Greglw3

In my opinion, Rod Carew is not only the greatest player in Twins history, but he’s also one of the greatest hitters of all time since the game was started in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright with The New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club [Wikipedia] (Note that Base Ball is not a typo but was the official way of referring to the sport at its inception, two words). I’m basing this partly on the margins by which he beat the competition while winning his 7 batting titles in 12 years with the Twins. In his greatest season, when he hit .388 with 239 hits, he won the batting title by 52 points over teammate Lymon Bostock. Such great players as Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice and George Brett were left in the dust by Carew’s torrid season. Rice, at .320 was 68 points behind Carew and Brett at .312 was 76 points behind Carew. Carew completely and totally dominated fellow Hall of Famers in 1977. Did you know that the American League batting Champion is known as the "Rod Carew American League Batting Champion"? [Wikipedia] Rod Carew won the 4th most batting titles in baseball history while going on a hitting blitz in the 1970s that included .350, .359, .364, .388 averages in a 5 year period. Ty Cobb won 11 or 12 (it seems the 1902 title was contested and unsettled between Nap Lajoie and Cobb) and Carew has the 2nd most for the American League, all time. Honus Wagner and Tony Gwynn won 8 batting titles each in the NL, although for one of Gwynn’s batting titles, in 1996, he did not have enough plate appearances to qualify, so 4 hitless plate appearances were added to his stats and he barely beat out Ellis Burks, .349 to .344. Carew is tied all-time with 3 other players in winning 4 consecutive batting titles. Honus Wagner, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn are the other 3 and Nap Lajoie if you add his contested batting title with Ty Cobb. The greatest margins of victory for any batting champions were Nap Lajoie’s .426 - .340 lead over Mike Donlin in 1901, an 86 point margin in the AL, and Cap Anson’s .399 average was 71 points higher than Joe Start in the NL 1881 season. Now let’s compare Honus Wagner’s margins of victory for his 8 batting titles with Carew’s for his 7. Wagner: 1900 (+14), 1903 (+4), 1904 (+20), 1906 (+12), 1907 (+22), 1908 (+20), 1909 (+29), 1911 (+1). Carew: 1969 (+23 over Reggie Smith .332 - .309), 1972 (+6 over Lou Piniella .318 - .312 in the year of the pitcher), 1973 (+44 over George Brett .350 - .306), 1974 (+48 over Jorge Orta .364 - .316), 1975 (+28 .359-.331 over Fred Lynn), 1977 (+52 .388 - .336 over Lyman Bostock), 1978 (+9 .333 - .324 over Al Oliver). Wagner had a cumulative 122 point lead for the 8 years, winning his batting titles by an average of 15.25 points per season. Carew had a cumulative victory over the second place finishers of 210 points for an average margin of victory for his 7 batting titles of 30 points compared to Wagner’s 15.25!!! Notice that the closest Wagner ever came to Carew’s 52 point margin in 1977 was his 29 point margin in 1909. Carew blows away the greatest margin of victory of the man who tied for 2nd most batting titles in AL/NL history. Note that Oscar Charleston won batting titles in The Negro Leagues and in The Eastern Colored League. Using margin of victory in the batting titles to compensate for different eras, Carew blows away Honus Wagner 30-15 (rounded). I believe this is enough to claim that Rod Carew is one of the top 3 pure hitters in baseball history. I won’t do it now but it would be interesting to calculate the average margins for Cobb and Gwynn. I may do it if this catches on with Twins fans. It doesn’t seem far fetched to claim Carew is the greatest pure hitter in baseball history depending on how the Cobb and Gwynn Calculations come out. Another citation for one of the greatest hitters/player of all time are that Carew was Rookie of the year in 1967 and was an All-Star in his rookie year. Starting with that first All-Star appearance in 1967, Carew would be an All-Star for 18 consecutive seasons, missing only in his age 39 season, his last, played for the Angels. Carew also had 6 top 10 MVP finishes including winning the award in 1977 with that .388 average in which he had a .449 OBP! He scored a league leading 128 runs for Gene Mauch’s team that year. He also had 100 RBIs, 694 PA, 38 Doubles, 16 Triples and 14 Home Runs. It’s also worthy to note that Carew won the 1977 MVP award despite playing on a 4th place team in a 7 team AL West! Carew stole over 35 bases for 4 consecutive years from 1973-1976 including a 49 steal season and a 41 steal season. And, of course, he stole home 7 times in one season! I admired Rodney Cline Carew so greatly, that even though a natural righty, all wiffle ball, softball and possibly baseball games I played from my 20s until late 30s, I would replicate his wide open stance and bat left handed. It may go without saying that I think every Twins fan should be extremely proud that Carew is one of our own and one of the best that ever lived!

Bobby Darwin was a power hitter for the Twins in the early 70s, playing mostly RF. Strangely, he played for 1 PA for the Angels, at age 19, in 1962. His next appearance in the big leagues was 7 years later in 6 games for the Dodgers in 1969 but no PA and 1 run scored. It looks like Darwin pitched in 4 games for the Angels/Dodgers in 1962/69, quite poorly, then switched to the OF. In 1971, he got 22 PA for the Dodgers before coming to the Twins in 1972 and becoming a full time player, jumping from 22 PA in 1971 to 562 with the Twins in 1972. I was able to experience some of the thrills of Bobby Darwin's short, but very productive stint with the Twins via Herb Carneal and Larry Calton. I remember Calton’s trademark "Man oh man oh man" when Darwin would launch a long home run (or any of the Twins). Darwin went from ~ 23 PA in 10 years to thriving with the Twins, powering his way to 80, 90, 94 RBIs in the 72-74 seasons. He also launched 22, 18 and 25 home runs respectively. The 80 RBIs and 22 HR in 1972 are particularly noteworthy as 1972 was one of the most extreme "year of the pitcher" years in my lifetime. I have fond memories of Bobby Darwin, Herb Carneal and Larry Calton filling a significant part of my life as a Twins fan with joy.

Dave Goltz was a #1 type pitcher for the Twins for several years before leaving as a free agent after the 1979 season (one of Calvin Griffith's ignominious stable of star players that he let go after the advent of free agency. Calvin made the Pohlads look like George Steinbrenner, the free spending owner of the Yankees. Notably Goltz carried the pitching staff of the 1977 Twins, who arguably only had 2 decent starters. That seems to be one reason that a team with a poor pitching staff went 84-78, allowing Rod Carew to win the MVP award on a 4th place team in a 7 team division, the AL West. The other was the very hard hitting offense. For the year, Goltz threw 303 innings. allowing only 284 hits, and registering a 3.36 ERA with a 20-11 record. [Baseball Reference] 1977 was the 2nd straight year that Goltz turned in a 3.36 ERA! He broke that streak in a big way in 1978 (Carew’s last year as a Twin and the year my brother and I travelled from Toledo to the Twin Cities for a series). In 1978, Dave Goltz went 15-10 with a 2.49 ERA. That was the year when the Twins were a shell of the 1977 team as Calvin let several players walk, not the least, both Lyman Bostock and Larry Hisle. So, the Twins put out pretty much a AAAA team that year with newcomers Bombo Rivera, Hosken Powell and Willie Norwood. With my MacBook Air calculator and Baseball Reference, I determined that Goltz had a cumulative 3.48 ERA for his Twins years. His out pitch was the knuckle-curve as Herb Carneal reminded me thousands of times! Since Goltz had an over 4 ERA in his last year with the Twins and in his seasons with the Dodgers and finishing with the Angels, obviously his stuff declined but I wonder if that knuckle curve stopped knuckling and curving as much as before. Greg Allen

Jim Holt played for the Twins from 1968-1974 and was a personal favorite of mine as a good hitter. This was my memory and I discovered from looking at Baseball Reference that impression was very likely formed from the fact that 1973 was the season that I discovered, very much surprisingly while scanning the AM dial (hoping I could find the Twins), that I could get the Twins games on my stereo system tuner from WHO in Des Moines Iowa, with Herb Carneal announcing. That just happened to be 1B/OF Jim Holt's best season as a Twin when he slashed .297/.341/.442. He had an (non-existent back then) OPS+ of 116. He also had 25 doubles, 3 triples and 11 homers with 58 RBIs in 1973. It was his biggest output in his Twins career and, indeed, in his career overall, with 476 plate appearances and 441 at bats. It's my recollection that Holt was mostly a platoon guy in his other years with the Twins as a left handed hitter. He had two other seasons of 340 and 309 at bats, respectively. Jim Holt was traded in 1974 to the Oakland A’s for Pat Bourque, a trade I didn’t like or even understand. Bourque was a really fringe player, posting very low batting averages in his career and was hitting only .229 for the A’s at the time of the trade. In researching this article, I realized that Jim Holt played on a World Series winner, the 1974 Oakland A’s. [RIP Baseball, ripbaseball.com] And maybe, pure speculation on my part, Calvin Griffith was trying to do a favor to Jim Holt by trading him to the A’s. From the A’s perspective, Holt had that .297 season with the Twins in his recent background. Jim Holt finished his career with Oakland as a minor role player in 1977. He played for 9 seasons and finished with a career .265 batting average. He was not a power hitter so OPS+ is going to underestimate his value compared to those with even moderate power. This was a time before the massive power booms to come so line drive hitting was of more value than today in 2024. The league leaders in home runs were usually in the 30s, with some exceptions. Jim passed away in 2019 at the age of 74. Greg Allen aka/ Greglw3

Eddie Bane made his major league debut for the Twins on July 4, 1973 after a spectacular career at Arizona State, recording a 40-4 record for the Sun Devils.with a 1.64 ERA and a perfect game from 1971-73. In an article by Steve Smith on a SABR oriented site, he tells of how Calvin Griffith, the owner and GM of the Twins observed the massive attendance achieved by the Texas Rangers when they brought David Clyde directly from the draft to the major leagues after his high school career and drew over 35,000 fans for the game. Calvin then announced that Eddie Bane, the Twins prized draft pick would also go straight to the major leagues with no minor league experience experience. Bane debuted at age 21. Bane went 0-5 in 23 games in 1973 [Wikipedia]. He started 6 games and relieved in the other 17. He sported a 4.92 ERA in his rookie 1973 season, [Minor and MLB stats per Baseball Reference] He pitched far fewer innings in 1975 for the Twins at 28.1 but turned in a 2.86 ERA. He spent most of the 1974 and 1975 seasons in Tacoma pitching creditably with a 25-19 record and an ERA a bit over 4. In 1976 he threw for a 3.69 ERA for AAA Tacoma and then a not so good 5.11 ERA for the Twins. His final year with the Twins was 1977 at AAA, ironically the Twins monster offensive season. He spent the 1978 season in AAA for the White Sox, pitching to a pretty good 3.85 ERA in 14 starts and 26 relief appearances. Bane did not play at all in 1979 and finished his career with minor league affiliates of the Cubs and Royals. Eddie Bane who dominated college ball on two runner up teams in the CWS, never pitched below AAA in professional ball. He was elected to the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. [Wikipedia], Bane was the 11th pick in the 1973 draft, the same draft where David Clyde was picked #1.

Lyman Bostock was one of the most talented hitters in Twins history. Unfortunately, at the advent of free agency, Calvin Griffith determined he couldn’t keep him, and he left as a free agent to join the then California Angels. I can’t prove it but I think both Carew and Bostock would have had stronger overall careers had they stayed with the Twins as they both dropped off (still both were very good) on joining the Angels. One noteworthy thing about Bostock is that he finished 2nd in the AL in batting in 1977, a full 52 points behind the great Rod Carew. Still, Bostock's basic stats for 1977 were stunning! He had 660 plate appearances and 593 at bats with 199 hits for a .336 average. [Stats: Baseball Reference] Now get this! He had 36 doubles, 12 triples and 14 HR with 90 RBIs. .336/.389/.508! Primarily a left fielder alongside Larry Hisle in CF in that magical 1977 season, he did play some CF. He hit .323 for the Twins in 1976 and .296 with the Angels in 1978. I remember that Bostock got off to a particularly slow start in his debut season with the Angels and offered to return some of his salary!!! A few personal recollections. I think it was Tiger Stadium (I was born and raised in Toledo) when I first saw Bostock hit and he opened my eyes big time by scorching a base hit between the 3rd baseman and the bag, even as a left handed hitter! Bostock made $20,000 with the Twins in 1977 before signing a $2.3 million, 6 year deal with the Angels. [Wikipedia] I also remember in a brief exchange I had with Roy Smalley on Twitter, Roy saying something like, "it really would have been fun to keep that team together [1977 Twins] to see what we could have done." Lyman was tragically killed in a shooting, in September, 1978 while visiting home in Gary, Indiana after a game vs. the White Sox. He was a passenger in the rear seats with a woman who was estranged from her husband. Bostock was not involved with the woman, it was pure bad luck. Allegedly, the woman had several affairs and her husband pulled up to the car Bostock was in and fired point blank into the rear seats, intending to kill his wife. Tragically Lyman was shot around 10:40 p.m. and died in the hospital 2 hours later. [Wikipedia] Bostock finished with a career .311 average. He remains one of my most beloved Twins to this day and provided, in concert with his 1977 teammates, many thrills for this lifelong Twins fan (since ’64 or ’65). Greg Allen