{"id":515403,"date":"2026-01-11T16:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/515403\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T16:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:29:22","slug":"twins-flashback-1976-twinkie-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/515403\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins Flashback: 1976 | Twinkie Town"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If you turned the ballgame on TV in 1976 Twins Territory, you\u2019d get the dulcet tones of Joe Boyle &amp; recently-retired Harmon Killebrew. If you flipped on the radio: Herb Carneal\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.twinkietown.com\/2024\/11\/19\/24294329\/mlb-minnesota-twins-ephemera-paul-molitor-jack-morris-metrodome-target-field-tom-kelly-eccentricity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">as always<\/a>\u2014and Frank Quilici at the mics. Though no playoff berth was achieved\u2014and you certainly wouldn\u2019t guess it from the 715,394 home fans (an AL-low 8,832 per game) drawn to the Old Met\u2014 1976 turned out to be the best Twins campaign in a half-decade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twinkietown.com\/2016\/7\/13\/12172880\/american-league-batting-championship-renamed-the-rod-carew-award\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">prime Rod Carew<\/a> led MN batsmen in America\u2019s bicentennial: 12 3B, 90 RBI, 49 SB, .331 BA, 148 OPS+. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twinkietown.com\/2016\/10\/1\/13129158\/lyman-bostocks-tragic-visit-to-chicago\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lyman Bostock<\/a>\u2014pictured in header\u2014wasn\u2019t far behind: .323 BA, 130 OPS+. Even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twinkietown.com\/2025\/2\/27\/24373576\/mlb-baseball-mn-twins-top-ten-right-field-max-kepler-tony-oliva\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cDisco\u201d Dan Ford<\/a> (20 HR, 86 RBI, 17 SB, 125 OPS+) was a force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The starters of \u201876 were nothing to write home about, what with a good-but-by-no-means great <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twinkietown.com\/2024\/11\/21\/24302055\/mlb-baseball-minnesota-twins-top-ten-starting-pitchers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dave Goltz<\/a> campaign (14-14, 249.1 IP, 3.36 ERA) qualifying as \u201cstaff ace\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Fortunately, the bullpen picked up a lot of the slack towards respectability. Somehow, Bill Campbell went 17-5 without making a single start (appearing in a league-leading 78 games helped), while Tom Burgmeier (144 ERA+) and Tom Johnson (139+) were true firemen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.twinkietown.com\/2011\/1\/6\/1919709\/bert-blylevens-best-pitching-performances\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mr. Curveball<\/a> (Bert Blyleven) was also part of the mix\u2014until traded alongside Danny Thompson to the Texas Rangers for a haul of Bill Singer, Roy Smalley, Mike Cubbage, and Jim Gideon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">What did this all add up to for Gene Mauch\u2019s bunch? An 85-77 record, good for third place in the AL West. Despite being 16.5 GB at the end of August, a furious September surge saw the Twins sweep the crown-grabbing Kansas City Royals to close out the campaign 5 GB.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A few \u201876 highlights\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Though no great shakes as 162-game seasons go, 1976 was\u2014at very least\u2014a nice break from the thoroughly mediocre (or worse) early-70s brand of Twins baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you turned the ballgame on TV in 1976 Twins Territory, you\u2019d get the dulcet tones of Joe&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,822,60,3190,4,148,40788],"class_list":{"0":"post-515403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-twins","11":"tag-minnesotatwins","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-twins","14":"tag-twins-history-and-nostalgia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115877417318333368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}