Double Whitewash

About the only thing I remember about the Minneapolis Millers is Orlando Cepeda at first base, Minneapolis shunning the Giants when they chose to move to San Francisco, and a young guy named Carl Yastrezmski patrolling left field in 1959-60. But when Calvin Griffith moved the Senators to Minnesota in 1961, it opened a whole new world for me. Of course I was in school for most of the early season day games, but in May of 1961, my Mom got tickets for us to see my first major league game in person, a Sunday double header against the Cleveland Indians. We had just settled into our seats when Jim Landis led off with a shot off Pedro Ramos. A solid single to center that went right past Lenny Green and all the way to the wall. By the time the Twins ran it down, Landis had circled the bases, 1-0. There were a lot more hits that inning. In fact, I can't remember if Pedro even retired a Cleveland hitter. I do remember Cookie Lavagetto removing Ramos from the game in the first inning with the score about 7-0. The thing I remember most clearly is when Pedro walked toward the dugout, he was so disgusted he drop kicked his glove. I'm sure he meant to kick it into the dugout, but instead made a perfect field goal into the box seats at Met Stadium. The Twins went on to lose, 9-0 in the first game, but no problem, another nine innings would be starting soon. I don't remember too much about the second game. Only that our pitcher once again got in trouble in the early innings. Manager Lavagetto went to replace him in the first or second inning and brought in...... None other than Pedro Ramos!! And the amazing thing was that Pedro threw 7 or 8 scoreless innings against the same Cleveland team that shelled him in game one. But the damage had been done, and the Twins dropped the second game, I think by a score of 2-0. Not much to talk about in the Twins favor that Sunday, but it was my first major league game and I'll never forget it. Maybe if I had a Homer Hanky back then, things would have been different.