Monster Card Monday: 1966 Harmon Killebrew


Okay, I can’t resist featuring the Killer this week. Harmon Killebrew will be one of my main stars as my 1966 Twins attend the Chicagoland APBA Baseball Tournament on July 20th.


Season Totals
Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG
1966 Totals16267756989160271391090210398.281.391.538
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/29/2019.

As I looked through the stats of the 1966 Twins, I was a little surprised by a couple of numbers. I always knew Harmon Killebrew was a slugger but here are a couple things that struck me…

Killebrew hit for average (at least in 1966) – Only two players in the American League hit .300 in 1966. One was fellow teammate Tony Oliva (.307) and the other was Frank Robinson who clocked in at .316 (check out the Monster Card column I did for Frank six years ago). Yet, Killebrew checks in at fifth in the league with his .281 mark.

He struck out but not a whole bunch – Killebrew’s slugger persona did him an injustice. I looked for him on the top ten list of most strikeouts. Nope, he wasn’t there. He didn’t even strike out 100 times. In 162 games, Killer struck out 98 times.

Killer walked a LOT – With 103, 1966 was the first of four seasons that Killebrew led the league in base on balls. That contributed to reaching base 265 times (second only to Robinson).

He actually attempted two steals in 1966 (both unsuccessfully). That was not a surprise to me. Killebrew was not exactly fleet of foot. In his 22-year career, he stole 19 bases. Interestingly, eight of those were in 1969 in ten tries.

Looking forward to rollin’ some 66s and 11s on the Killer in a few weeks!!

Thomas Nelshoppen

I am an IT consultant by day and an APBA media mogul by night. My passions are baseball (specifically Illini baseball), photography and of course, APBA. I have been fortunate to be part of the basic game Illowa APBA League since 1980 as well as a frequent participant of the Chicagoland APBA Tournament. I am slogging through a 1966 NL replay and hope to finish before I die.

3 Comments:

  1. Hi Tom,

    I am guessing the two caught steals are from failed hit and runs. While I like the card very much, I guess I don’t like a second column with only one home run chance.

    I know from experience that this will probably work out to about the same as the numbers he produced; give or take a small amount to good or bad luck with your dice rolls. I am guessing that a 1-6-6-1 single column card would not have produced some major stat properly.

  2. Gerard Pastorius

    Im not a fan of the double columns for legit power hitters and esp do not like the 11-1-2 set up. Im sure its statistically more accurate for replays but, at the very least, why not give him 11-1-1 and move that 2 to another #? To my old school eyes it just looks weird.

    Im more than happy to stick with my 1-1-4-5 card from the OFAS set. Its set for .288 & 46 taters and no 2nd column to worry about lol. (ps…love these articles…thx)

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