One note on my votes. Yes obviously means I’m voting for the player this year. If I say no, that means I don’t think the player should ever be in the team Hall of Fame. Maybe means that I might vote for him in the future, but not right now. I think if we choose more than one or two players per year, the HOF will fill up with some marginal players pretty quickly, so some of these guys will just have to wait.

Dave Boswell, P. 8 seasons with Twins, 67-54, 3.49 ERA. My vote: No.

Boswell was a very competent pitcher, and he had one very good year in 1969. But he was never the staff ace, and his stock fell fast, to the point that he was cut by the team at age 26. Also, it’s hard to vote for a guy who got in a fight with Bob Allison and his manager.

Tom Brunansky, OF. 7 seasons, .250/.330/.432, 163 HR, 432 RBI. My vote: Maybe.

Bruno’s 9th place standing on the Twins home run list is safe now that Michael Cuddyer, who was 22 behind him, has left the team. He was a key piece of the 1987 Championship team, and his trade to the Cardinals in 1988 ushered in a 19 year curse that prevented any Twin from topping 30 homers in a season. He’s on the cusp of the Twins HOF. If he can get Rochester to hit well, that’ll put him over the top. (more…)

20 years ago today, this game happened. It was awesome.

Jack Morris was a grizzled veteran, one of the most succesful pitchers in the game. He faced off against a green youngster named John Smoltz, who would one day have an even better career than Morris. But neither pitcher was ever more brilliant than they were that night. They matched zeroes through seven innings, knowing full well that the World Series would be lost by whichever team blinked first.

Of course, the first seven innings were just a warmup act for the 8th. Baseball fans talk about greatest players, greatest games, greatest World Series, and greatest home runs, but I’ve never seen a list of greatest innings before. If there was (and my hat is off to anyone who attempts to compile such a list), that 8th inning might be at the very top. Both teams loaded the bases with less than two outs, and both teams failed to score. But Morris survived the 8th, and Smoltz didn’t. (more…)

After a win and a loss in Minnesota, the series moved to Toronto. Toronto had been a tough opponent for the Twins all year long (the Jays won 8 of 12 regular season contests), and SkyDome was, to say the least, a strange and intimidating venue for a visiting team. But the good guys managed to win Games 2 and 3, and they had the Jays by the throats.

Toronto brought back knuckleballer Tom Candiotti, the loser of Game 1. At first, it looked like he’d add another loss to that stat line, as Kirby Puckett homered in the first, and Shane Mack drove in a run in the second. But then the Jays touched Kevin Tapani for five runs in the third and fourth, making it look like the ALCS would have to be decided back in Minneapolis.

But the Twins didn’t want to do that. They tied it in the sixth, thanks to a Chuck Knoblauch two run double. In the eighth, Minnesota piled on three runs against reliever Duane Ward to take an 8-5 lead. Puckett and Kent Hrbek highlighted that inning with run-scoring singles. Rick Aguilera came on to close it out in the ninth, and he had no trouble. Roberto Alomar was the final out; when he flied to left field, Dan Gladden grabbed the ball to send the Twins to the 1991 World Series.