No
Better Opener than Twins’ First in ‘61
It was 50 years ago this spring the Minnesota Twins played their first
ever regular season game. The Twins beat the Yankees 6-0 in New York on
April 11, 1961.
The game was televised back to Minnesota and it might have caused a
weekday record for bogus sick days among our youth. I was among the
guilty, finding an excuse to be in front of the TV at home, rather than
working on reading, writing and arithmetic at school.
This was not a decision I regret. The Washington Senators, not so
lovable losers in our nation’s capital for many years, had relocated to
Minneapolis-St. Paul in the fall of 1960. Anticipation of seeing the new team had been building all winter.
The Senators were renamed the Twins after various nicknames had been
reviewed including the Griffs. That name was suggested to honor team owner
Calvin Griffith and his family. Although the Twins nickname
prevailed, it was a grateful owner that welcomed a move from Washington,
D.C. where his team was about as popular as a Capitol Hill scandal.
After the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and other city leaders had
spent the better part of a decade pursuing a major league baseball team,
it was also a grateful community that greeted Griffith and his team in
1961. Griffith’s Senators, along with the New York Giants, Cleveland
Indians and Chicago White Sox had all been rumored to be interested in
moving here in the 1950s.
Griffith finally made the relocation, bringing a franchise that had not
been in the World Series since 1933. But the Senators had been building
with promising young talent including sluggers Harmon Killebrew
and Bob Allison. There was a hint of better days ahead, perhaps
a winner in Minnesota within a couple of years.
Part of the organization’s scouting strategy was to acquire Cuban
players. The team’s best pitcher was Cuban curveballing wonder
Camilo Pascual. But for some reason manager Cookie Lavagetto
sent another Cuban, Pedro Ramos, to the mound for that historic
first game in Yankee Stadium 50 years ago.
Ramos was a journeyman pitcher. Calvin’s son, Clark
Griffith, remembers
Ramos and watching the game on TV while serving in the Navy. “He had an
attitude that he could throw the fastball by anybody, and he couldn’t,”
Griffith told Sports Headliners.
Lavagetto didn’t even last half the season as Twins manager before being
fired, but he made the right choice with Ramos. The right-hander shutout the Yankees
in the first game of a season where he would compile an 11-20 record.
This was the famed Yankees team of 1961 that featured a then modern day
“Murder’s Row” of sluggers including Mickey Mantle, Roger
Maris, Yogi Berra and Moose Skowron. The Yankees'
pitching ace, Whitey Ford, won 25 games that season but couldn’t
beat Ramos on opening day.
While the Yankees went on to win the World Series, the Twins finished
70-90. But by 1962 the Twins were 91-71 and in 1965 Griffith’s
franchise had won the American League pennant and was playing in the
World Series.
Tonight the Twins play in Toronto in their 51st regular season
opener. The kids won't have to call in sick to school to watch
this opener.
