Twins Top Yanks in Minnesota

Apr. 12, 1965 - The Twins and Yankees traded mistakes and miscues for 11 innings today at Metropolitan Stadium before Cesar Tovar’s two-out, bases-loaded single delivered Minnesota’s 5-4 victory. 

The winning run was, of course, unearned in a game featuring eight errors, five by the usually keen-fielding Yankees. Four of the nine runs were tainted, and three of the Twins’ five were unearned.

It was not a pretty demonstration of the national pastime in the American League opener for 15,388 fans, but the Twin partisans left happy with the victory. 

The players apparently read too much about the Astrodome in Houston because fly balls were dropping all over the playing field. It was a simple fly ball to left off the bat of Bob Allison which started the Twins’ winning 11th inning.

Rookie outfielder Arturo Lopez, a pinch-running replacement for Mickey Mantle, let the ball drop for a three-base error.

“I ran too hard, too fast,” Lopez said. “Then the wind caught the ball a little, and I couldn’t recover. The stadium was okay, and the sun was no trouble. It was just me.”

Moments later, with the bases loaded and two out, Tovar’s liner to center headed toward a driving Tom Tresh.

“When the ball left the bat, I figured I could get it,” Tresh said. “But it sailed a little, and it must have landed about a foot in front of me when I dived. I trapped it.”

Tresh came up brandishing the ball in the fashion of a man who had made a carnival catch.

“No harm in that, is there?” Tresh grinned. “You try to get everything you can. My gosh, I can’t remember when I last missed a ground ball, and I did it twice today.”

Johnny Keane, suffering through his debut as the Yankee manager, said he walked the bases full in the 11th after Allison reached third “because we didn’t know much about their first pinch hitter [Rich Reese], and after that we had to walk the next man [Sandy Valdespino].”Said former Twin Pedro Ramos: “I threw a fastball on that pitch Tovar hit in the 11th. The fastball grip felt good for me today. Otherwise, I would have thrown a breaking ball.”“It was a wild one,” Keane said sadly. “We don’t want many more of those.”

“I never saw a worse performance in all my years with the Yankees,” said catcher Elston Howard, shaking his head.

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