Hot Stove Diversion: A Stroll Down Memory Lane

I’ve posted this here before on similar threads, but I’ll go ahead and repeat it…

Summer of 2000. I was living with my aunt in St. Paul, and we decided spur-of-the-moment to head to a Saturday night game because of the pitching matchup – Eric Milton vs. Roger Clemens. They didn’t disappoint – Milton struck out something like 8 of the first 10 batters, and they took dueling no-hitters into the fifth inning before the Yankees finally got to Milton for a pair of runs.

Clemens came out after the 7th, and the Twins finally managed to do something – a flurry of hits I don’t remember led to the following situation: 1st and 3rd, two outs, tie game, and the legendary Chad Moeller at the plate. The Twins’ catchers were a black hole of offense that year – they played four different catchers, all of whom hit right near the Mendoza line, before finally discovering Pierzynski at the end of the year – and Moeller may have been the worst (okay, Danny Ardoin was probably worse). He was hitting comfortably under .200 at the time, with no power.

Moeller hit a low liner to left that looked like it might drop. The Yankees’ left fielder dove for it… and missed. The ball rolled to the wall, and by the time Bernie Williams tracked it down, Chad Freaking Moeller had a three-run, tie-breaking, inside-the-park home run.

Weirdly, I’ve probably only been to 30 or so Twins games in my life (I’m not a local, save for the aforementioned summer), but I’ve personally witnessed two in-the-park homers, the other a two-run job by Steve Lombardozzi in the first game I ever went to, in 1987. I was only 7, and I didn’t pick up where the ball was (there was a collision between the right and center fielders, I think) but vividly recall seeing Lombardozzi and Gagne race around the bases and being amazed at how fast they were.

I grew up in Chicago an avid Cubs fan. Then I lost track of baseball for a long time. A couple years, ago we got cable and a DVR for the first time. I started watching Twins games, and became re-addicted, AND transferred my fandom to the Twins. It’s been a great couple seasons watching games in fast forward with my daughters and showing them how the game works, and remembering how much I loved it as a kid. So I guess my favorite Twins moment was getting cable and a DVR :)

Kent Hrbek’s Grand Slam in Game 6 of the 1987 World Series. By far the #1 memory for me.

The 1985 All Star Game – not a Twins memory but a Dome memory. I was there early for batting practice and a policeman on the field fielded a ground ball and threw it right into my glove. I was so excited. Ended up using that ball in a neighborhood baseball game.

That Yankee game where everyone threw hotdogs and batteries at Chuck Knoblauch and the Yankees walked off the field.

One game at the dome, when they used to have the plexiglass in left field, this drunk super-fan started pounding on the glass shouting “Let’s go North Stars!”…he actually broke the sheet of plexiglass on the hinge and it fell into centerfield. They had to stop the game and Pucket ran over, picked up the glass and threw it over the 408 sign in centerfield.

Game 2 of the 2010 playoffs. Even though we lost, it was the most fun I had at a Twins game this year (and I went to about 12), and my first playoff game since 1991. Seeing Mariano Rivera throw a save in the playoffs was pretty cool.

So many more, but these are the standouts….

Except for the fact that he never talks.

My first memory was from 1963 but the first game I attended was in 1965.. My only memory was how frustrated my father was trying to get into the stadium parkkng lot – we could see it but not find the correct exit. Later in life I attended a game in which Richie “don’t call me Dick” Allen hit two inside the parkers (both aided by poor fielding from CF Bobby Darwin. I also saw Mark “the Bird” Fidrych" pitch in his breakout season. I remember it was Tony Oliva’s birthday, as well, and Tony O had a great day against the kid.

I could have checked the facts, but I don’t want to find out that my memories are all hosed up, so if you go checking, don’t tell me.

Also, as to the editorial comment, I would add " berate those who think other teams might actually want to part with real talent just to have the opportunity to pay Jason Kubel $5+ million next season."

In January 1987 my parents took me to the Twins Winter Caravan for my birthday. Tom Kelly, Killebrew, Brunansky, Gaetti, Tim Laudner, and others were there (Billy Beane was part of that one too, oddly enough). I’ll always remember Tim Laudner’s speech. Looking back on the 1986 season he started something like this: “We had a great year last year. Making the playoffs was awesome and, of course, winning the World Series was a dream come true….. Oh wait! This is next year’s speech.” The room erupted in cheers and laughter because, as mediocre as the ‘86 team was, the playoffs seemed like nothing but a dream. I’ll always remember ’87 as the year Laudner called it in January.

That was something else. I still tear up a little bit. Kirby was such an awesome boyhood hero for me.

As for game-related: A couple of buddies and I were sitting in the $3 cheap seats up in RF at the Dome thanks to our hilariously out-of-date student IDs we still have (yeah, I didn’t look like my 17-year-old self at 25, heh). I don’t know how many of you ventured out into those general admission crowds, but they were always entertaining mixes of mostly college-age students and out-of-town fans for whatever reason.

Anyway, we’re up there during some White Sox-Twins game and the crowd is getting fairly drunk and boisterous (for a baseball game, this would still be pregame-style at a Vikes game). After one particular strike call goes against the Twins, dude behind us yells at the ump, “Go back to Russia!”

I dunno what made that so hilarious to us, but we giggled for weeks. Maybe it’s the idea that Russians don’t know anything about strike zones. Maybe it was the contention that Russians have bad eyesight. I don’t know, commies? It didn’t make any kind of damn sense, and struck the right balance of aggression and absurdity to get us rolling.

We still yell that at televisions, umpires, World Cup refs, stop lights, and most anything else that irritates us. And it’s still funny.

Greinke v. Blackburn. The place was just rocking when Cuddyer broke the tie in the 8th. Not many other very memorable games except for the first game that I remember going to. That was May 30, 1998. Radke owned the Angels and Otis Nixon stole some bases. But I really just remember the gigantic storm that was going on during the game and on the drive home: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/casepages/may30-311998page.htm

I have a million, starting with a foggy recollection of seeing Oliva go horizontal in right field when I was 5, which would have been 1966.

But to pick one. I was at the game when the Twins started their decline in the ‘90s. I had moved back from San Francisco, where I lived during the glory years, 1987 to 1991, watching Kirby Puckett from the Coliseum bleachers. I got home and went to my first game back versus the A’s. The Dome was rocking (42,786). The Twins were in first, but scuffling. We were up 4-2 with Aguilera on in the 9th. Eric Fox hit a big 3-run homer, and Eckersley saved the game, putting the A’s in first place, and starting the Twins on a ten-year skid.

I took my son (7) to his first game at Target field. The Twins didn’t win, but Jim Thome passed Harmon Kilibrew on the all time HR list. After his second home run my son turns to me and says “I think Jim Thome is my new favorite player”. Later in September I took my son to his second game at Target field and Thome hit two more home runs to pass Mark McGuire on the all time HR list. Hopefully some day he’ll remember these games and be glad that he got to see a hall of fame player do what he does best during the first year of Target Field, and think of these games as one of his favorite Twins memories.
I know I do.