The Hardball Times: 52 Years from the Twins Junk Drawer

[Seth Stohs]

Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times wrote an article with a lot of interesting, random Twins notes from their 52 years in Minnesota:

 

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/52-years-from-the-twins-junk-drawer/

[John Bonnes]

May 16, 1984: Officially, the Twins sell 51,863 tickets on the day, but only 6,346 show up. There’s a massive ticket buyout plan going on to help keep the Twins in Minnesota as the Griffith family is selling them in 1984. A month later, Clark Griffith will sign ownership of the franchise over to Carl Pohlard.

 

People don't talk much about this any more, but it was brilliant. I have to think the Pohlads funded a good chunk of that as a threat to the Griffiths.

 

I also have to add that I still think people underestimate just how bad the Metrodome was for baseball and just how apparent it was immediately that the Metrodome was terrible for baseball. The Twins actually had a contending team in 1984, though it surprised the fan base that they did.

[John Bonnes]

Aug. 19, 2007: Johan Santana sets a franchise record with 17 strikeouts in one game, and he did it without pitching the ninth, either. The Twins win, 1-0, behind his two-hitter. Santana’s Game Score of 95 is the highest ever by a pitcher, for any team, in a non-complete game.

 

The shame of it is that he had only thrown 112 pitches through 8 innings, so he probalby could have gone one more. But the Twins only led 1-0, so Nathan came in for the save. FWIW, Nathan got to more Ks.

[Seth Stohs]

Aug. 19, 2007: Johan Santana sets a franchise record with 17 strikeouts in one game, and he did it without pitching the ninth, either. The Twins win, 1-0, behind his two-hitter. Santana’s Game Score of 95 is the highest ever by a pitcher, for any team, in a non-complete game.

 

The shame of it is that he had only thrown 112 pitches through 8 innings, so he probalby could have gone one more. But the Twins only led 1-0, so Nathan came in for the save. FWIW, Nathan got to more Ks.

 

I remember that. Gardy was trying to decide whether or not to keep him in, but as Santana walked off the mound, he was tipping his cap to the crowd and basically acting as if he was done. Made Gardy's decision to go to Nathan pretty easy.

[powrwrap]

Aug. 30, 1990: White Sox catcher Ron Karkovice, of all people, hits an inside-the-park grand slam against the Twins. He hits it to the wall, and instead of bouncing, it stays by the wall. The two outfielders converging on the play have an inadvertent double-stall as they expect the other guy to go for it. When one does grab the ball, he falls over, tossing it to the other guy, who initially leaps away in surprise. Karkovice rounds the bases while this all happens.

 

I was at this game. It was a day game during the week and I was in a Metrodome suite. Dan Gladden was in LF and John Moses was in center. Karkovice hammered the ball on a line drive and it found the power alley in cavernous LF at the Dome. The ball rolled the last 30 feet or so to the wall and when Moses reached down to grab it he tripped on the interface where the turf becomes warning track. Rather than get up and throw the ball he underhanded it toward Gladden standing nearby. Gladden didn't leap away in surprise, he was looking toward the infield. Moses's toss hit him in the chest area and fell to the turf. Gladden picked it up and threw it to the cutoff guy, but it was too late to get the lumbering Karkovice.

[Top Gun]

Those were the good old days, Things were never that bad because we were young and we had hope and stars and hero's. Now we are old

not much hope or time to get it right and money has taken the stars and the glory away.

[notoriousgod71]

It's sad how many of these games I distinctly remember.