Matt Johnson

Feb. 15, 1994: Ila Borders became the first woman to pitch in a men's college baseball game on this date in 1994, giving up just five hits in a 12-1 Southern California College win over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. She retired the first 10 batters she faced and took a shutout into the eighth. Of course, Borders also made history with the Duluth-Superior Dukes a few years later, becoming the first woman to win a men's professional baseball game when she pitched six scoreless innings in a 3-1 win over the Sioux Falls Canaries at Wade Stadium on July 24, 1998. Feb. 15: Happy 82nd birthday to North St. Paul graduate and former Houston Astros pitcher Don Arlich, born in Wayne, Michigan on this date in 1943. Arlich went 15-0 for the 1961 State Champion North High Polars—a team that also featured Twins curator Clyde Doepner. Arlich signed with Houston out of high school and made his major league debut four years later, starting the second-to-last game of the 1965 season versus the Cardinals at the Astrodome. The first batter he faced was former St. Cloud Rox star Lou Brock, who popped out to shortstop leading off a 1-2-3 first inning. Arlich held the Cardinals to two runs on five hits and a walk over six innings, and was in line for the win before St. Louis rallied against the Houston bullpen. It was the only start Arlich would make in the majors. He made it back to "The Show" for a cup of coffee midway through the 1966 season, making seven appearances out of the bullpen. Perhaps Arlich's greatest contribution to the major league history books was helping a young Joe Morgan learn to hit lefties while they were both in the Houston organization. Arlich stuck it out in the minors until 1969, playing his final two and a half seasons in the Atlanta organization (where he was teammates with Tom House). Following his nine-year pro baseball career, Arlich became a math teacher at Park High School in Cottage Grove, MN. One of his students included the actor Seann William Scott (Stifler in American Pie). Though Mr. Arlich never had him in class, eight-year major leaguer Kerry Ligtenberg graduated from Park High School in 1989. Feb. 16, 1897: St. Thomas Academy (Mendota Heights) graduate, World War I veteran, Notre Dame legend, and former White Sox pitcher Paul Castner was born in St. Paul on this date in 1897. According to biographer Bill Lamb, baseball was Castner's third-best sport after football and hockey. He played fullback at Notre Dame under legendary coach Knute Rockne, blocking for the Gipper. He made six relief appearances with the Chicago White Sox in 1923. In his SABR BioProject essay, Bill Lamb tells several interesting anecdotes about Castner's brief time in the majors. Here's a fun story from a blowout loss to the Yankees: Another story Castner reportedly enjoyed telling later in life was of Ty Cobb stealing home off him. (Of course, these days, Cobb would have run afoul of the notorious unwritten rules since the steal of home came later in a blowout win for the Tigers.) Castner was the featured guest at the Halsey Hall SABR meeting on May 4, 1985. I wonder if he told the Ruth and Cobb stories. Feb. 16: Happy 46th birthday to former Twins outfielder Josh Willingham. The Twins signed Willingham to a three-year, $21 million contract prior to the 2012 season, which was the richest free-agent deal in team history at the time. He responded with the best season of his career, becoming just the third player in Twins history to hit 35 home runs and winning a Silver Slugger alongside fellow AL outfielders Mike Trout and Josh Hamilton. He began the season with a 15-game hitting streak—the longest streak to begin a Twins career, and tied with Kirby Puckett's 1994 streak for the longest to begin a season in team history. Willingham had actually played for a Minnesota team over a decade earlier, playing third base for Austin's Southern Minny Stars in 1998 and '99—the team's final two seasons in the Northwoods summer collegiate league. (He played mostly shortstop in college.) On a related note, did you know Kirby Puckett was an All-American third baseman in high school? One last Willingham fun fact: He hit grand slams in back-to-back innings with the Nationals in 2009.

Feb. 8, 1925: Milt Nielsen was born in Tyler, MN 100 years ago today. (That's down between Marshall, MN, and Brookings, SD.) After graduating from Lake Benton High School, he enlisted and served with the 110th Naval Construction Battalion through the end of World War II. Immediately after discharge, he signed with Cleveland and played nine seasons in their organization, including two cups of coffee in the majors. His first call-up came in 1949 when he started three games in center field. (In one of those games he shared the outfield with Hall of Famer Larry Doby.) He got a second call-up in 1951, making six appearances as a pinch hitter (0-for-6) and 10 appearances as a pinch runner. He never played in the field during that '51 call-up. His only MLB hit was a bunt single leading off an inning back in 1949 and, after advancing to third on a double, he was driven in on a single to center by Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon. During Nielsen's nine seasons in the minors, he batted over .300 four times and retired with a career .297 average across all levels. Following his playing career, he managed and eventually owned a Chevy dealership in St. Peter. (The St. Peter Food Co-Op & Deli moved into the old Nielsen Chevrolet building in 2011.) Nielsen passed away in 2005 at age 80 and was laid to rest at Resurrection Cemetery in St. Peter. Feb. 8, 1996: Let's talk about the weather for a second. The temperature in Tower, MN on this date in 1996 was 48°. Why is that noteworthy? Because it had been a state-record low -60° just six days earlier—a swing of 108 degrees! Feb. 9, 1902: 1927 Yankees bench player Julie Wera was born in Winona, MN on this date in 1902. His only major league home run came during a Fourth of July doubleheader at Yankee Stadium in front of a crowd of 74,000—the largest crowd to ever attend a baseball game to that point. The ‘27 Yankees are regarded by many as the greatest baseball team ever assembled. 32-year-old Babe Ruth swatted 60 home runs, while the team went 110-44 (.714), winning the American League pennant by a margin of 19 games. Wera, for his part, got into 38 games (19 starts), going 10-for-42 (.238) with a walk, eight RBI, and seven runs scored. He suffered a gnarly knee injury in a late-season play at the plate and was not a part of the World Series, in which the Yankees swept the Pirates. He did, however, receive the same $5,782 portion of the winners’ purse as Ruth, Gehrig, and the rest of the gang. Nice bonus, considering that Wera’s 1927 salary was $2,400. Hampered by the knee injury, Wera was back in the minors with St. Paul in 1928. He did make it back to the Yankees for a second short stint in the majors in 1929, going 5-for-12 (.417). In total, Wera played 13 seasons of professional baseball, wrapping up his career in 1937 with the Crookston (MN) Pirates, a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate in the class-D Northern League. In 1939, Wera was working in the meat department of the Rochester Piggly Wiggly when he received a surprised visit from former Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig, who was in town receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Feb. 9, 1925: Four-time All-Star Vic Wertz was born 100 years ago today. He made 29 pinch-hitting appearances and started five games at first base with the Twins in 1963—his 17th and final major league season. You can picture Willie Mays's famous over-the-shoulder catch 425 feet from home plate to preserve an eighth-inning tie in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, right? Well, Vic hit that ball. That was Wertz's only out of the game. In the first, he hit a 420-foot triple (the Polo Grounds was notoriously spacious) driving in the only two runs Cleveland would get in the game. He also had two singles and a 400-foot double leading off the top of the 10th which might have made him the first person with five hits in a World Series game (although it's more likely that the eighth-inning drive would have won the game for Cleveland before it got to extra innings). As it turned out, St. Paul native Paul Molitor was the first person with five hits in a World Series game, followed by Albert Pujols. The Giants won in the bottom of the 10th on a pinch-hit walk-off homer by Dusty Rhodes. Minnesota native Wes Westrum had two hits in the game for New York.

Feb. 1; Happy 53rd birthday to former Twins outfielder Rich Becker. He had a heckuva game on July 13, 1996, going 4-for-6 with two home runs, a triple, and a double. Those four extra-base hits are tied for the most in Twins history, and the 13 total bases are tied for second-most. (Bet you know who hold the team record for total bases in a game. Heck, you can probably even name the year, city, and day of the week.) Becker and Kenny Lofton led MLB center fielders with 11 assists in 1995, and Becker led the majors outright with 16 in 1996. He led all outfielders with five double plays turned in 1995 and nine in 1996. Feb. 2: Happy 57th birthday to 1991 20-game winner Scott Erickson. Erickson — who made his MLB debut midway through the 1990 season — started 1991 off hot, going 12-2 with a 1.39 ERA in the first half en route to being named starting pitcher of the All-Star Game. (Erickson was unable to pitch, however, due to a strained elbow, so in his stead manager Tony LaRussa handed the ball to fellow Twin Jack Morris wore black socks and his pants low in the style of Erickson.) Erickson finished the Twins' 1991 World Championship season tied for the MLB lead with 20 wins and came in runner-up to Roger Clemens in AL Cy Young balloting. After a solid ‘92 season, Erickson lost a major league-worst 19 games in 1993. ‘94 was arguably an even worse season for Erickson, though he did no-hit the Brewers at the Metrodome on April 27th. He rebounded after being traded to the Orioles during the 1995 season and ultimately proved to be one of the most durable pitchers of the ‘90s, pitching an American League-leading 251.1 innings in 1998 and winning 73 games between 1995 and ’99. Feb. 2: Happy 71st birthday to Brainerd native Wayne Caughey. The Twins drafted him out of St. Cloud State in 1974 and he played nine seasons of professional baseball, including SIX seasons at Triple A between the Twins, Dodgers, and Pirates organizations, but never got that call up to "The Show." He is the former CFO of KLN Family Brands up in Perham, MN. Feb. 2, 2008: On this date in 2008, the Twins did the prudent thing and traded 2004 and 2006 Cy Young Award-winner Johan Santana to the Mets for outfielder Carlos Gómez and three pitchers (all of whom were duds). Gómez showed sparks but never lived up to his potential in Minnesota, though he did score one of the most exciting runs in team history in Game 163 in 2009. But less than a month later he was traded to Milwaukee for former and future All-Star J.J. Hardy. Gómez, for his part, would go on to consecutive All-Star seasons for Milwaukee in 2013 and ‘14. In 2013, he won a Gold Glove and finished top-10 in NL MVP balloting. After three very good seasons in New York, Santana missed all of the 2011 season. He went 6-9 in 21 starts in 2012. He pitched the first no-hitter in Mets history on June 1, but pitched his final major league game on August 17 at just age 33.

Jan. 25: Happy 54th birthday to Roseau High School graduate Kerry Taylor. The Twins signed him as a free agent out of high school in 1989 but the Padres swiped him in the Rule 5 Draft prior to the 1993 season. He made 36 appearances with the Padres that season (including seven starts), going 0-5 with a 6.45 ERA and 1.77 WHIP. He made one more start with the Padres in the middle of the '94 season and that was it for Taylor at the major-league level. (If you're curious how he faired as a major league batter, he went 0-for-14 with nine strikeouts.) Interesting to note that in June 1993 the Padres acquired rookie reliever Trevor Hoffman in a trade that sent Gary Sheffield to the Marlins. Kind of cool that Taylor was briefly in the same relief corps as the Hall of Famer Hoffman. Though Taylor didn't make it back to the majors after 1994, he continued to play professional baseball until 2001, wrapping up his career with a one-year stint in Korea with the Hyundai Unicorns, where he was teammates with Twin Cities native Tom Quinlan. (Sidenote: Quinlan became the first foreign-born Korean Series MVP when the Unicorns won the championship the following year.) If you have any good stories or fun facts about Taylor, please share them in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Jan. 25, 1991: In a move that manager Tom Kelly had lobbied hard for, the Twins signed free agent third baseman Mike Pagliarulo on this date in 1991. The signing was made possible by Gary Gaetti opting out of his contract on November 7, 1990. Gaetti’s production had been on the decline, batting just .259 in 1989,and .229 in 1990. After a couple more mediocre seasons, though, he bounced back and had a very productive second half of his career, playing in the majors until age 41 and retiring with 360 home runs, good for eighth-most all-time among third basemen. Pagliarulo and Scott Leius were an effective platoon for the 1991 World Series Champions, with Pags getting the majority of starts at third base (112). Leius, for his part, was historically good as a pinch hitter in 1991, going 11-for-25 (.440) with five walks for an on-base percentage of .533. Pagliarulo is probably best remembered for this clutch home run in the ALCS. (Leius homered in the World Series.) Jan. 25, 2008: Justin Morneau signed the richest contract in Twins history (at the time) on this date in 2008, worth $80 million over six seasons. How would you like to have a first baseman like that these days? Jan. 26, 2022: David Ortiz was elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot three years ago today. See the tweet below for one of my favorite Ortiz fun facts. (It's gallows humor.) Jan. 26: Happy 33rd birthday to former Twins outfielder Kyle Garlick, seen here mashing a game-winning home run off Clevleland's James Karinchak.

Jan. 11, 1973: In an effort spearheaded by Oakland Athletics’ owner Charlie Finley, American League owners voted 8-4 in favor of adopting the designated hitter on this date in 1973. Coincidentally, the Twins' Tony Oliva would hit the first regular season home run by a DH off Oakland’s Catfish Hunter on Opening Day. The Twins' Larry Hisle had the distinction of being the first DH that spring training and he made the owners look like geniuses, hitting two home runs and driving in seven. (The Yankees' Ron Blomberg took the first regular-season at-bat as a DH. Worth noting that the AL had previously experimented the designated hitter, but only in spring training.) Jan. 12: Happy 60th birthday to Rochester native Fritz Polka. The Mets drafted him in the second round out of Mankato State in 1986. At one point, Baseball America projected him to be the Mets starting catcher in 1990, but he retired from baseball in 1989 having only made it to Double A. Jan. 12, 1898: Richard "Rip" Wade was born in Duluth on this date in 1898. He graduated from Denfeld High School in 1916. According to Baseball Reference, he played 17 seasons of professional baseball. He got a cup of coffee in the majors in 1923, playing some outfield and making 14 pinch hitting appearances over a total of 33 games with the Washington Senators. Coincidentally, he was teammates on the '23 Senators with George "Showboat" Fisher, who grew up in Albany, Minnesota. (Of course the Senators went on to win their only World Series the following season.) Duluth’s Wade Stadium is named after Rip’s dad, Frank. Jan. 12, 2013: Twins GM Terry Ryan received the George Genovese Lifetime Achievement Award in Scouting at the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation’s 10th annual "In The Spirit of the Game" Sports and Entertainment Spectacular in Los Angeles on this date in 2013. The Foundation created the award in honor of the legendary SoCal scout in 2003. Ryan’s relationship with the Twins began in 1972 when they drafted the Janesville, WI native in the 35th round. The lefty went 10-0 with 13 saves and a 1.78 ERA at class-A Wisconsin Rapids in ‘73. After an arm injury, however, he struggled at Double-A Orlando until being released in June 1976. Ryan joined the Mets as a scouting supervisor in 1980. In 1986, he returned to the Twins organization as scouting director. He ascended to vice president of player personnel in 1991, and became GM following Andy MacPhail’s departure to the Chicago Cubs after the ‘94 season. Ryan served as GM for 13 years before resigning on October 1, 2007. He remained with the Twins as an adviser while Bill Smith took over as GM. After Smith’s firing following the 2011 season, Ryan returned to his former post. He was fired on July 18, 2016, midway through the worst season in franchise history. Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail hired Terry Ryan as a special assignment scout on November 30, 2016. (I assume both men are enjoying retirement these days.)

Jan. 4, 1972: Here is an incredible photo of Tony Oliva kissing his dad Pedro at the Mexico City airport on this date in 1972. Due to travel restrictions between the United States and Cuba, the two had not seen each other in ELEVEN years! In the meantime, Tony O had won three batting titles, Rookie of the Year, made eight All-Star teams, and played in the World Series. Pretty incredible to think about. (The woman in the picture is Tony's sister.) Jan. 4: Happy 81st birthday to baseball lifer Charlie Manuel, born in West Virginia in 1944. He spent parts of four seasons in left field with the Twins, batting .198 with four home runs over 242 games between 1969 and 1972. After a couple more cups of coffee with the Dodgers, he moved on to a very successful six-year stint in Japan where he twice led the league in home runs and was league MVP in 1979. Over the four-year period from 1977 to '80, he hit .319 and averaged 41 home runs per season. In America, Manuel is best remembered as a manager. He got his managerial start with five seasons down in the Twins farm system, including as skipper of the infamously awful 1987 Portland Beavers, who finished 45-96. That team included players Ron Gardenhire and Billy Beane. (I guess the Twins were stockpiling their talent at the major league level that season.) Manuel managed the Philadelphia Phillies to back-to-back World Series, winning it all in 2008. Jan. 4, 2002: The Twins announced former third base coach Ron Gardenhire as the 12th manager in team history on this date in 2002, succeeding Tom Kelly who retired following the team’s first winning season in nine years. TK was the longest tenured manager or head coach in all of professional sports at the time of his retirement. The Twins won the AL Central in each of Gardy’s first three seasons, and in six of his first nine. They only advanced past the divisional round, however, in Gardy’s first season of 2002. After five runner-up finishes, he was named AL Manager of the Year in 2010. (The last four Twins managers—Kelly, Gardy, Molly, and Baldelli—have all won AL Manager of the Year.) Gardenhire managed the Twins for 13 seasons before being fired on September 29, 2014, having amassed 1,068 wins—just 72 shy of TK’s team record of 1,140. Jan. 5, 1935: Five-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove catcher Earl Battey was born on this date in 1935. After seeing limited playing time over parts of five seasons in Chicago, the White Sox sent him and Don Mincher to the Washington Senators for former AL home run leader Roy Sievers at the end of spring training 1960. Battey broke out that season, winning his first of three consecutive Gold Glove Awards, and finishing top-10 in MVP balloting for the first of three times in his career. Battey was known as one of the best defensive catchers in the game—notoriously difficult to run on—but was no slouch with the bat, either, hitting .302 in the Twins' first season in Minnesota and walloping 26 home runs in 1963. He retired after the ‘67 season having caught 831 games in a Twins uniform. That stood as the club record until Joe Mauer surpassed him on August 27, 2012. In 1980, Battey enrolled at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, FL, graduating summa cum laude in just 2½ years. After graduation he became a high school teacher and baseball coach in Ocala, FL. Battey passed away in 2003 at just 68 years old. He was inducted as the 13th member of the Twins Hall of Fame in 2004. Jan. 5, 2011: On his 14th ballot, Twins all-time strikeout leader Bert Blyleven was elected to the Hall of Fame with the support of 79.7% of voters on this date in 2011. His 3,701 career strikeouts rank fifth in major league history behind Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Steve Carlton. The Twins selected the Dutch-born, SoCal-raised Blyleven out of high school in the third round of the 1969 draft. He made his MLB debut in June 1970 at age 19 and went on to pitch 22 big-league seasons including 11 in Minnesota (1970–’76 & 1985–’88), amassing 149 wins in a Twins uniform, second only to Jim Kaat’s 190 (which includes one as a Senator). In addition to the ’87 Twins, Bert was a member of the 1979 World Series Champion Pirates. He was an All-Star in 1973 and '85. Bert pitched three one-hitters with the Twins—two in 1973 and another in 1974 (only one of those, incidentally, was a shutout). He pitched a no-hitter in his final game as a Texas Ranger before being traded to the Pirates following the 1977 season. The Twins retired Blyleven's number 28 the week before the Cooperstown induction ceremony in July 2011.

Dec. 28: Happy 64th birthday to Carl Willis . After being out of the majors for a few years, the 30-year-old reliever led the 1991 World Series Champions with a 1.067 WHIP. He was clutch in Game 6 of the World Series. There's no "And we'll see you tomorrow night" without the eight-straight outs Willis came in and got from the seventh to the ninth innings. (He inherited a bases-loaded jam with one out in the seventh and got an RBI groundout from Ron Gant to tie the game at 3-3 before striking out David Justice to limit the damage. He then set Atlanta down in order in the eighth and ninth to get to extra innings. Rick Aguilera pitched the 10th and 11th. Atlanta didn't have as much bullpen depth as Minnesota. After Alejandro Peña made light work of the Twins in the ninth and 10th innings, Bobby Cox brought in starter Charlie Leibrandt for the 11th inning and the rest is history.) Dec. 28: Happy 30th birthday to Coon Rapids native and seven-year minor league pitcher Logan Shore. He was the Minnesota Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year his senior season at Coon Rapids (2013) after going 9-0 with a 0.27 ERA and batting .429. The Twins selected him in the 29th round but he chose instead to play at the University of Florida in hopes of improving his draft stock. It was a prudent business decision because when the Oakland A's drafted him in the second round three years later he received a $1.5 million signing bonus. Needless to say, he was a stud with the Florida Gators, being named SEC Freshman of the Year his first year and SEC Pitcher of the Year his third and final year before going pro. In addition to baseball, Shore also lettered in hockey in high school. Dec. 29: Happy 52nd birthday to 1991 Minnetonka graduate and Golden Gophers all-time great Jim Brower, who is still going strong as an amateur pitcher here in Minnesota. Brower collected a paycheck as a pitcher for SEVENTEEN years, including nine seasons in the majors with Cleveland, the Reds, Expos, Giants, Atlanta, the Orioles, Padres, and Yankees. He led the majors with 89 appearances with the Giants in 2004. (I think being able to say you pitched in more major league baseball games than anyone else on the planet that year is a pretty cool brag.) After his final stint in the majors with the Yankees in 2007, he did not go quietly. He pitched at Triple A in three different organizations in 2008, and then pitched in Hiroshima, Japan, for the independent St. Paul Saints and Long Island Ducks, and the Venezuelan Winter League before pitching his final pro season in Italy of all places. He has two World Series rings for coaching roles with the 2015 Royals and 2016 Cubs. These days, he is still a very impressive amateur pitcher, and runs Brower Baseball—a training facility in Eden Prairie.

Dec. 14: After seven seasons with the Twins, Manitoba native Corey Koskie signed with the Blue Jays on this date in 2004. The Star Tribune published a lengthy thank-you letter from Koskie to the fans. He was one of the top 10 players in the American League in 2001. These days, the 51-year-old is back playing in Minnesota, delivering clutch postseason home runs for the townball Loretto Larks, for whom he plays alongside three of his sons. Dec. 14: Twenty-year pro pitcher Sam Jones was born in Ohio on this date in 1925. He threw the first no-hitter by a black pitcher in AL/NL history pitching for the Cubs in 1955. Six years earlier, he played for the townball Rochester Royals, no-hitting Owatonna and the powerhouse Austin Packers over the course of the season. In 1959, Jones led the National League with 21 wins, a 2.83 ERA, and four shutouts, and came in second to Chicago White Sox hurler Early Wynn in Cy Young balloting, back before there were separate awards from the AL and NL. If you want to retroactively apply WAR to the situation, Baseball Reference calculates 5.7 for Jones and 2.8 for Wynn. (Wynn, a 300-game winner, was the Twins pitching coach from 1967 to ’69.) Worth noting that Jones wasn't the only former Negro Leaguer playing townball in Minnesota in 1949. That was the same season former Kansas City Monarch Hilton Smith played for Dick Reusse’s Fulda Giants. Smith, however, was on the opposite end of his career than Jones. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001, the same class as Dave Winfield, Kirby Puckett, and Bill Mazeroski. Dec. 15: Happy 46th birthday to 1997 Austin High School graduate Michael Wuertz. He pitched in 426 major league games for the Chicago Cubs and Oakland Athletics between 2004 and 2011. He struck out the first two batters he faced in his major league debut on April 5, 2004, pitching a 1-2-3 sixth inning in a Cubs win. Dec. 15: Twins signed outfielder Josh Willingham to a three-year, $21 million contract on this date in 2011. Willingham's first season in Minnesota was the best of his career, hitting 35 home runs, 30 doubles, driving in 110 runs, and scoring 85 en route to a Silver Slugger Award. Dec. 15: The oldest living major leaguer, Paul "Bill" Otis, passed away in a Duluth nursing home on this date in 1990, just nine days shy of his 101st birthday. He got his only big-league hit off Walter Johnson playing for the New York Highlanders in 1912. When he turned 100 on Christmas Eve 1989, his well-wishers included Commissioner of Baseball Fay Vincent and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Otis's family goes back to the 1600s in Massachusetts. He moved to Duluth with his wife in 1914 after his brief baseball career.

Dec. 7: The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked on this date in 1941. The Greatest Generation met the global crisis head on. Legendary Twins public address announcer Bob Casey served as a B-17 aircraft turret gunner and was decorated with the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat. Wayne Terwilliger enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17 and served heroically in the 2nd Armored Amphibian Battalion in the South Pacific. Carl Pohlad served as an infantryman in France, Germany, and Austria and was decorated with three Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars. Dec. 7: Happy 61st birthday to one of the most underrated players in Twins history, Shane Mack. After being claimed from the Padres in the Rule 5 Draft, Mack posted a .309 average over five seasons in Minnesota, from 1990 to '94. His 5.0 WAR was the highest among positions players on the 1991 World Series Championship team. (Kevin Tapani actually led the team with a 6.8 WAR.) In 1992, Mack's .315 batting average and 6.5 WAR were both fifth-best among American League position players. My favorite Mack fun fact is that the left fielder led off the 1992 home opener with a home run. (You can imagine the atmosphere for the Twins' very first plate appearance inside the Dome since winning the World Series the previous October.) What makes the story really interesting, though, is that left fielder Dan Gladden did the exact same thing leading off the 1988 home opener. And they both went 4-for-5 in the game. Dec. 7: The Twins traded All-Star outfielder Gary Ward to the Rangers for pitchers Mike Smithson and John Butcher, and catcher Sam Sorce on this date in 1983. In just his 14th major league game, Ward hit for the sixth cycle in Twins history on September 18, 1980. His son Daryle Ward hit for the cycle with the Pirates in 2004, making the Wards the first father-son duo in major league history to do so. (The Biggios joined the club in 2019.) Ward made his second All-Star team with the Rangers in 1985. Butcher pitched a remarkable 81-pitch, one hour and 55 minute three-hit shutout on April 21, 1985. (He faced only one over the minimum thanks to a double play and caught stealing.) The Twins had lost nine in a row, falling to 2-9 on the season entering the Sunday series finale in Oakland. Leadoff hitter Kirby Puckett went 3-for-5, driving in both Twins runs in the 2-0 victory. It was the beginning of a 10-game winning streak. Mike Smithson had a one-hitter going through 8 1/3 innings in Chicago on June 29, 1985. Frank Eufemia came in and gave up two hits, but held one for a 1-0 Twins win. Smithson started 20 games for the 1987 World Series champion Twins, going 4-7. Dec. 7: The Twins acquired second baseman Wally Backman from the Mets on this date in 1988. His one season with the Twins got off to a productive start, scoring 12 runs in the team's first 11 games. Dec. 7: The San Diego Padres claimed 1989 Roseau graduate Kerry Taylor from the Minnesota Twins in the Rule 5 Draft on this date in 1992. Taylor, who had signed with the Twins as an amateur free agent out of high school, made it to the majors for 36 appearances with the Padres in 1993, and one in 1994. His final season in MLB-affiliated ball was 2000 at triple-A in the Blue Jays organization where he was teammates with Roy Halladay. His final season in professional baseball was 2001 in South Korea with the Hyundai Unicorns where he was teammates with fellow Minnesotan Tom Quinlan (who the year earlier became the first foreign-born Korean Series MVP). Dec. 8: Pitcher Ellis Johnson was born in Minneapolis on this date in 1892. He made his major league debut at age 19. I couldn't find a box score, but he almost certainly faced Ty Cobb in that game. Fun Fact: Johnson gave up Babe Ruth's ONLY minor league home run. (On a related note, fellow Minnesotan Rube Walberg gave up more major league home runs to Babe Ruth than any other pitcher.) Dec. 8: After pitching a no-hitter in his final start of the season, the Rangers sent Bert Blyleven to Pittsburgh as part of a four-team, 11-player trade on this date in 1977. Blyleven won his first World Series ring with the Pirates in 1979 and brought some championship know-how with him back to Minnesota. Dec. 8: The Twins acquired West Central School of Agriculture (Morris, MN) graduate Jerry Koosman from the Mets for pitchers Greg Fields and Jesse Orosco on this date in 1978. Koosman had the best season for a pitcher over 30 in Twins history in 1979, when, at age 36, he led the team with 20 wins. His 7.2 WAR that season is tied for seventh-best by a pitcher in team history (only Bert Blyleven, Johan Santana, and Frank Viola have posted better single-season WARs). Koosman also led the team with 16 wins in 1980. 1967 Rothsay graduate Dave Goltz led the team in wins from 1976 to ‘78, meaning a Minnesotan led the Twins in wins for five straight seasons. Jesse Orosco eventually pitched for the Twins 25 years later, in 2003 at age 46. It was the 24th and final major league season for Orosco, who pitched in more games than anyone in major league history.