for Koufax) and retired Maury Wills on a short fly to center.  Versalles tripled and scored in the seventh and the Twins put it away in the eighth on a two-out two-run single by Kaat.

Of note:  Joe Nossek was 1-for-3.

Record:  The Twins took a 2-0 lead in the Series.

Notes:  Nossek replaced Jimmie Hall in center field.  One assumes the goal was again to gain a platoon advantage...Three future Twins played in this game:  Roseboro, Ron Perranoski, and Bob Miller...1965 was by far Drysdale's best year at the plate.  He hit .300/.331/.508 in 130 at-bats.  He only had one other season in which he hit over .200.  His seven home runs tied his career high, set in 1958...I'm sure pitchers have been used as pinch-hitters in the World Series on occasion, but I would think most of those times were when he was brought up to bunt or when the bench was exhausted.  When Drysdale pinch-hit in this game, he was the first substitute the Dodgers had used.  I wonder how many other times, if any, that's happened in the World Series--that a team used a pitcher to pinch-hit when they had their full bench available.

MINNESOTA 8, LOS ANGELES 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, October 6.

Batting stars:  Zoilo Versalles was 2-for-5 with a home run and a stolen base, driving in four.  Don Mincher was 1-for-3 with a home run and a walk, scoring twice.  Frank Quilici was 2-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in one.

Pitching stars:  Mudcat Grant pitched a complete game, giving up two runs on ten hits and one walk with five strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Ron Fairly was 1-for-4 with a home run.  Maury Wills was 2-for-5 with an RBI.  Howie Reed retired all four batters he faced, striking out one.

The game:  Fairly homered in the top of the second to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead, but Mincher answered with a homer in the bottom of the second to make it 1-1.  The Twins broke loose in the third, scoring six runs and driving Los Angeles starter Don Drysdale from the game.  Versalles had a three-run homer,  Earl Battey drove in two with a single, and Quilici had an RBI single.  The Dodgers put two on in the fifth, sixth, and seventh, but did not score again until the ninth on Wills' two-out bunt single.

Of note:  Sandy Valdespino was 1-for-4 with a double and a run.  Tony Oliva was 0-for-4.  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a walk and a run.

Record:  The Twins took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Notes:  Valdespino played left field in place of Bob Allison, presumably to gain a platoon advantage.  That seems like a rather daring move for Sam Mele to have made...Drysdale lasted only 2.2 innings and gave up seven runs, although only three were earned.  He had gone 23-12, 2.77, 1.09 WHIP during the season...Despite all the awesome pitchers the Dodgers had, their best in this game was Howie Reed.  Pretty much forgotten now, Reed was a fine reliever for the Dodgers from 1964-66 and continued to pitch well through 1967, when he was traded first to California and then to Houston.  In those years, he posted a 3.12 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP in 231 innings.  For some reason, the Astros tried to convert him to a starter in 1967, and while he pitched well in AAA in that role he did not do well in the majors.  Traded to Montreal early in 1969, he had one more good relief year in 1970, but his career came to end in 1971.  After baseball, he operated a farm in Mathis, Texas and passed away in December of 1984 at the young age of forty-seven.

MINNESOTA 3, CALIFORNIA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Sunday, October 3.

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-4 with a two-run homer, his twenty-fifth.  Don Mincher was 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI.  Jimmie Hall was 1-for-4 with a stolen base (his fourteenth) and a run.

Pitching stars:  Jim Kaat struck out four in two shutout innings, giving up two hits and a walk.  Jim Perry struck out two in two shutout innings, giving up two hits and a walk.  Johnny Klippstein pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Ed Kirkpatrick was 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI.  Rick Reichardt was 3-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base, his fourth.  Bobby Knoop was 2-for-5 with a run.

The game:  Killebrew hit a two-run homer in the first to give the Twins an early 2-0 lead.  Vic Power cut the lead to 2-1 with an RBI single in the top of the third, but Mincher answered with an RBI single of his own in the bottom half to make it 3-1.  Kirkpatrick doubled in a run in the fifth, but that was it for the scoring.  The Angels had the tying run on second in the fifth and seventh and put men on first and third with two out in the eighth, but the Twins held on to win.

Of note:  Zoilo Versalles was 1-for-3 with a walk.  Sandy Valdespino was 0-for-3 with a walk and a run.  Jimmie Hall was 1-for-4 with a run.

Record:  The Twins ended the regular season 102-60.  Chicago defeated Kansas City to hold onto second place, seven games back.  The rest of the standings went:  Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, California, Washington, Boston, Kansas City.

Notes:  The Twins basically used this as a tune-up game.  Kaat, Dave Boswell, Al Worthington, and Perry each pitched two innings and Klippstein pitched one...The regular lineup played except that Valdespino was once again in right rather than Tony Oliva.  Oliva did not play in any of the last five Twins regular season games...Oliva was the only twin to hit .300, leading the league in batting at .321 and in hits with 185.  Zoilo Versalles led the league in runs (126) and total bases (308), was tied for the league lead in doubles (45) and triples (12), and was second in hits with 182.  Mudcat Grant led the league in wins (21), winning percentage (.750), and shutouts (6).  Jim Kaat led the league in starts with 42.  I wonder when the last time is that a pitcher started that many games in a season.  The only one who comes immediately to mind is knuckleballer Wilbur Wood, who started at least that many games each year from 1971-75.