It was frequently mentioned the other night that the last time a Twins player hit for the cycle before Gogomez on Wednesday in Chicago came when Kirby Puckett did it on August 1, 1986. I was covering the Twins back then and, in a conversation with Ms. Basdeball, I told her that I couldn’t remember the game — so maybe someone else was covering it that night.

This afternoon, I had a few minutes to do some research at startribune.com world headquarters and, lo and behold, I did cover the game.

Before accusing me of creeping memory loss, however, I quickly saw why Kirby’s performance didn’t stand out. Another milestone was reached that night and, while I prefer to do this infrequently, I think the best thing to do here is to quote myownself:

The crowd caught on early, clapping in expectation when Bert Blyleven

had two strikes on an Oakland batter, which was often. After striking

out Mike Davis on a curve in the fifth, the 3,000th strikeout of

Blyleven’s career, the fans took to chanting, “Bert! Bert! Bert!” as

the strikeouts piled up.

In the eighth and ninth innings, most of the 14,855 were standing

and clapping, chanting and cheering when another A’s victim was about

to swing at or watch a third strike. “One more Bert! One more Bert!”

more than a few of them called out.

 When Tony Phillips struck out on a fastball to end the eighth,

Blyleven tied the personal best he’d set with the Twins in 1974 and

equaled with Texas in 1977. When Jose Canseco struck out for the second

out in the ninth, Blyleven tied a team record set by three others in

the franchise’s 25 1/2-year history.

Fifteen strikeouts and a two-hitter belonged to Blyleven on Friday

night as he became only the 10th pitcher in major league history to

reach 3,000 strikeouts.

That’s why I didn’t remember that Puckett tripled in the first inning of that game, doubled in the fifth, singled in the sixth and hit a home run over the left field wall with Steve Lombardozzi on first base in the eighth.

Also, instead of the 22-year wait between the Puckett and Gogomez cycle, a Twins player (Gary Ward) had last cycled in 1980 — less than six seasons earlier.

So that explains why it didn’t quite stand out.

Here’s the full game story from that night.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.