The Twins Almanac: War Heroes, Record Cold, and The Say Hey Kid

[Matt Johnson]

This weekend's Almanac features a couple of Minnesotan major leaguers from Winona and Lake Benton, as well as a former Twin who was part of perhaps the most famous play in baseball history. 

Feb. 8, 1925: Milt Nielsen was born in Tyler, MN 100 years ago today. (That's down between Marshall, MN, and Brookings, SD.) 

After graduating from Lake Benton High School, he enlisted and served with the 110th Naval Construction Battalion through the end of World War II. Immediately after discharge, he signed with Cleveland and played nine seasons in their organization, including two cups of coffee in the majors.  

His first call-up came in 1949 when he started three games in center field. (In one of those games he shared the outfield with Hall of Famer Larry Doby.) He got a second call-up in 1951, making six appearances as a pinch hitter (0-for-6) and 10 appearances as a pinch runner. He never played in the field during that '51 call-up. His only MLB hit was a bunt single leading off an inning back in 1949 and, after advancing to third on a double, he was driven in on a single to center by Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon. 

During Nielsen's nine seasons in the minors, he batted over .300 four times and retired with a career .297 average across all levels. 

Following his playing career, he managed and eventually owned a Chevy dealership in St. Peter. (The St. Peter Food Co-Op & Deli moved into the old Nielsen Chevrolet building in 2011.)

Nielsen passed away in 2005 at age 80 and was laid to rest at Resurrection Cemetery in St. Peter.

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Feb. 8, 1996: Let's talk about the weather for a second. The temperature in Tower, MN on this date in 1996 was 48°. Why is that noteworthy? Because it had been a state-record low -60° just six days earlier—a swing of 108 degrees!

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Feb. 9, 1902: 1927 Yankees bench player Julie Wera was born in Winona, MN on this date in 1902. His only major league home run came during a Fourth of July doubleheader at Yankee Stadium in front of a crowd of 74,000—the largest crowd to ever attend a baseball game to that point.

The ‘27 Yankees are regarded by many as the greatest baseball team ever assembled. 32-year-old Babe Ruth swatted 60 home runs, while the team went 110-44 (.714), winning the American League pennant by a margin of 19 games. Wera, for his part, got into 38 games (19 starts), going 10-for-42 (.238) with a walk, eight RBI, and seven runs scored.

He suffered a gnarly knee injury in a late-season play at the plate and was not a part of the World Series, in which the Yankees swept the Pirates. He did, however, receive the same $5,782 portion of the winners’ purse as Ruth, Gehrig, and the rest of the gang. Nice bonus, considering that Wera’s 1927 salary was $2,400.

Hampered by the knee injury, Wera was back in the minors with St. Paul in 1928. He did make it back to the Yankees for a second short stint in the majors in 1929, going 5-for-12 (.417). 

In total, Wera played 13 seasons of professional baseball, wrapping up his career in 1937 with the Crookston (MN) Pirates, a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate in the class-D Northern League.

In 1939, Wera was working in the meat department of the Rochester Piggly Wiggly when he received a surprised visit from former Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig, who was in town receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic. 

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Feb. 9, 1925: Four-time All-Star Vic Wertz was born 100 years ago today. He made 29 pinch-hitting appearances and started five games at first base with the Twins in 1963—his 17th and final major league season.

You can picture Willie Mays's famous over-the-shoulder catch 425 feet from home plate to preserve an eighth-inning tie in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, right? Well, Vic hit that ball. That was Wertz's only out of the game. In the first, he hit a 420-foot triple (the Polo Grounds was notoriously spacious) driving in the only two runs Cleveland would get in the game. He also had two singles and a 400-foot double leading off the top of the 10th which might have made him the first person with five hits in a World Series game (although it's more likely that the eighth-inning drive would have won the game for Cleveland before it got to extra innings). As it turned out, St. Paul native Paul Molitor was the first person with five hits in a World Series game, followed by Albert Pujols. The Giants won in the bottom of the 10th on a pinch-hit walk-off homer by Dusty Rhodes. Minnesota native Wes Westrum had two hits in the game for New York. 

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