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8/8/1974 - The Royals - Twins game at Royals Stadium is briefly interrupted by President Nixon's resignation speech. The speech is broadcast after it begins and the next inning is delayed until the conclusion of the speech. The Twins prevail over the host Royals‚ 3 - 2 in 14 innings when Tony Oliva's sacrifice fly drives home Rod Carew. Bill Campbell pitches 7 innings of relief for the win. 8/8/1976 - This has nothing to do with the Minnesota Twins but still it deserves to be remembered for its "strangeness". Thirty-seven years ago, on Aug. 8, 1976, the Chicago White Sox made sartorial history by wearing shorts in a win over the Royals. The Bermudas were the idea of—who else?—owner Bill Veeck. Here is what Sports Illustrated wrote. If you want to see an even better picture, go to This Day In Twins History ? August 8 | Twinstrivia.com ~~~ Originally posted earlier at This Day In Twins History ? August 8 | Twinstrivia.com ~~~ 8/8/1987 - The Twins beat the Oakland A's 9-2 at the Metrodome as Twins pitcher Steve Carlton wins the 329th and final game of his Hall of Fame career. Carlton pitches 8 2/3 innings giving up 2 runs while striking out two batters. 8/8/1988 - The Indians and the Twins were scoreless after 3 innings at the Metrodome with Allan Anderson on the mound for the local nine. In the top of the fourth inning with no one out, the Indians Ron Washington and Willie Upshaw singled to put runners on first and second and then Joe Carter smashed a long drive to the left field corner where Twins outfielder Dan Gladden snagged it for an out and wheeled and fired a strike to Steve Lombardozzi at 2B to nail Washington and then Lombo relayed the ball to Gene Larkin at first to get the runner there by at least 5 feet and completed the unusual 7-4-3 triple play. The Twins went on to win the game by a 7-2 score with Galdden going 3 for 5 with a run scored, a stolen base, and a RBI. Catcher Brian Harper was 4 for 4 but played second fiddle to Gladden on this day. 8/8/1998 - Paul Molitor stole his 500th base in Minnesota's 6-3 loss to Baltimore to become only the fifth player ever with 3,000 hits and 500 steals. Molitor joined Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins and Lou Brock. 8/8/2004 - The A's beat the Twins 6 - 5 in 18 innings. It is the second-longest game in the 23-year history of the Metrodome. With the score tied 3 to 3, the A's score 3 in the top of the 18th off Terry Mulholland to take a 6-3 lead. The Twins come back with 2 in the bottom of the 18th with a Morneau home run but leave Matthew LeCroy stranded on first when Koskie and Cuddyer flyout to end the rally and the Twins hope of a huge comeback victory. The game lasts 4 hours and 57 minutes. 8/8/2005 - One time Minnesota Twins manger (1976-1980) Gene Mauch passes away at the age of 79. Mauch was the seventh manager in Twins history. I think one of my favorite Gene Mauch quotes was "I'm not the manager because I am always right, but I am always right because I am the manager". 8/8/2009 - The Twins third manager, Cal Ermer passed away at the age of 85 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Ermer replaced the fired Sam Mele in June 1967 with the Twins in sixth place with a 25-25 record. The Twins went 66-46 the rest of the season but lost the American League pennant on the final day of the season. Ermer was fired after the Twins finished in seventh place in 1968 with a 79-83 record.

The history of Twins switch-hitters goes back to the first game the Twins played, but it was the last guy you would expect. In baseball, a switch-hitter is a batter who can bat from the right side or the left side, depending on whether the pitcher is right- or left-handed. Most curveballs break away from batters hitting from the same side as the opposing pitcher, so they're often harder to hit than those from the opposite side. History tells us that most right-handed batters hit better against lefty pitchers and left-handed batters hit better against right handers. This so-called platoon benefit is why managers use pinch-hitters and LOOGY's and why some players want to become switch-hitters.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] ~~~ Posted earlier at Twinstrivia.com | TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. ~~~ Switch-hitting at its best Switch-hitters have been around forever, it seems; yet according to sources that I have researched, only about 6% of baseball batters have been switch-hitters. You have to wonder why, if switch-hitting is such an advantage, haven't more of baseball's best hitters been switch-hitters? The best career batting average for a switch-hitter is .316 by Frankie Frisch, who currently ranks 71st in batting average all-time. Some of the best switch-hitters of our time are Chipper Jones, who hit .306 and Pete Rose who hit .303. Detroit Tigers DH Victor Martinez has a career average of .302 making him the highest active switch-hitter. In addition to the players I just mentioned, you have to add Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, Roberto Alomar, Bernie Williams, George Davis, Lance Berkman, Tim Raines and Chili Davis to the list of switch-hitting greats. Switch-hitting and the rules A question often asked is "Can a batter switch from right to left or left to right during an at-bat?" The rule that seems to apply is 6.06( which states that "A batter is out for illegal action when he steps from one batter’s box to the other while the pitcher is in position ready to pitch." Based on that, it appears you can switch from one batter's box to the other as often as you want so long as you do it before the pitcher gets in to his pitching position. Twins switch-hitting history The Twins currently have four switch-hitters on their 25 man playing roster, C Ryan Doumit, SS Pedro Florimon, OF Aaron Hicks, and utility man Eduardo Escobar. In the Twins' 53 years of existence they have had 62 players who were switch-hitters but not all of them actually batted and we will touch more on that later. The Twins first switch-hitter was a pitcher, Pedro Ramos. Ramos pitched and batted (1 for 4 with 2 RBI) in the Twins very first game when he and the Twins shut out the New York Yankees 6-0 on April 11, 1961 at Yankee Stadium. The first Twins switch-hitting position player to appear in a game was SS Marty Martinez when he had an at-bat against the Yankees at Met Stadium on May 30, 1962 in game 2 of a doubleheader. Martinez actually appeared in 3 earlier games as a Twins but was used strictly as a pinch-runner by manager Sam Mele. It wasn't until 1976 that the Twins had a regular position player switch-hitting and that year they had two, rookie catcher Butch Wynegar and SS Roy Smalley. The Twins are playing their 53rd season and there has been only one year, 1973, that they have not had a switch-hitter step into the batters box. On the other hand, they had nine switch-hitters (Cristian Guzman was the only starter) at one time or another on their 1999 team that finished 63-97. Twins switch-hitting pitchers Looking at the Twins 62 switch-hitters, eleven of them were pitchers and claimed to be switch-hitters but only Pedro Ramos, Jim Perry, Dan Serafini, JC Romero, and Joe Mays actually set foot in the batters box. The other six, Stan Perzanowski, Darrell Jackson, Pete Filson, Jason Ryan, Pat Neshek, and Eric Hacker were switch-hitters only on the back of their baseball cards because they never batted in a Twins game. Jim Perry hit five home runs as a Twin. "Home Runs from Each Side of the Plate In One Game" Club The Twins switch-hitter with the most home runs is Roy Smalley. He hit 163 career home runs and 110 of them were when he was a Minnesota Twin. The "home runs from each side of the plate in one game" club is relatively exclusive but three of the members were Twins. Roy Smalley accomplished that rare feat twice, once against the Boston Red Sox at the Metrodome on May 30, 1986 and once earlier in his career as a New York Yankee in 1982. Chili Davis became the second Twin to join the club when he did it against the Royals on October 2, 1992. Ryan Doumit became the third Twin to do so when he too joined the exclusive fraternity against the Royals on July 22, 2012. Chili Davis hit a home run from each side of the plate 11 times in his illustrious 19 year playing career. Just for comparison's sake, Mickey Mantle did it on 10 occasions. Leaning Right One oddity that seems to stand out is how few of the switch-hitters employed by the Twins over the years were left-handed throwers. If you exclude the 11 switch-hitting pitchers from the list you are left with 51 switch-hitters and only one of the 51 threw left-handed; the other fifty were right-handed. Kind of strange. The lone left-handed position player was John Moses. But keep in mind that John Moses, an outfielder by trade, pitched in 3 games for the Twins. Twins best switch-hitters So let's take a look at the Twins top switch-hitters. There is no good way to rank them so I will list all the Twins switch-hitters that have 1,000 or more plate appearances in a Twins uniform. The chart also shows positions played, games played, home runs and batting average. All the numbers on this chart are their Twins career numbers. Many of these players played for other teams too, but those numbers are not included here. For this story I am only interested in their numbers as Minnesota Twins. [TABLE=class: easy-table-creator tablesorter mceItemTable, width: 100%] [/TH][TH]Name Positions PA Games HR AVG 1 Roy Smalley 6,5,3 4676 1148 110 .262 2 Cristian Guzman 6 3538 841 39 .266 3 Butch Wynegar 2,5 3188 794 37 .254 4 Nick Punto 5,4,6,8,3 2707 747 12 .248 5 Gene Larkin 3.9.5.4 2670 758 32 .266 6 Denny Hocking 4,6,8,5,3 2455 876 25 .252 7 Al Newman 6,4,5,8 1876 618 [/TD][TD].231 8 Alexi Casilla 4,6,5,8 1764 515 11 .250 9 Chili Davis DH,9,3 1163 291 41 .282 10 Luis Castillo 4 1036 227 3 .299 11 Matt Walbeck 2 1008 275 8 .230 [/TABLE] There are some interesting numbers and players on this chart. About half the players were starters and half were utility players. It is no surprise that Smalley is the leader in home runs or that Chili Davis is second on the list. The real surprise is that Christian Guzman ranks third on the list.