1987 Minnesota Twins season
| 1987 Minnesota Twins | |
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World Series Champions American League Champions AL West Champions |
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| Owner(s) | Carl Pohlad |
| General manager(s) | Andy MacPhail |
| Manager(s) | Tom Kelly |
| Local television |
KMSP-TV (John Rooney, Harmon Killebrew) Twinsvision (Dick Bremer, Frank Quilici) |
| Local radio |
830 WCCO AM (Herb Carneal, John Gordon) |
| < Previous season Next season > | |
The 1987 Minnesota Twins won the World Series for the first time since moving from Washington in 1961, marking the second time that the franchise had won the World Series. (The Washington Senators had won it in 1924.) Manager Tom Kelly managed the rare feat of winning the World Series in his first full season as manager.
The Twins were 85-77, first in the American League West. The team had one of the lowest winning percentages ever for a World Series champion, at .525. They also had the remarkably bad road record of 29-52 (.358 percentage) but made up for it winning 56 home games (best in MLB). Fortunately for the Twins, they played in a very weak division; only two teams finished above .500 and only 10 games separated the Twins from the last-place California Angels and Texas Rangers.
1987 was the first year the Twins started using their modernized logos and uniforms, which are still in use today.
Only one Twin made the All-Star Game, outfielder Kirby Puckett. The highest paid player was Kent Hrbek at $1,310,000; followed by Bert Blyleven at $1,150,000.
Over a late August weekend at Milwaukee, Puckett went 10 for 11, with four homers and two doubles, raising his batting average 13 points. The feat tied a major league record.
Joe Niekro, a pitcher for the Twins, was suspended for 10 games when umpire Tim Tschida discovered an emery board in his pocket. Tschida suspected Niekro was scuffing the ball, and saw the emery board fly out of Niekro's pocket. Niekro said he was filing his nails in the dugout, but American League president Dr. Bobby Brown didn't believe him, and ordered the suspension. When the Twins won the pennant, Niekro set a major league record as he'd waited 20½ years since his debut to reach a World Series game.
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Wikipedia