Who was the last Twin to steal 50 bases? It's not Ben Revere... yet. Photo by Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE

Who was the last Twin to steal 50 bases in a season? Chuck Knoblauch stole 62 in 1997. Hopefully, Ben Revere will knock Knoblauch’s name off this list very soon.

Who was the last Twin to win a Gold Glove at shortstop? Zoilo Versalles is the only Twin to win a Gold Glove at shortstop, and he did it twice, with the last coming in 1965. This is the longest Gold Glove drought at any position for the Twins.

Who was the last Twin to hit 40 home runs in a season? As I’ve pointed out before, it was Harmon Killebrew in 1970. The late Mr. Killebrew was also the last to hit 35 home runs that year.

Who was the last Twin to hit 50 home runs in a season? This has never happened. Killebrew holds the team record with 49 in 1964 and again in 1969.

Who was the last Twin to win 20 games? You probably remember this one. It was Johan Santana with a  20-6 record in 2004.

Who was the last Twin to win 25 games? For this milestone, you have to go a lot further back. Jim Kaat is the only player to win 25 in a season in a Twins uniform, and he did it in 1966. For his accomplishments, Kaat’s jersey was retired by the Twins. Just kidding. The Twins actually gave the number to 14 other players in the past four decades, and Kaat’s jersey is still sadly unretired.

Who was the last Twin to win 30 games? No Twin has ever done this, but before the franchise moved to Minnesota, Senator legend Walter Johnson won 36 games in 1913. The year before he had racked up 33 wins.

Who was the last Twin to lose 20 games? Pedro Ramos earned this dubious honor back in the team’s first year of play: 1961. It was his fourth consecutive season leading the AL in losses. Since then, there have been some close calls, most notably Scott Erickson‘s 19 loss campaign in 1993 and Allan Anderson’s 18 losses in 1990. But it takes a special kind of pitcher to lose 20: good enough to stay in the rotation, but bad (or unlucky) enough to keep losing.

Who was the last Twin to strike out 300 batters in a season? This is just another excuse to mention Johnson’s name. The Big Train struck out 303 batters in 1912.

Who was the last Twins pitcher to hit a home run? It was Kaat in 1972, the year before the DH rule came into effect. He had a pair of homers that year, and he hit for a very respectable .289/.304/.489 line. In case you’re wondering, that last home run was a solo shot off Cleveland pitcher Vince Colbert on June 11.

Who was the last player to hit his 500th homer against the Twins? Jim Thome hit number 600 as a Twin, of course, and Killebrew hit number 500 as a Twin in 1971, but the only person to hit his 500th against the Twins was Frank Thomas on June 28, 2007.

Who was the last Twins manager to post a winning record? Ron Gardenhire has a .550 winning percentage, but if you don’t count the incumbent, you have to go back quite a bit. Bill Rigney managed the team from 1970 through 1972, and he finished with a .531 mark. In between Rigney and Gardenhire, the Twins had six managers who finished with losing records.

Who was the last Twin to hit over .350? You probably remember that it was Joe Mauer in 2009, when he hit .365. Before Mauer, Kirby Puckett hit .356 in 1988, and Rod Carew topped .350 four times, including a .388 average in 1977.

Funny that this baseball cookie cutter has recessed laces, the opposite of real baseballs.

Happy Holidays to all of the Puckett’s Pond readers.  We hope each and every one of you find something to lift your spirits during the holiday season.

If you’re a young person from my generation, you can never really feel the holiday spirit without watching Home Alone.  To kick off this week’s version of the Thursday Links, here is a list of 12 things you probably didn’t know about Home Alone.  And if you DID know all 12 of these things, let me know, I’ll mail you something awesome.

If you’re still not feeling the spirit, head over to The Platoon Advantage and read Mark Smith’s 12 Days of Baseballmas.  If you still don’t feel the spirit, you likely never will.

Last week I presented a link to the All True Twins team from Beyond the Boxscore.  This week, Beyond the Boxscore presents the All All-True-Team Team.  The Senator’s Walter Johnson is the only player from the Twins franchise to make the list.  I had to look him up at Baseball-Reference, as he was a bit before my time, but with 127.7 career WAR, he’s a total stud (Here is another interesting character from the Washington Senator’s history, one that played just before Johnson arrived in Washington).

This one is a little more than a week old, but something I hadn’t stumbled upon until some time during the last week.  Target Field has earned a LEED Silver Certification.  Not only is Target Field the
Greenest Ballpark in America but now the folks over there have an extra something to hang their hat on.  (more…)

The game must have felt like a hot dagger to the heart of every Washington fan. Just four years before, the perennially futile Senators had left town, only to be replaced by an even less effective collection of players. And now, as Washington Post writer Bob Addie lamented, “fickle fate ordained that the old Senators, now known as the Twins, should win the pennant by beating the new Senators.”

With a 2-1 victory over their former selves in front of a pitiful Washington crowd (8,302 fans), the Twins punched a ticket to the World Series for the first time since moving to Minnesota, and the first time in franchise history since 1933. Meanwhile, Washington endured a 72-90 record. It was the best performance so far by the new Senators, but still a forgettable one. The team left town four years later, and playoff baseball hasn’t returned to the nation’s capital since.

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