What did the Twins need after a gut-wrenching sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees? They needed a win at Pittsburgh on Friday to get this team back on track. Instead, they were blanked by the Bucs and exited with a 3-0 loss and what is now a four-game losing streak. The Twins... Continue Reading »

So far this season the Twins have had a 12-game winning streak, a seven-game losing streak and here they are again, a game away from sweeping the Texas Rangers after they won 5-3 on Saturday. I can’t explain it but with just enough hitting and pitching they are getting the job done. They also got... Continue Reading »

The final (for now) addition to my Twins baseball card collection is this 1967 card that shows the American League batting leaders for 1966: Frank Robinson, Tony Oliva and Al Kaline. Oliva would hit .307 that season and lead the AL with 191 hits. He got off to a red-hot start and by early May... Continue Reading »

In “Facing Nolan,” a relatively new documentary about the Hall of Fame pitcher, Ryan, wild but effective in the early days of his career with the New York Mets, eventually was traded to the California Angels. When Ryan first learned that he was going to California, he thought he was on his way to the... Continue Reading »

Tony Oliva is headed to the Hall of Fame along with former teammate and pitcher Jim Kaat. While Kaat’s overall body of work might jump off the page a bit more, take a close look at Oliva’s rookie season and it’s hard to say that he doesn’t belong in the pantheon of peers because he... Continue Reading »

Tony Oliva, who spent his entire 15-season career with the Twins, had one of the best rookie campaigns of all time, and was the clear choice for AL Rookie of the Year in 1964, capturing 95 percent of the vote, according to Baseball-Reference.com. The numbers are incredible: 217 hits, 109 runs, 94 RBI, 43 doubles,... Continue Reading »

As July turned to August, the 1965 Twins found themselves with a five-game lead in the American League heading into an Aug. 2 matchup against a good Baltimore Orioles team, according to Cool Of The Evening, a book by Jim Thielman about that pennant-winning season for the Twins. But rather than wait and let a rookie pitcher... Continue Reading »

A decade after Cookie Lavagetto suspected the New York Giants were up to no good during the 1951 season — and was later famously captured on film sitting next to a bawling Ralph Branca after that history-making October loss — Lavagetto found himself in Minnesota, manager of a newly relocated team called the Twins. During... Continue Reading »

In October 1951 Bobby Thomson hit baseball’s most famous three-run home run, a blast that capped an amazing come-from-behind season that finally erased a season-long lead by the Brooklyn Dodgers and propelled the New York Giants into the World Series. The home run is so famous that it has almost completely obscured the fact that... Continue Reading »