The Twins Almanac for July 12, 2025: Steinbach Named All-Star Game MVP, Puckett Retires

[Matt Johnson]

 

Puckett Officially Retires
36-year-old Kirby Puckett held a press conference at the Metrodome, officially announcing his retirement on this date in 1996. Cleveland happened to be in town, and Dennis Martinez attended the press conference. Puckett had been hit in the face by a Martinez fastball at the Metrodome in what turned out to be Puckett's final regular season at-bat on September 28, 1995.

Puckett appeared poised for a big season in 1996, batting .344 in spring training when he woke up on the final day of camp unable to see out of his right eye. He was diagnosed with glaucoma (unrelated to the season-ending hit-by-pitch), and placed on the Injured List for the first time in his career. Four surgeries did nothing to improve his vision before he officially announced his retirement.

 

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Blyleven Earns 1,000th Win in Twins History
Bert Blyleven held the visiting Brewers to one run on five hits and two walks for a 7-1 win on this date in 1972—the 1,000th win in Twins history.

In a remarkable coincidence, Blyleven also earned the 2,000th win in Twins history in his second stint with the team 13 years later, on September 25, 1985. 

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Steinbach is All-Star Game MVP
After being maligned by the press as an unworthy All-Star, New Ulm native and Golden Gophers all-time great Terry Steinbach was named All-Star Game MVP on this date in 1988, after driving in the American League's only runs with a homer and sac fly for a 2-1 win at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium. The runner who scored on Steinbach's sac fly was Dave Winfield, meaning that all the AL's runs were scored and driven in by Minnesota natives. 

Steinbach had missed most of the month of May and was batting just .217 with five home runs and 19 RBI at the break (with his fifth home run coming in the last game before the break). He was, nevertheless, the leading vote-getter for AL starting catcher.

The AL's only other catcher in the game was another Minnesota high school graduate: Tim Laudner, named to the team by manager Tom Kelly (who was at the helm by virtue of the Twins being the 1987 league champions). Laudner doubled in his only at-bat (off 1989 NL Cy Young Award winner Mark Davis) and caught the final four innings. 

Frank Viola started the game, retiring all six batters he faced.

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Three Twins Have Two-HR Games
The Twins hit seven home runs in a 13-5 win in their first game at Milwaukee's new Miller Park on this date in 2001. Torii Hunter, Corey Koskie, and Jacque Jones hit two each. Doug Mientkiewicz only hit one, as he, Koskie, and Hunter went back-to-back-to-back in the third inning.

It was Hunter's fourth consecutive game with multiple extra-base hits, tying a team record set by Matt Lawton just three days earlier. Remarkably, they are still the only two such streaks in team history, and they overlapped!

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Also on this Date in Minnesota Baseball History:

 

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[CharlieDee]

Sad day when Kirby announced his retirement. His final at bat was both horrible and sad. Intentional or not, I couldn't stand Dennis Martinez after that day.

[Matt Johnson]

4 hours ago, CharlieDee said:

Sad day when Kirby announced his retirement. His final at bat was both horrible and sad. Intentional or not, I couldn't stand Dennis Martinez after that day.

Yeah, I think everyone associated Martinez with the end of Kirby's career. Did people back then actually think there was a connection between that season-ending hit-by-pitch and Kirby's glaucoma, or is that something that emerged in the social media era?