Tombstone
Born: 1960
Re-Branded: 1961 (Wytheville Twins)
First Game: June 24, 1960 (L 10-4 vs. Bluefield Orioles)
Last Game: September 1, 1960 (W 4-0 @ Bluefield Orioles)
Appalachian League Champions: 1960
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Owner:
Major League Affiliation: Washington Senators
Attendance
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Source: The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (3rd ed.), Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, 2007
Editor's Pick
Appalachian League Baseball
Where Rookies Rise
By Allen LaMountain
Long-time Appy League beat writer Allen LaMountain wrote this exhaustive chronicle of the Rookie circuit in 2014, offering a history of each city in the circuit and profiles of dozens of the future Major League stars and Hall-of Famers who got their first taste of pro ball in places like Bluefield, Elizabethton, Johnson City and Kingsport.
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Background
The 1960 Wytheville Senators won the pennant in the Class D Appalachian League. Oddly, it was the first of three summers during the 1960’s where a Senators farm club would take up residence in the small Western Virginia town for just a single year.
Under the direction of 31-year old field manager Del “Red” Norwood, the Sens captured the Appy League crowd with a 43-27 record. There were no playoffs.
Two members of the 1960 Wytheville Senators, teenage pitchers Pete Cimino and Fred Lasher, eventually made it up to The Show and spent a few seasons in the Majors. Lasher was part of the Detroit Tigers’ 1968 championship team and pitched two scoreless innings in the ’68 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
21-year old shortstop Jim Hock was named the Appalachian League’s Player-of-the-Year for 1960, after hitting .329 in 66 games. Red Norwood took home Manager-of-the-Year honors. 18-year old southpaw Vernon Merrick (4-4, 2.59 ERA) was selected as the circuit’s top left-handed pitcher.1Associated Press. “Hock Named Top Rookie in Appalachian.” The Progress-Index (Petersburg, VA). August 28, 1960
Pitcher Tim Wells capped Wytheville’s pennant run by spinning a one-hit complete game shutout against the Bluefield Orioles on the season’s final day. The 19-year old Wells, who led the pitching staff in wins with 7, allowed just one single in a 4-0 Sens victory on September 1, 1960.
The Name Game
This first edition of the Wytheville Senators became the Wytheville Twins in 1961 when their parent club, the original Washington Senators of the American League, moved to Minneapolis to become the Twins that same year.
Meanwhile, the American League awarded the nation’s capital a new Senators franchise as an expansion team in 1961 to replace the original Sens. This 2nd edition of the Washington Senators (forerunners of today’s Texas Rangers franchise) returned to Wytheville and the Appy League for one-off seasons in 1965 and 1969.
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