Regular Season
With a second place finish in 1966, the Twins appeared poised to contend in 1967. However, at the end of May, they were in sixth place (in a ten team league), with 20 wins and 22 losses. One week later, owner Calvin Griffith fired manager Sam Mele, who had guided the club to a pennant in 1965. He was replaced by Cal Ermer, who had been managing the Twins AAA farm club in Denver.
The Twins continued to play .500 ball until late June, when Minnesota reeled off an eight game winning streak. At the all star break, they had risen to third place, two and one half games behind the league leading Chicago White Sox.
Five Twins made the All-Star Game: first baseman Harmon Killebrew, who led the team with 44 HR and 113 RBI; second baseman Rod Carew, the AL Rookie of the Year; outfielder Tony Oliva; catcher Earl Battey, and pitcher Dean Chance, a 20-game winner in 1967. Pitcher Jim Kaat won his sixth Gold Glove Award.
After a brief slump in late July, the Twins began the month of August by winning 15 of 20 games, including a three game sweep of the White Sox, which put them in first place on August 13. From that point on, they remained in first place, or never more than two games out of it.
On September 14, outfielder Walt Bond died of leukemia. Bond had been diagnosed with the disease several years earlier, but it had gone into remission. He started the season with the Twins and played in 10 games before being removed from the active roster. His final game was on May 7.
With one day left in the regular season, Minnesota was tied for first place with the Boston Red Sox, with the Detroit Tigers just a half game behind them. The two first place teams were scheduled to play one another in Fenway Park, while the Tigers were to meet the California Angels in a doubleheader. Dean Chance threw five scoreless innings and the Twins scored unearned runs in the first and third inning to take a 2-0 lead. However, in the sixth inning, things fell apart for the Twins as the Red Sox took advantage of four consecutive singles, two wild pitches, and an error to score five runs. Minnesota mustered only one more run, and lost the game and their chance for a second league championship in three years. The Tigers won their first game, but lost their second, and Boston earned the American League pennant.
Read more about this topic: 1967 Minnesota Twins Season
Famous quotes containing the words regular and/or season:
“A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,—the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)