The Twins Almanac: Dean Chance at (Almost) His Best, Everyday Eddie and the Mayor of St. Paul

August 25, 1967: Chance, Second
Dean Chance pitched the second no-hitter in Minnesota Twins history in the second game of a doubleheader in Cleveland on this date in 1967.

Interestingly, Cleveland led the game 1-0 at the end of the first inning. Chance walked the first two batters of the game before getting a strikeout for the first out. Cleveland’s cleanup hitter then reached on an error to load the bases, and Chance unleashed a wild pitch allowing a run to score without the benefit of a hit. Chance issued five walks altogether in the narrow 2-1 no-hit victory.

The first game of the doubleheader was a tight one, too, with the Twins winning 6-5 in 10 innings. It was actually 4-4 going into the extra inning. After the Twins scored twice in the top of the 10th, Cleveland hit a solo home run in the bottom of the inning, before the Twins nailed down the win. 

Chance had actually pitched a rain-shortened five-inning perfect game on Aug. 6 of that season. Though Major League Baseball considers a game official after five innings, in 1991, MLB dictated that a pitcher only gets credit for a no-hitter if the game goes the full nine innings. Chance—along with 35 other pitchers—thus had their no-hitters retroactively wiped from the record books. 

Fun fact regarding Chance and no-hitters: As a high schooler in Ohio, he pitched SEVENTEEN of them (I’ve also read 18), including eight in one season. He posted a 52-1 high school record overall. 

August 25, 2008: Guardado Traded for Hamburger
In the midst of an intensely close pennant race with the White Sox, the Twins traded minor-league pitcher Mark Hamburger to Texas for veteran reliever Eddie Guardado on this date in 2008. Hamburger was born in St. Paul in 1987, graduated from Mounds View High School, and attended Mesabi Range Community and Technical College in Virginia, Minn. before signing with the Twins out of an open tryout at the Metrodome in 2007.

He made it to "The Show" in 2011, making five appearances out of the Rangers bullpen. He bounced around in the minors in 2012. In 2013, he was playing independent ball with the St. Paul Saints. That September, the Twins signed him again, and he spent the 2014 and '15 seasons down in the Minnesota farm system. Over the next few seasons, he played in Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, and again with the independent St. Paul Saints. His final season of professional baseball was in 2018 (age 31) with the independent New Britain Bees out in Connecticut. I'm sure some of you have some great stories and memories about the man who earned the nickname "the Mayor of St. Paul". Please share them in the comments section below. What is he up to today? Does he want to join my 35+ team? 

Eddie Guardado made his big-league debut with the Twins in 1993. He pitched for the team until 2003, leading the league with 45 saves in 2002 and representing Minnesota at the 2002 and 2003 All-Star Games. He signed with the Mariners after the latter season and made a stop in Cincinnati before ending up in Texas. It was exciting to have Everyday Eddie back in Minnesota for the 2008 pennant stretch, but he only wound up making nine appearances, mostly working the eighth inning. (Of course, the Twins wound up losing to the White Sox in a thrilling Game 163.)

Guardado re-signed with the Rangers for the 2009 season—his final season, at age 38. Guardado pitched in more games than any other pitcher in Twins history, and it’s not even close, appearing in 648 games for Minnesota. Rick Aguilera is second at 490. Guardado was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame in 2013. He was the Twins' bullpen coach from 2015 to 2018.

Are you interested in Twins history? Then check out the Minnesota Twins Players Project, a community-driven project to discover and collect great information on every player to wear a Twins uniform!