Tony, the Killer, and Carew

In honor of February being Black History month, I’d like to do a few posts on black players for the Twins and their contributions to the team and MLB. The first player I’d like to take a look at is Jim “Mudcat” Grant.

Grant’s career spanned from 1958-1971 while making a stop in Minnesota from 1964-1966.  Besides pithing for the Twins, Grant saw time with the Cleveland Indians (1958-1964), LA Dodgers (1968), Montreal Expos (1969), St. Louis Cardinals (1969), Oakland A’s (1970-1971) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1971).

Grant found sporadic success during his career, but managed to become the first black to win 20 games in the American League during his 21-7 campaign with the 1965 Twins. Grant’s success helped the Twins win the 1965 American League pennant.

Grant pitched a complete game in Game 1, out dueling Dodger Don Drysdale in a 8-2 Twins victory.  In Game 4, Drysdale turned the same trick on Grant by tossing a complete game and beating Mudcat 7-2. Grant came back on short rest to pitch Game 6 of the series and again turned in a complete game gem by beating back the N.L champs 5-1. This gave Mudcat a 2-1 record in the series with 2 complete game gems. Had the Twins pulled out Game 7, a good case could have been made for Mudcat winning the series MVP. Giving even more fuel to his case was what happened in Game 6 by Grant at the plate. With the Twins up 2-0 in the 6th inning, Grant came up and blasted only the second HR by a pitcher in Worrld Series history. With 2 outs and Bob Allison and Frank Quilici on base, Grant went deep off of Howie Reed to give the Twins a 5-1 lead.

Grant’s baseball cards don’t offer anything special, but I’d like to focus on his card in the 1965 Trade Bloc set. According to the 2006 Standard Catalog of Baseball cards, “These cards were produced as part of a baseball game which was marketed at Metropolitan Stadium for $1. The blank-backed cards measure 2-1/4″ x 3-1/2″ and are brinted in either blue or sepia tones. Besides Twins players and staff, the set includes cards of various team souvenir items as well as old Met Stadium. Besides the player photo, cards include a facsimile autograph, stats, and personal data.”

The set is a very sought after treasure for Twins fans. While the cards themselves don’t really light the collecting world on fire, it simply a matter of supply and demand. I’m sure many of these sets exist in the basements and attics of the Twin Cities area, I’ve only run across a few people that have had the cards and the game. Until today, I hadn’t seen anything but the cards, but a luckily timed search on eBay has turned up a complete set…still in the box!

While completely out of my price range, the auction shares some awesome shots of the game and I’d like to share those with you here. I am especially psyched about the back side of the box and game instructions. They’re a little difficult to read, but if this blind bat can manage to make most of out, maybe you can too. It certainly isn’t Strat-O-Matic or APBA but I’m sure young Twins fans enjoyed it just the same.

If anyone had this game or remembers playing it, I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts and memories about the game and the cards.

After a long hiatus, “Tony, the Killer and Carew” is back. I can’t promise to be as prolific as some of the other card bloggers out there, but I do promise to blog about Twins cards…and Twins history, Twins trivia and anything else Twins I can think of.

First off, welcome to the new, improved TwinsCards. We are now linked to the largest baseball card database on the web. Okay, maybe Beckett has a bigger database, but not with images! You will also notice that we have maintained the services of blogger Scot Johnson who writes the superbly informative franchise history blog, Coffeyville Whirlwind. Scot will continue to share his posts with us here at TwinsCards as well under the blog link to the left. We also invite other “would

Senor Smoke...at his worst!

be” bloggers to join the team. It has to be Twins and/or collecting related, but we are trying to cultivate a user community here and are always looking for others to share their passion with the rest of us.

Okay…enough with the pleasantries…on with the card blogging.

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about Jack Morris. You see, my friend is a die-hard Tigers fan and we were reminiscing about past players and he was whining because Morris left the Tigers to win a championship in Minnesota. Once we got past Morris, I started listing all the other past Tigers who played for the Twins…okay, it was a short list….in fact, the only other player I could think of besides Jack Morris was Senor Smoke, Juan Berenguer.

Senor Smoke

This is Berenguer’s 1989 Bowman card and is my favorite “non-action” shot and exactly how I remember him…flowing locks, an intimidating stare and a nasty forkball! Berenguer played with the Twins from 1987-1990 and had a 33-13 record with 9 saves. Berenguer started 6 games in 1987 but was used primarily as a set-up and late inning guy for Jeff Reardon and Rick Aguilera.

Berenguer was a fan favorite during his time in Minnesota and ventured into the music video industry. Capatilizing on the success of past celebrity sports videos (The Chicago Bears and the Super Bowl Shuffle), Berenguer created the regrettable, but hilarious Berenguer Boogie.

The video is probably one of the worse things ever created, but it’s like a trainwreck waiting to happen. You don’t really want to watch, but you just can’t look away!