The Lowry club was optimistic entering the 1960 season. They had finished 1959 on a hot streak, winning 8 of 10 down the stretch. Glenwood, having finished in the cellar in '59 opted out of the '60 season, replaced by Holloway.
The PDT had some great pitchers - with longevity. Pete Bright of Cyrus (or Morris or Kensington when Cyrus did not field a team), Larry Krienke of Kensington, Dean Olson of Glenwood, Dick Starner of Hoffman, Lloyd Heil of Hancock, Jerry Hayenga and John Bosek of Lowry all were outstanding and pitched for a decade or more.
But the PDT also produced two young pitchers with comparatively short careers that were exceptional and one which was meteoric.
Lowry's 21 year old right hander, Paul Quitney, possessed a sneaky fastball, a wicked overhand 12-6 curve that Bert Blyleven would later copy to good effect and a third nameless pitch that looked like a fastball but at the last second slid to the end of a right-hander's bat or onto the handle of a left-hander, resulting in a swing and a miss or a weak ground ball, a pitch so devastating it would make Mariano Rivera a one pitch Hall of Famer. Quitney's masterpiece came in game 2 of the 1960 PDT season. At home against Holloway, Quitney pitched a no hit, 20 strikeout game for an 11-1 victory, winning Paul "State Star of the Week" honors. Behind Quitney, the Leghorns rolled, winning 8 in a row. But Paul came down with a sore arm after week 8. Pitch counts? Limits were an unheard of thing in 1960, and in game 9, without Quitney, Hancock dropped Lowry 13-12. Quitney came back to win games 10 & 11, giving him a 10-0 record for the regular season.
The second shooting star was Holloway's teen-aged fireballing left-hander, one Jerry Koosman. Koosman's fastball was in the 90's and his curve resembled Koufax's. But his control tended to be an issue, with a typical line being 15 K, 12 BB, 2 HBP. PDT fans were pleased when Koosman joined the army after high school and starred in Fort Bliss rather than Minnesota.
In later years, Koosman overcame the control problems and in 1969 won 2 games in the NY "Miracle Mets" World Series win over Baltimore, teaming with Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver to form one of the best pitching staffs in MLB history. Yup - same Jerry Koosman. He also won a game in the Mets World Series loss to Oakland in 1973, giving him a 3-0 World Series record. In 1979, the 36 year old Koosman was traded over to the Twins and won 20 games for them. (The Twins have had only 13 20 game winners in their history and I suspect that number will stand for the duration.) And as lefthanders are wont to do, Koosman pitched 19 seasons for the Mets, Twins, White Sox and Phillies with a lifetime ERA of 3.36, retiring at age 42.
The 1960 Lowry team advanced to the Region 9 State Amateur Tournament but was matched up against a powerful Willmar Kernel team, which defeated Quitney in game 1 for his first loss of the season, ending with a record of 13-1. Willmar came back in game 2 to beat Koosman, drafted from Holloway, to eliminate the Leghorns.
What a year!
Previous posts in this series
Episode 1: The Ballpark
Episode 2: '55 ChampsEpisode 3: '56-'57 Seasons
Episode 4: Pomme de Terre...
Note: This series of posts is supported by Ray Hayenga's scrapbook which came to me from his son Bruce by way of Dave Chan. Ray collected every Park Region Echo clipping on the Lowry ball team from 1954 to 1962. I have digitized this scrapbook. If you want a look, here's a link:Ray Hayenga's Scrapbook. Caveat: It's a large .pdf file. Your browser may not be able to preview it but you should be able download it.
Note: This series of posts is supported by Ray Hayenga's scrapbook which came to me from his son Bruce by way of Dave Chan. Ray collected every Park Region Echo clipping on the Lowry ball team from 1954 to 1962. I have digitized this scrapbook. If you want a look, here's a link:Ray Hayenga's Scrapbook. Caveat: It's a large .pdf file. Your browser may not be able to preview it but you should be able download it.Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin
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