TRIVIA WINNER: The answer to last weeks question was Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns. The Prize: 15 points toward the person's total.
NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: You will still be required to enter the drawing as usual. However, through the end of 2024 you will get points depending on the complexity of the questions. Enter each week and correct answers will get those points-one guess per person per week. The reader with the most points after the years final column will get a $50 Starbucks Gift Card. Ties will be placed into a drawing. Questions will be worth anywhere from 10-25 points depending on degree of difficulty. Questions will be more difficult as the year goes on, so you are never really out of the mix. Tell your friends and sports fans who like trivia. We will keep track of your points. - YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN.
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: He spent 20 seasons in the big leagues and led the league in strike outs 6 times, but three of those times with less than 200 K's. He also led the league twice in homers allowed but the two seasons combined he only gave up 28 dingers. Who was he? Total 15 Points.
Game no. 60 of the 1961 Minnesota Twins season was kind of a changing of the guard. Not only because Sam Mele took over for the failings of Cookie Lavagetto, but because the team was certainly in transition. It wasn't so much that Mele turned the team around. Lavagetto had taken the Twins to a 23-36 record and Mele finished 47-54-1. Game 60 was a good one for Mele, a 6-1 win over the White Sox.
The aging players on their way out with the Twins were Jim Lemon and Billy Martin, Bill Tuttle and Billy Gardner. Newbies on their way in were Bobby Allison, Earl Battey, Zoilo Versalles, Don Mincher and Rich Rollins. A guy named Harmon Killebrew was in the middle of his career.
In the game both Lemon and Killebrew homered. Killebrew's 16th coming off an aging Early Wynn of the Sox who were about in the same position when it came to moving out the older players and bringing in the younger generation. Luis Aparicio, Jim Landis and Floyd Robinson were part of their youth movement.
During the 1961 season the Twins played 10 players in their 30's including 40 year old Elmer Valo. The next season most of them were gone and 15 players 25 or younger graced the roster. Included were two teenagers, 18 year old Jim Manning and 19 year old Jim Roland. Roland went on to a 10 year career, while Manning's career amounted to just 7 innings.
For Mele it was the start of something big. The 1962 season was the turning point as Mele led the club to 91 wins and a second place finish in the American League. Lavagetto never managed again in the big leagues.
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