Jimmie Hall
Because Tony Oliva was a very poor
outfielder early in his professional career, the Twins kept him in the minor
leagues in 1963 and brought 25-year-old outfielder Jimmie Hall to
Minnesota.
Hall had ended an Army hitch, joined minor-league Vancouver and batted .313
in 68 at-bats at the end of the '62 season.
In mid-June of 1963, Lenny Green was forced to leave the lineup. Hall
stepped in, and Green never got his center field job back.
Hall was a lean 6-footer with remarkably broad shoulders who used his
whiplash swing to mash 33 home runs in '63 to break Ted Williams'
35-year-old record for rookies. The glory days were brief.
A pitch from Los Angeles' Bo Belinsky hit the left-handed hitting
Hall in the right cheek during a twilight start in 1964. Hall said he never saw
the ball until it was too late.
A beaning, an earflap
Hall returned to the lineup wearing a batting helmet with an ear flap, and
struggled against left-handed pitching. It is often stated he never recovered
from that beaning, and was gun-shy against lefties.
It was Hall's ability to hit to all fields that helped him earn a spot with
the Twins, but Hall had never hit lefties particularly well.
Hall attributed his struggles with left-handed pitching to growing up in a
rural area where he rarely faced a left-hander. The lefties in the big leagues
were different than in the minors: Hall became a noted pull-hitter against
big-league pitching, and never mastered going to the opposite field against
curveballs from lefties.
An indication that Hall indeed was not gun-shy came midway through '65. Hall
faced five lefties in a short stretch, including New York's Al Downing
twice, and Whitey Ford. Hall went 9-for-14.
The fact is, just as when he was a kid, Jimmie Hall never had that many
major-league at-bats against left-handed pitching, and after he left Minnesota
in '66 he was labeled a platoon player for the rest of his career.
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