Why They Named The AL Batting Title After Rod Carew, Athletics at Twins, April 21, 1969

Classic Baseball Radio

The 1969 season is underway, and the Minnesota Twins' Rod Carew is already raking up the hits. After seven games, he's posting .388. That form will continue through the rest of the year, his eventual .322 winning him the AL Batting Trophy for the first of seven times—enough for the title to carry his name from 2016. If you want another 1969 stat, Carew steals home seven times (just one short of Ty Cobb's record of eight).

Carew's career record notably contains 15 consecutive seasons batting over .300, starting in 1969; seven 5-hit games; and an overall .328, and elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991. As for legendary status, how about becoming only the 16th player in baseball history to reach 3000 hits?

For today's game, we're early in the season, though, and the 6-6 California Angels are visiting the 7-4 Twins at Metropolitan Stadium.

Monte Moore & Al Helfer take you through the game.

You can find the boxscore here:https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN196904210.shtml.

This game was played on April 21, 1969.