RIP Wayne Terwilliger

[Seth Stohs]

According to multiple tweets, former Twins player and coach Wayne Terwilliger passed away at 95. 

 

https://twitter.com/Twins/status/1357008379911282692 

 

https://twitter.com/SABRbioproject/status/1357009881379831829 

 

https://twitter.com/Patrick_Reusse/status/1357003600468279297 

[terrydactyls]

I saw him play at Nicolette Park a couple years ago (about 66 years ago if I remember correctly).

[nicksaviking]

He certainly was a fan favorite, at least a favorite of mine watching the Twins as a kid. Wayne and Kirby standing over at 1B was a pretty common sight back in the day.

 

I could have sworn he was about 95-years-old back in 1991 though. I guess everyone looks old when you're 12?

[ashbury]

He certainly was a fan favorite, at least a favorite of mine watching the Twins as a kid. Wayne and Kirby standing over at 1B was a pretty common sight back in the day.

 

I could have sworn he was about 95-years-old back in 1991 though. I guess everyone looks old when you're 12?

Nope, Terwilliger set a major league record by breaking in as a rookie at the tender age of 95, and never got any younger.

 

He was a featured panelist/speaker at a local SABR chapter meeting in 1986. My memory of things even a year ago is shaky, so I can't provide any highlights from way back then, except that my recollection is his sense of humor was refreshingly off-color even in mixed-company.

 

RIP Twig. A baseball character and a baseball lifer. There are much worse things to be.

 

[stewthornley]

Twig spoke to our SABR chapter in the spring of 1986 at the Normandy Inn.  He asked if someone could drive him back to the Metrodome for the game that night.  I took him.  At the time I sold a product line for Bradley Exterminating and had a company van with the name emblazoned all over it along with a large picture of a dead bug.  Twig thought it was a hoot and said he hoped Herbie or Kirby or Bruno or someone would be out front and see him getting dropped off in that.

 

Twig mentioned his wife, and I asked if she had been here with him in Minneapolis when he played for the Millers.  "Nah, not that one anymore," he said, adding with great enthusiasm, "I got a young one now."

 

He was great.

[Hawkeye12]

RIP 

 

When he coached first base for the St. Paul Saints after his Twins career, my brother and I had a chance to chat with him before they played in Sioux City.  He loved talking baseball and I think he'd have talked to us for an hour had he not had a game to coach!  Very generous with his time for a couple young fans and left an indelible impression.