The Player Rob Manfred Should Be Trying to Clone for each 2020 Roster

Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball will have coronavirus to thank when the 2020 MLB season isn’t marked only by the effects of the Astros and unresolved Red Sox sign-stealing sagas in history books. Even so, there is one player from baseball and Minnesota Twins history that the commissioner may want to clone and have his presence in each major league clubhouse in order to gain back the trust of fans.

That man is right-handed pitcher Al Worthington. There are likely few reasons someone in 2020 that wasn’t living in the 50s and 60’s or spends potentially too much time on baseball reference would know about the Alabama native Worthington. For Twins Daily readers, he did finish the last six years of his major league career with the Twins so you may have come across his name because of that.

Worthington was part of a great stretch of Twins teams from 1964-1969. After first coming over to the Twins and pitching as a reliever he appeared in 41 games, the first 20 without allowing a run, and finishing with a 1.37 ERA. Worthington had the best ERA of the ‘65 World Series roster of pitchers. Then in 1969, manager Billy Martin thought highly enough of him that he was able to get the right-hander to come out of retirement to join his squad’s bullpen.

While Worthington isn’t getting confused for Sandy Koufax or even his teammates such as Jim Perry, Mudcat Grant, or Dean Chance, he was a solid part of all those competitive Twins teams. Before coming to the Twins, Worthington was nothing more than a journeyman. Traveling back and forth between the minor and majors with a sprinkling of pennant-winning baseball in there too.

None of that is the reason why Manfred needs to consider clones of Worthington putting on each team's uniform. Worthington has a track record of calling out cheating, specifically sign stealing. He did it first as a member of the San Francisco Giants in 1959. Manager Bill Rigney in that occurrence chose to listen to Worthington and stop the practice. Which unfortunately for them led to losing three straight games at a critical point at the end of their season.

The following season, after just being acquired by the White Sox from the Red Sox, Worthington again found out that there was cheating happening once again. He again approached his manager Al Lopez on the issue. This time it seems things did not go the way Worthington had hoped. He then chose to leave the team after pitching only 5 1/3 innings for his new team.

We can only imagine how different the current state of sign stealing may have gone if someone on the rosters in question had chosen to stop it while it was happening. Mike Fiers deserves credit for shedding light on the issue, but it seems fair to wonder what reality we may be living in if someone had followed Worthington’s lead and stopped the practice while it was happening.

So if Manfred really wants to make us feel secure again about the integrity of the game when it comes to sign stealing, cloning Worthington might be the best way to do just that. He has a track record of calling these practices out into the light. He also was not a fan of the spitball, calling it cheating as well. We will have to report back about his feelings on pitchers using pine tar.

As I will recommend several times, at least until baseball starts, go read Cool of the Evening by Jim Thielman. It is where I first encountered this unique little side story to Worthington’s career. Thielman has done a good job of making each player I read about my new favorite of the team, Worthington now included.

Thielman, Jim. Cool of the Evening: the 1965 Minnesota Twins. Minneapolis, MN: Kirk House Publishers, 2005.

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