Tag Archives: ex-Twins

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–July 7

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George Moriarty (1885)
Double Duty Radcliffe (1902)
Satchel Paige (1906)
Billy Herman (1909)
Sammy White (1927)
John Gordon (1930)
Bill Melton (1945)
Tommy Moore (1948)
Dan Gladden (1957)
Tim Teufel (1958)
Glenn Hoffman (1958)
Dave Burba (1966)
Jeff Shaw (1966)
Chuck Knoblauch (1968)
Matt Mantei (1973)
John Buck (1980)

Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe played in the Negro Leagues for many years.  He got his nickname because he would sometimes catch one game of a doubleheader and pitch the other.  He played professionally until 1954, when he retired at age 52.  He is the oldest player to ever appear in a professional baseball game, throwing one pitch for the Schaumberg Flyers of the Northern League in 1999 when he was 96.

John Gordon, of course, was a radio broadcaster for the Twins from 1987 through 2011.

Tommy Moore was drafted by Minnesota in the twenty-eighth round in 1966, but did not sign.

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Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–July 4

Mickey Welch (1859)
George Mullin (1880)
Abe Saperstein (1903)
Bill Tuttle (1929)
Chuck Tanner (1929)
Peter Angelos (1929)
George Steinbrenner (1930)
Hal Lanier (1942)
Wayne Nordhagen (1948)
Ed Armbrister (1948)
Jim Beattie (19540
Jose Oquendo (1963)
Vinny Castilla (1967)
Brendan Donnelly (1971)
Jay Canizaro (1973)
Jeff Harris (1974)

Best remembered as the founder of the Harlem Globetrotters, Abe Saperstein was a long-time executive in what were then known as the Negro Leagues.

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Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–June 29

Wilbert Robinson (1863)
Harry Frazee (1880)
Bobby Veach (1888)
Ollie Carnegie (1899)
Ken Blackman (1911)
Dizzy Trout (1915)
Cal Drummond (1917)
Bob Shaw (1933)
Katsuya Nomura (1935)
Harmon Killebrew (1936)
Larry Stahl (1941)
John Boccabella (1941)
Bruce Kimm (1951)
Rick Honeycutt (1954)
Pedro Guerrero (1956)
John Wehner (1967)
Trey Hodges (1978)
Dusty Hughes (1982)

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Keeping Track

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)

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.

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