Twins Walk Off Grand Slams!

"Mr. Becquer, meet Misters Allison, Green & Battey"

Yesterday, Francisco Mejia, Padres catcher, took Jeffrey Springs of the Rangers deep with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth for a walk-off grand slam to defeat the Rangers 7-3. You might recall Mejia was the prized trade chip in the Pad's trade of Minnesota (Chaska) native Brad Hand to the Cleveland Indians on July 19 of this season. So sad Cleveland won't have the benefit of his services in the foreseeable future (Twins fans, insert chuckle here)..

It was MLB's seventh walk-off grand slam of the 2018 season. All of which made me wonder "how many game-winning, walk-off grand slams have been hit in Minnesota Twins history* I thought, there must have been about 5, 6, at least.

* Grand slams hit in the home half of the last half inning that put the home club in the lead, and  which automatically end the game

 I wasn't far off! Basically right on...of course! :D

The actual result of my search? A grand total of FIVE times in 59 seasons of Twins baseball.  Or one every 12 years or so.

By the way aLI (average pressure index) is a Baseball Reference creation alluding to the average pressure factors upon the batter in their individual at bats. Which would say Becquer was feeling a HEAP of stress, perhaps thinking his status with the club in that inaugural Twins season might hinge on that very at bat (see Reusse story below!) . It's also interesting to note the 40 year span from Hall's 1966 bomb until Jason Kubel got the Twins back on the map in the 2000's.

Twins All-Time Walk-off Grand Slams, 1961-2018

Rk	Player	Date ▲	Opp	Rslt	HR	RBI	aLI	Pitcher	Batter
1	Julio Becquer	1961-07-04 (1)	CHW	W 6-4	1	4	6.990	Warren Hacker	Julio Becquer
2	Jimmie Hall	1966-08-02	BOS	W 7-3	1	4	2.372	Don McMahon	Jimmie Hall
3	Jason Kubel	2006-06-13	BOS	W 5-2	1	4	2.962	Julian Tavarez	Jason Kubel
4	Joe Crede	2009-05-13	DET	W 14-10	1	4	2.044	Brandon Lyon	Joe Crede
5	Brian Dozier	2018-07-15	TBR	W 11-7	1	4	5.570	Matt Andriesse	Brian Dozier

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/17/2018.

MLB'S 2018 Walk-off Grand Slams

Results

Rk	Player	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	Pitcher
1	Francisco Mejia	2018-09-16	SDP	TEX	W 7-3	Jeffrey Springs
2	David Bote	2018-08-12	CHC	WSN	W 4-3	Ryan Madson
3	Daniel Robertson	2018-07-22	TBR	MIA	W 6-4	Kyle Barraclough
4	Xander Bogaerts	2018-07-14	BOS	TOR	W 6-2	Chris Rowley
5	Jose Bautista	2018-07-06	NYM	TBR	W 5-1	Chaz Roe
7	Jason Heyward	2018-06-06	CHC	PHI	W 7-5	Adam Morgan

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 9/17/2018.  - FOR SOME REASON, BBREF WILL NOT LIST DOZIER'S GS
ON JULY 15 IN THE GENERATED REPORT - I HAD TO DO IT MANUALLY
IN THE FIRST CHART.  #CONSPIRACY! #SAD

Yeah, those greedy Cubs have TWO already in 2018!!

See Patrick Reusse's July 3, 2010 Article about Becquer's Grand Slam via the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It is corkin' good!

"So long, everybody!" - Herb Carneal

Game Of The Week: First Home Opener In Minnesota Twins History, April 21, 1961

Twins center fielder Lenny Green, up against chain link fence. Later, a concrete 

grandstand would replace cheap bleachers, and the makeshift planking for steps.

The Met parking lot - the former cornfield was only partially 

filled for that very first game in The Land of 10,000 Lakes.

The first Major League Baseball game in Minnesota history took place just four days after the U.S.-led Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. On the day of the game, President Kennedy was receiving communiques from Chairman Khrushchev, with ominous warnings against future interventions in Latin America. Also portentious that week was the Kennedy Administration's promise to the government of Laos to send about 300 U.S.military advisers into combat zones to help turn back communist insurgents in that country and others in the region; a ceasefire was in effect in Laos (Salt Lake Tribune) while the politicos assessed strategy. JFK this week also sent a private memorandum to Vice-President Johnson asking "Is there any space program that promises dramatic results that would represent a victory against the Soviets?" This would be the kick start for the greatest engineering, technical, and scientific undertaking in history - the Apollo program.

(Clover Leaf Twins card, 1961)

Don Mincher is the trivia answer to the

question "Who hit the first Twins regular-season 

home run at Metropolitan Stadium?" For the other 

Twins ballparks, Gary Gaetti (1982, the H.H.H. 

Metrodome) and Jason Kubel (2010, Target Field)  will do. 

Alas, the only sure win that week for Washington was secured by it's brand new American League entry. The Senators's invasion of Twins territory produced a 5-3 win that was decided in the ninth inning (BBRef). It was a sterling, close affair, with standout efforts by Minnesota's Lenny Green, Don Mincher, Camilo Pascual, Senators's slugger Dale Long, Washington starter Joe McClain, and reliever Dave Sisler. The latter escaped a bases-loaded, one out situation against Minnesota in the final frame. 

First, however, it was preceded by a gala welcome home for the Twins players and representatives:

Brainerd Daily Dispatch, April 19, 1961

The parade on Wednesday was joyful...

ABOVE: Don Mincher (left, crewcut) and Ron Henry, in Welcome Home Parade

The University Of Minnesota Marching Band arrives from center field for lineup

 introductions...and stayed lined up in the infield for the National Anthem. Note lack 

of seating in the foul territory behind first base. Construction of seating came to   

a halt when the game commenced, and would resume after the last out.

Note: signature walk-up path not yet constructed, from dugout to homeplate 

The Met as it looked on April 21, 1961 (BBRef), with Camilo Pascual on the mound; watching near the home team dugout were dignitaries such as  AL President Joe Cronin, MLB Commisioner Ford Frick, former NL President Will Harridge, Minnesota governor Elmer L. Andersen, and the mayors of Minneapolis of St. Paul (but not Bloomington Mayor Gordon Miklethun - the home ballpark in the city's limits apparently didn't confer upon him any special status!). Go to The Sporting News of May 3, 1961, and you'll read a rather pessimistic summary by George Moses of the Associated Press. You might think he took his lead from AL club owners still unhappy with Twins owner Calvin Griffith's push to move the franchise out of the nation's capitol. If Moses had taken the time to get the Minnesota fan's perspective (accessible in this account in the Winona (MN) Daily News of April 22, the tone would been much truer to the reality at the ballpark that day. Jim Wallace of the Brainerd Daily Dispatch ("It Wasn't That Bad") also had a nice rebuttal in his column the next day.

FIRST PITCH!

Winona (Minn.) Daily News 4/22/61

That the game only attracted 24,606 was a curious circumstance, however, given the lead-in hoopla. The forecast for that day was for temps in the 50s, with clear skies. It ended up an an overcast day, 63 D., but with no rain. So - what was up? A contributing factor may have been the absence from the starting lineup of Harmon Killebrew, who had pulled his left hamstring muscle running out a grounder in the Saturday, April 15 game at Baltimore (Twins game #4 in the '61 schedule). It was thought he would miss three weeks, but he rested for only two, reappearing in the April 29 game versus the Angels.

Minnesotan's may well have taken the attitude that without a big fly in the offing from Killebrew , the effort just wasn't worth it. Otherwise, I would posit that, despite the joy evident from acquiring a big-league team, rank and file Minnesotans just didn't have it in their mindset to take time off from work in that era, or to pull their kids out of school just to see what we now regard as history. Part of a region's character, you might say. Nevertheless, the opening ceremony was a fun spectacle, as this historic video makes clear. 

The Metropolitan Stadium scoreboard during Senator 

Willie Tasby's ninth inning at bat  on that April 21, 1961.

Enable audio - hover cursor near lower R-hand corner - click speaker icon

The Sporting News, May 3, 1961

Pascual pitched 8 innings that day, giving up three runs with 3 walks and 4 strikeouts (he would lead the league in that figure, 221). After giving up a long ball to first baseman Dale Long in the first, he appeared to right the ship. When Lenny Green homered to what would later become the right field bullpen to tie the game at 3, the Twins looked poised for a 9th inning rally. It wasn't to be. Washington pushed across 2 in their half of the ninth off trusty, "Old Blue" Ray Moore. Green was also the first Twins player to score in a home game, jogging home unfettered on Mincher's fourth inning bomb over the center field fence.

There are 8,000 things worth commenting upon in this short piece. But, the one I

most enjoyed was the narrator's pronunciation of "Minna-SO-tah" at the very end.

As if he was hip to the fact we have 10,000 Norwegians per acre in these parts.

Yes, a disappointing start, with nary a stampede through the turnstiles - but it wasn't a disaster. The Twins would win the next two games and the series that weekend, Sunday's game being a 1-0 shut out for Jack Kralick. Minnesota would eventually reach that coveted 30,000 attendance figure in game number 34 - a doubleheader on May 21 (BBRef, the 20th & 21 home games) versus Cleveland. Overall, they drew 1,256,723 for the 1961 season, third-most in the AL (of ten teams). Minnesota would go on to become a perennial home attendance leader in the American League, in fact, for the decade of the 1960's.

As Herb Carneal would phrase it: "So long, everybody!"

Chuck Knoblauch & The Dollar Dog Rebellion: May 2, 2001

The Odd Couple: Kelly and Knoblauch  face down rowdies

[UPDATED, August 31, 2013]




I was there at the H.H.H. Metrodome to see the whole, mustard-slathered spectacle. 


Wednesday night, May 2, 2001, was the defining evening for prodigal son Chuck Knoblauch, when he found out he was no longer the fair-haired boy of Twins glories past. In contrast, the original Biblical son received nothing like the rude, verbal ass-kicking and shennanigans that Knobby received  in that series-ending game at the Metrodome. It was the venue's most surreal, darkest ballgame ever. It's the only time my team won when I wanted to wear a bag over my head in embarassment.

Above, right: behold the culprit of the evening!

It had all started so wonderfully for Chuck in Minnesota.

Bowman 1991 Rookie

After he was drafted #25 in the first round of the 1989 draft, he apprenticed for just parts of two years (A: 139 games, AA ball: 118 games) in the minors. Then there was the 1991 Twins World Championship and Rookie Of The Year award; there were the four All-Star selections, three top-20 MVP finishes, two Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards. He did all this with a single-minded pursuit that bordered on mania. I remember a televised, steamy game from Cleveland in '95 or so - he did everything, hitting for extra bases, stealing, fielding - he was a rocket-propelled runt. Sadly, when you coupled the off-season workouts with the mail order food supplements (some apparently of the legal variety) that transformed him from a slightly pudgy little fellow into an intense greyhound, you had a guy that became viewed as a diva. His relations with Twins Manager Tom Kelly became strained. 

 

All the Twins could get
for Scott Erickson was...
Scott Klingenbeck.

 The lean years for the Twins extended from 1993 through the end of the Millennium. Knoblauch learned, as current Twins catcher Joe Mauer discovered in the summer of 2011, that (A) the fruits of losing made for an unpleasant aftertaste and (B) stars get the lion's share of criticism for the losing. The Twins traded away the Greg Gagnes, the Kevin Tapanis, the Scott Ericksons in a series of money-saving maneuvers until all at once, it seemed as if Knobby, Kirby and (later) Paul Molitor were the only sure things for the Twins. 



Once Puckett irretrievably lost his eyesight, Kelly was left with mediocrities like Rich Becker, Scott Stahoviak, Pat Meares, and Frankie Rodriguez to pencil into the lineup after Knoblauch at leadoff. His wife at the time found him uncommunicative after frustrating ballgames, despite his personal successes. He signed a contract in late-season 1996, but the losses still mounted - and by the end ‘97, he’d had enough, and made known he wanted out. He got his wish, forcing the Twins hand.  Enter Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton, Brian Buchanan, and Danny Mota in February, whom the Twins wrangled away from the Yankees for his services.



Commence the white-hot hatred of Twins fans spurned. As history would demonstrate later, vengeful Minnesota fans make Glenn Close (“Fatal Instinct”) look like the school librarian by comparison.

Fan to Knoblauch:
"You will NOT ignore me !"

When A.J. Pierzynski returned to the American League in 2005, he elicited similar antipathy. Like Knobby, he brought a bundle in trade booty: Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser. What is it about the state's sporting public that they can't look good fortune in the face and see it for what it is? It's a paradox that's hard to fathom...

The Game - Wednesday, May 2, 2001

Ordinarily, a game that’s scoreless into the middle innings would be noteworthy on its own merit, with stellar pitching by starters Joe Mays and Orlando Hernandez. That helped create a taught, tense affair. It should have been a fascinating game. But there was something else at hand. As I watched that game in left field, I felt an increasing discomfort with what was going on around me; a crazed anarchy was in the air, very unsettling. Boorish kids of college age were giving it to the Yankees and Knoblauch; it wasn't just the loudness - it was the meanness, bitterness, bile, and beach balls pinging back and forth that made this freak show. One frustrated gentleman, obviously a middle-aged, Twins fanatic, was seen catching one of those bouncers, puncturing it, and telling the miscreants to "WATCH THE GAME;" his reward was debris and bear bottles thrown his way as well (oh, did that HURT my feelings!). This took place while the Twins were mounting a rally in the 6^th inning. 


A number of factors contributed to this evening's weirdness:

No, drunk guys. It does NOT say
"start the throwin'"

• It was dollar dog night with little to no limit on how many hot dogs you could buy (or throw as handy projectiles on this night)
• 
  The Twins were just returning to respectability in ‘01, and thus general admission left field seats went for a paltry $10. That screamed one thing: “Come one, come all ye drunken frat boys!” (It’s a fact: cheap prices appeal to the rude, boorish set, as well as thrifty families)
• Knoblauch’s 2^nd base days were over. He’d been replaced there by  a young Alphonso Soriano. That meant he had the privilege of playing with his back to those same lower left field seats. Bullseye! 
• A popular FM morning radio station show in the Twin Cities was stirring the pot against Knoblauch constantly, especially fixating on the incident when he pushed a kid in Seattle
  
  
  
  At 9:11 p.m., Doug Mientkiewicz singled in Matt Lawton and David Ortiz to put the Twins up by 3 runs off Mike Stanton and the Yanks in that 6th. This created an excuse for an erruption of bottles and dogs and objects to be tossed to the turf, at Knoblauch - and it became so intense that 3B Umpire Angel Hernandez felt he had no other choice except to signal Manager Joe Torre to order his Yankees from the field. Tom Kelly, in an ironic twist, emerged from the Twins dugout to be Knoblauch's savior, in an attempt to calm the knuckleheads.

The letters on the backs of the imbeciles' shirts spell out

"Watch Your Back Chuck" when properly arranged. Nice!

At the same time, PA announcer Bob Casey was intoning with a perturbed urgency:

 "Ladies and gentlemen, this is an important, championship ballgame. If the trouble in leftfield does not end, the game will be forfeited and the Yankees will win. NOW QUIT THIS!"

Everybody's welcome..unless your name is "Chuck"

After 12 minutes, following the ejection of a posse of unrulies from General Admission, play finally resumed.  The Twins A.J. Pierzynski took a strike three called, and the Twins bullpen came on to stuff New York the rest of the way. That would have been the end of it, except that yet another flurry of Chuck-shucking happened in the 8th inning...resulting in another 5 minute delay. That stoppage promoted the umpiring crew to more seriously consider a forfeit ruling. But the threat passed when fans witnessed more ejections, and they yielded to sanity, finally. Shockingly, the game took only 3:01 to play. As a footnote, the Twins won, 4-2.

For his part Kelly was livid not only with the fans, but he also felt the stadium's sound system was playing so loudly that he couldn't convey his message to the offending patrons. ''It was a terrific game, and in my mind it was ruined,'' Kelly said. ''Hopefully, they can clean it up around here.''

"What in the name of the Wide

World of Sports is going on here?"

 

To his credit, Knoblauch understood that just a small minority was responsible, and resisted downgrading Minnesota fans and Minneapolis: ''They need to turn the page. It's been four years. I don't know what's going on here... Even after all this, I won't say anything bad about the city,'' Knoblauch said. ''It's probably a bunch of 16-year-olds who don't have a clue who Chuck Knoblauch is."

Chuck would later confide to the Star Tribune's Amelia Rayno in 2013 how the episode affected him: "It hurt...I mean, I'm human. I can't even give you any details. It was like an out-of-body experience ... that's the part of my life that's like, 'Really?' It really meant that much? You're trying to hurt me, knowingly throwing a quarter or a marble or something at me? It's twisted. It made me bitter about Minnesota, definitely."

As a longtime Twins fan, it should be obvious to the reader that I'm embarrased this ever happened. Yet, I think it fair to add this bit of clarification: had Chuck had a sense of humor about himself during his career, and not taken himself so seriously, he might have endeared himself as one of the more beloved Twins before he left. It may have mitigated the ugliness of May 2, 2001. So, in that sense he had it wrong: Twins fans felt they DID know him, and some felt he deserved this treatment. If you can imagine.

I don't foresee similar flareups with the returns of Joe Nathan, or Michael Cuddyer or Jason Kubel in the future. 

Chuck in The Big Apple: A classic case of
"Be careful what you wish for."

In the final analysis, there should be some credit given to Twins management; they had doubled the security contingent in left after situations on a relatively minor scale disrupted the Monday game. But with the opportunity for the Twins to win the 3-game series at hand, a 16,000 fan walkup besieged the Ticket offices Wednesday.  It caught the Twins off guard with their surprising success of that early 2001 season, according to Dave St. Peter. It was their biggest, mid-week attendance in 13 years in April or May.

 In retrospect, I don't think it can be disputed that Chuck Knoblauch was by far the best second baseman in MLB over 1995-1996. Furthermore, if you focus on peak performance, he had the best all-round years for any Twins second baseman in their history. That would include Rod Carew (with the exception of his ridiculous 1977 MVP season - but of course, he was a first baseman by then!). 

High Heats Stats also takes this to a greater, detailed level in it's analysis of Knoblauch's superior seasons, "Five Fascinating Facts About Chuck Knoblauch." Truly illuminating, that he was besting a Hall of Famer in Roberto Alomar.


It can be stated that trading Chuck for players like Guzman and Eric Milton undoubtedly bettered the product on the field, helped keep the Twins in Minnesota, and staved off contraction in 2001. Just another reason that residual bitterness towards Chuck Knoblauch is misguided and stupid.

 As our announcing friend Herb Carneal put it:
So long, everybody!" - TT

Information from a May 4, 2001 Online Athens article was also extremely helpful in this recap.

Here's a You Tube video from '97 that foreshadows Knoblauch's eventual departure from Minnesota.

Then there's this story on what Chuck Knoblauch is up to these days, from a summer, 2011 StarTribune feature

Bleeding Yankee Blue posted this interview with Chuck in Aug., 2011.

1976: The Twins Bill Campbell As Baseball's Original Free Agent Signee Part Two

[Updated, April 14, 2013 - updated with pdf doc, 12/2/13 - 
Part One of this Bill Campbell saga can be found at THIS LINK]

Thirty-five years ago today, November 4, 1976, was a momentous day in baseball history. It was the day that Major League team owners bid on the first group of free agents in the "Reentry Draft."This draft was distinguished from free agency statuses granted to Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally cases, as these players were stand-alone "test cases" used by MLBPA head Marvin Miller to create the environment that could be used to justify a structured draft that the Major League teams would have to abide.  I view the list (below), and have to marvel at the top flight pool of future Hall of Famers (Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers) and All-Stars (Bobby Grich, et. al.). Minnesota's Bill "Soupy" Campbell (Classic Twins post on Soupy) and Eric Soderholm* were in that group.

The Sporting News called it a "gold rush," but it was more a wild n' wooly cattle drive of the game's top stars to market, to continue the Wild West motif that was the 1970's. And our very own Bill was numero uno - the FIRST official signing under the new agreement between Marvin Miller, the Players Association, and Major League Baseball. It was a formal end to the system known as "The Reserve Clause." Campbell was the only Twin to have served actively in the Viet Nam war, as a radio operator.


*Great interview with Soderholm at Baseball Alamanac. Sheds light on difficulty of squaring off against Calvin Griffith in contract negotiations. Recalls comment Griffith made to Pedro Ramos during contract squabble: "If you don't like the offer, you can go back to Cuba and cut sugar cane" (Google Books link).

Calvin Griffith

The next clip is  from the Minneapolis Tribune Sports section of the previous day (11/3/76) . Tom Briere's piece allows an insight into the mindset of then-Twins President Calvin Griffith* on the eve of that momentous draft. Cal comes across today as curiously detached, and stand-offish; you have to wonder if he truly understood the weakness of his bargaining power in this new format:

 
 *Link to my "Meeting Calvin" post. The modern psychology of players, media relations, economics...it was getting apparent to the Twins hierarchy that the game was passing Griffith by. They would appoint a 4-man management team that year, ease him out of the team presidency.

...And who would have guessed, with that laissez-faire attitude, this would result?

THE SPORTING NEWS, NOV. 20, 1976

Of course, the '76 draft proved to be highly damaging to the Twin's chances to seriously contend for the pennant in 1977, when the club fielded an offensive juggernaut (batting stats) that was bereft of quality starting pitching. The 1977 draft would deal another more serious blow to the team's depth of talent , with the defections of Lyman Bostock and Larry Hisle. Sans them, the Twins would not factor in a pennant race until another turnover of youth, the Puckett-Hrbek-Gaetti-Viola Twins of the 1980's, would surface and win it all ten years later.

For those of you interested, here are the results of that draft day as described in the Jan. 1, 1977 edition of The Sporting News (again,  Jack Lang's article):

Only two day's earlier, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter had defeated imcumbent President Gerald R. Ford in the general elections. The country was moving on after Watergate, Vietnam, the '60s, and the heartbreak that came with them. Undoubtedly, the old order of power was "gone with the wind," as Ronnie Van Zant* sang - and now, so too was The Reserve Clause in baseball that had bound players to their teams.  The freed bird flew, and the Twins had lost their uber-closer. He would go on to win the Rolaids Relief Pitcher of The Year (again) with Boston in /77, as well as the The Sporting News AL Fireman of The Year, and be selected to the AL All-Star Team.

*link: Van Zant was a big-time baseball fan, an 

enthusiastic ballplayer as a boy in Jacksonville, FLA.

Overall, this episode in team history set an organizational operating template that has lasted into the present day. More often than not, the Twins are still one of the clubs that draft, develop and then lose top-flight players long before their talents have regressed. Exits by Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, and now (possibly) Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Joe Nathan in 2011 are bitter reminders that teams in markets like Minneapolis-St. Paul have a fairly small window of time for contending. 

It's paradoxical that while baseball has changed so much in the last 35 years, one thing is still very much the same - the very democratic and rewarding institution of free agency has also made it very heartbreaking for loyal fans like ours in Minnesota to see the Twin's best and brightest move on to the Bostons and Californias of the world.

As our buddy at the mic, Herbie Carneal,

would say: "So long, everybody." - TT

P.S. - check out this newspaper pdf re: Campbell's 1977 pitching workload

1977 Topps Baseball Card.
Undoubtedly, the airbrushing
over the Twins logo was just
another way Twins fans had 
salt rubbed into their wounds..