Twins Almanac: Rod Carew, Johan Santana and Ron Gardenhire Earn Prestigious Awards

[Matt Johnson]

This weekend's Twins Almanac features notes on Rod Carew, Johan Santana, Ron Gardenhire, longtime Chisholm, Minnesota doctor Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, and Stillwater high school graduate Mike Strong. 

Nov. 16, 1977: After leading the majors with 239 hits and a .388 average, Rod Carew is named American League Most Valuable Player. He was the third of five players in Twins history to receive the award, succeeding Zoilo Versalles in 1965 and Harmon Killebrew in 1969, and preceding Justin Morneau in 2006 and Joe Mauer in 2009.

Nov. 16, 2006:  After leading the majors with a 2.77 ERA, 0.997 WHIP, 245 strikeouts, and 19 wins (tied with Chien-Ming Wang), Twins ace Johan Santana wins his second Cy Young Award, this time by unanimous decision. It was his third consecutive season leading the league (or majors) in strikeouts and WHIP. He also won the Cy Young in 2004 and probably should have in 2005, too, but the award went to Bartolo Colon instead. 

Nov. 17: Happy birthday to me (41) and 2007 Stillwater graduate Mike Strong (36), who pitched six seasons of professional baseball, making it as high as Triple-A in the Brewers organization in 2015. 2016 was his final pro season, pitching for both the double-A Chattanooga Lookouts in the Twins organization and for the independent St. Paul Saints. Anybody know what Mike is up to these days?

Nov. 17, 2010: After five runner-up finishes, Ron Gardenhire finally win the American League Manager of the Year Award. The Twins won six division championships in Gardy's first nine seasons at the helm. 

Every Twins manager since Tom Kelly has been named AL Manager of the Year once: TK in 1991, Gardy in 2010, Paul Molitor in 2017, and Rocco Baldelli in 2019.

Nov. 17, 1877: Doc Archibald "Moonlight" Graham was born on this date in eighteen seventy-something (probably 1877). Following his eight-year pro baseball career, he practiced medicine in Chisholm, Minnesota for over 50 years.

Moonlight famously got into just one major league game but never made a plate appearance or got a defensive chance, just like Sauk Rapids graduate Bob Hegman who played half an inning in the field for the eventual 1985 World Series Champion Kansas City Royals. 

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