Twins Thrash Yanks

Apr. 21, 1965 - The Yankees haven’t been looking like the Yankees since the seventh game of the World Series last October. This has led many to decide that this is the year they will lose the pennant. The Minnesota Twins are a more respectful jury. After destroying the Bombers, 7-2, in the Yankee Stadium opener today, they preferred to reserve judgment.

“I’ve been hearing that nonsense since the middle of spring training,” Twins’ manager Sam Mele said. “People here have fast memories. I’ll bet the Yankees have been worse off than 3-4 and gone on to win pennants. How can they write that Whitey Ford’s through? Gee, you have short memories. You got to wait on these things.”Mele has too many memories of being crushed to see the other side of the coin even faintly. But it’s there, and there was plenty of ammunition today to begin to think of writing off the Yanks. They didn’t hit when they needed to, and without Elston Howard catching because of a sore elbow, some of the webbing went out of their defense.

After Mickey Mantle shook up the crowd with his blast against the wind into the right-field upper deck, the Yankees stranded 10 runners in the next eight innings. John Blanchard, replacing Howard, did nab two of four would-be base stealers. But one walked into his arms on a missed squeeze play, and one Blanchard missed took an extra base on the catcher’s throw to center field.

The man closest to much of the Yankee futility just wrote it off as a bad day for the monarchy.

“I don’t see much difference in these Yankees,” Minnesota catcher Earl Battey said. “In fact, they’re the same guys, just as much challenge to a pitcher as they’ve always been. I never thought of the Yankees as a particularly excellent hitting club. The secret I saw was they never made any mistakes, and they capitalized on other teams’ mistakes.”

Yankee team physician Sidney Gaynor is expected to grant Howard permission to play soon. The Yanks should be better off that day. But even if they’re not, you won’t find the Twins or anybody else in the American League knocking them. Maybe Al Lopez, but he’s the exception. Others adhere to the sleeping dog theory. And right now, they’re still thinking of the Yankees as sleeping giants.

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