Seventy five for a seventy five year old

Okay, it is my birthday and I love life and all my ex-students, friends, participants in the guided tours, neighbors and family. So I am reflective and that means I have to think of 75 memories – there are many more. But here are 75 Twin memories.

1. Ushering during season one

2. Mudcat Grant – you want colorful – this is it.

3. Vic Power taking over first base in a way I have never seen anywhere else.

4. Jim Kaat just delivering and delivering and delivering.

5. Harmon Killebrew with a swing that seemed to cut the night air into pieces.

6. Rod Carew just toying with the fielders.

7. Sandy Koufax showing us what HOF means – despite out loss it was great.

8. Tony Oliva doing everything and then those knees just radiated pain.

9. Joe Mauer being so Minnesota that everyone in MN complained he was too plain.

10. Tovar playing everywhere and playing so good.

11. Everyday Eddie coming in day after day and giving us ulcers everytime.

12. Calvin Griffith reminding us that owning a team did not make a man into a good man.

13. Sid Hartman telling us everything MN was great even when it wasn’t.

14. Metropolitan Stadium, a dream for all of us with erector sets.

15. The dome collapsing like a big pimple.

16. 1987 Twins being champions when they looked like a below average team

17. 1965 Twins being the best team in our history, but losing to a historic event

18. Hrbek doing his wrestling move on first base – I am still laughing

19. Sitting in the upper upper deck of the metrodome at game 7 1991

20. Jack Morris refusing to quit – HOF for no other reason

21. Kirby Puckett showing that determination can change an outcome

22. Dan Gladden a non-star who gave us grit

23. Herb Carneal giving us a transistor seat at all the games

24. Halsey Hall so outrageous that we loved him even if we did not know what he was talking about

25. Cool nights with a breeze from right field in the sixties

26. Lousy hot dogs that still were satisfying in the early decades

27. Bob Allison looking so fit and intimidating

28. Nelson Cruz reminding us old guys that old does not mean feeble

29. Kirby Puckett taking over game six

30. Hrbek’s WS grand slam

31. Knoblauch at second base

32. Knoblauch returning to a shower of boos and hotdogs

33. Jim Perry 1970 Cy Young

34. Tom Kelly blowing it with Ortiz

35. Zoilo Versalles 1965 MVP

36. Byron Buxton in Centerfield

37. Torii Hunter robs Barry Bonds in All Star game

38. Frank Viola Cy Young 1988

39. Harmon Killebrew MVP 1969

40. Billy Martin and the marshmallow salesman

41. Johann Santana Cy Young award 2004

42. John Castino – rookie of the year 1979

43. Seeing Carew leave

44. Johann Santana Cy Young 2006

45. Paul Molitor at DH 1996

46. Dean Chance No-hitter

47. Joe Mauer 2009 – major league player of the year

48. Camilo Pascual’s curveball

49. The collapse of the Metrodome

50. Marty Cordova Rookie of the year 1995 (or last rookie of the year)

51. Justin Morneau MVP 2006

52. Mitch Garver in 2019

53. The Turtle running the bases

54. Bob Allison’s sliding catch

55. Randy Bush pinch hitter with 13 hits in one year

56. Gene Larkin’s walk off pinch hit

57. Puckett to the HOF

58. Harmon Killebrew’s 520-foot Home Run June 1967

59. The last playoff game won by the Twins 2004

60. 18 game post season losing streak 2020

61. 1984 Dave Kingman hits a 208 foot double – straight up and into the metrodome roof

62. Tony Oliva wins batting title in 1964 and 1965

63. 1971 Rod Carew Rookie of the Year

64. Lyman Bostock and Larry Hisle came together for one great year

65. 1977 Rod Carew batted 388

66. 1969 Harmon Killebrew hit 49 HRs

67. Billy Martin gets in fight with his own 20 game winner – Dave Boswell

68. 2016 Twins lose record 103 games

69. 1987 home team wins all the games in WS and we have four home games

70. Watching the famous Hrbek game in Sierra Vista AZ bar as the only Twins fan in the place

71. Killebrew in the HOF

72. Rod Carew in the HOF

73. 2002 Pohlads agree to contraction – we almost lost the team

74. 2006, the year of the Piranhas

75. Bert Blyleven in the HOF