The Twins Almanac: Weekend Edition

[Matt Johnson]

This weekend's Almanac features baseball greats Tony Oliva, Charlie Manuel, Ron Gardenhire, Earl Battey, and Bert Blyleven. 

 

Jan. 4, 1972: Here is an incredible photo of Tony Oliva kissing his dad Pedro at the Mexico City airport on this date in 1972. Due to travel restrictions between the United States and Cuba, the two had not seen each other in ELEVEN years! In the meantime, Tony O had won three batting titles, Rookie of the Year, made eight All-Star teams, and played in the World Series. Pretty incredible to think about.

(The woman in the picture is Tony's sister.)

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Jan. 4: Happy 81st birthday to baseball lifer Charlie Manuel, born in West Virginia in 1944. He spent parts of four seasons in left field with the Twins, batting .198 with four home runs over 242 games between 1969 and 1972. After a couple more cups of coffee with the Dodgers, he moved on to a very successful six-year stint in Japan where he twice led the league in home runs and was league MVP in 1979. Over the four-year period from 1977 to '80, he hit .319 and averaged 41 home runs per season. 

In America, Manuel is best remembered as a manager. He got his managerial start with five seasons down in the Twins farm system, including as skipper of the infamously awful 1987 Portland Beavers, who finished 45-96. That team included players Ron Gardenhire and Billy Beane. (I guess the Twins were stockpiling their talent at the major league level that season.)

Manuel managed the Philadelphia Phillies to back-to-back World Series, winning it all in 2008.

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Jan. 4, 2002: The Twins announced former third base coach Ron Gardenhire as the 12th manager in team history on this date in 2002, succeeding Tom Kelly who retired following the team’s first winning season in nine years. TK was the longest tenured manager or head coach in all of professional sports at the time of his retirement.

The Twins won the AL Central in each of Gardy’s first three seasons, and in six of his first nine. They only advanced past the divisional round, however, in Gardy’s first season of 2002. After five runner-up finishes, he was named AL Manager of the Year in 2010. (The last four Twins managers—Kelly, Gardy, Molly, and Baldelli—have all won AL Manager of the Year.) Gardenhire managed the Twins for 13 seasons before being fired on September 29, 2014, having amassed 1,068 wins—just 72 shy of TK’s team record of 1,140.

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Jan. 5, 1935: Five-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove catcher Earl Battey was born on this date in 1935.

After seeing limited playing time over parts of five seasons in Chicago, the White Sox sent him and Don Mincher to the Washington Senators for former AL home run leader Roy Sievers at the end of spring training 1960. Battey broke out that season, winning his first of three consecutive Gold Glove Awards, and finishing top-10 in MVP balloting for the first of three times in his career. 

Battey was known as one of the best defensive catchers in the game—notoriously difficult to run on—but was no slouch with the bat, either, hitting .302 in the Twins' first season in Minnesota and walloping 26 home runs in 1963. 

He retired after the ‘67 season having caught 831 games in a Twins uniform. That stood as the club record until Joe Mauer surpassed him on August 27, 2012.

In 1980, Battey enrolled at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, FL, graduating summa cum laude in just 2½ years. After graduation he became a high school teacher and baseball coach in Ocala, FL.

Battey passed away in 2003 at just 68 years old. He was inducted as the 13th member of the Twins Hall of Fame in 2004.

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Jan. 5, 2011: On his 14th ballot, Twins all-time strikeout leader Bert Blyleven was elected to the Hall of Fame with the support of 79.7% of voters on this date in 2011. His 3,701 career strikeouts rank fifth in major league history behind Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Steve Carlton.

The Twins selected the Dutch-born, SoCal-raised Blyleven out of high school in the third round of the 1969 draft. He made his MLB debut in June 1970 at age 19 and went on to pitch 22 big-league seasons including 11 in Minnesota (1970–’76 & 1985–’88), amassing 149 wins in a Twins uniform, second only to Jim Kaat’s 190 (which includes one as a Senator). In addition to the ’87 Twins, Bert was a member of the 1979 World Series Champion Pirates. He was an All-Star in 1973 and '85.

Bert pitched three one-hitters with the Twins—two in 1973 and another in 1974 (only one of those, incidentally, was a shutout). He pitched a no-hitter in his final game as a Texas Ranger before being traded to the Pirates following the 1977 season. 

The Twins retired Blyleven's number 28 the week before the Cooperstown induction ceremony in July 2011. 

 

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[Blyleven2011]

Love the twins almanac  ....

Love to jog the memories in the off season  , especially since there is nothing else positive about the twins to report on  ...

 

[theBOMisthebomb]

The 5th most strikeouts all-time and it took 14 ballots for Bert to get the HOF nod. That's a bit extreme and seems like a joke. The guy had 94.5 WAR, 287 wins, and a 3.31 career ERA. Did the voters really not like giving up HRs that much?