Regular Season
For the third year in a row, an important Twins personality died just before the beginning of the season. In 2005, long-time stadium announcer Bob Casey fell to heart failure. In 2006, Hall of Fame center fielder Kirby Puckett died from a massive bilateral stroke brought on by hypertension. In 2007, Herb Carneal, the team's radio play-by-play announcer for 45 years, died from heart failure on April 1, the day before Opening Day. The Twins announced that they would dedicate the 2007 season to Carneal's memory.
- The Twins' representatives to the All-Star Game were Morneau, Hunter, and Santana. Reliever Pat Neshek was chosen to be one of five players in the final vote for an All-Star player. However, this spot went to Boston Red Sox pitcher Hideki Okajima, despite a campaign by Twins fans and national sports blogs to "Vote For Pat".
- The collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge occurred prior to the August 1, 2007 home game against the Kansas City Royals at the Metrodome. Public safety officials told the team that canceling the game could hamper rescue and recovery efforts, since a cancellation would send up to 25,000 people back into traffic just blocks from the collapsed bridge (I-35W runs behind the Metrodome). Before the game, a moment of silence was held for the victims of the collapse. The team rescheduled their August 2 game against the Royals to the afternoon of August 31. Traditional groundbreaking ceremonies for the team's forthcoming stadium (also located in downtown Minneapolis) had been scheduled to take place after the game, but were postponed to August 30.
- Johan Santana broke the club record for most strikeouts in a game, with 17 against the Texas Rangers on August 19, 2007.
Read more about this topic: 2007 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.”
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“Much poetry seems to be aware of its situation in time and of its relation to the metronome, the clock, and the calendar. ... The season or month is there to be felt; the day is there to be seized. Poems beginning “When” are much more numerous than those beginning “Where” of “If.” As the meter is running, the recurrent message tapped out by the passing of measured time is mortality.”
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