When your bookends are Harmon Killebrew and Joe Mauer, you know you've got a high-quality collection of baseball players. The list of Hall of Famers who spent time with the Twins is now 13 players long. Can you name the dozen that came before Mauer? Either way, here's the rundown on the 12 others with Twins ties in Cooperstown:
Harmon Killebrew
Pos.: 3B/LF/1B
Ballot: 1984 (83.1%); fourth year
Cap (logo): TC (Twins)
When he retired in 1975, his 573 home runs were fifth-most in baseball history, yet Killebrew was named on only 59.6% of ballots in his first year of eligibility. Killebrew finally cleared the 75% mark for election three years later, becoming the Twins' first Hall of Famer.
Rod Carew
Pos.: 2B/1B
Ballot.: 1991 (90.5%), first year
Cap (logo): TC (Twins)
In his 12 seasons with the Twins, Carew won seven AL batting titles, along with 1967 Rookie of the Year award and 1977 Most Valuable Player award, and was chosen to the All-Star team in all 12 years. He finished his career with seven seasons in Anaheim, and was easily elected on the first ballot, heading a Hall of Fame class that included Gaylord Perry and Ferguson Jenkins.
Steve Carlton
Pos.: P
Ballot: 1994 (95.6%), first year
Cap (logo): P (Phillies)
Earned four Cy Young awards with the Phillies and won 329 games — but only one with the Twins, whom he joined in 1987 for the final two months of the season at the age of 42. It didn't go well: Carlton went 1-6 with an 8.54 ERA in 13 games in Minnesota, didn't pitch during the Twins' championship postseason, and retired after just 9 2/3 innings the following April. Still, he was left off only 20 ballots of 456 cast.
Kirby Puckett
Pos.: CF/RF
Ballot: 2001 (82.1%), first year
Cap (logo): M (Twins)
Glaucoma-caused blindness in his right eye cut Puckett's career short after only 12 seasons, but they were so spectacular — a batting title, six Gold Gloves and 10 consecutive All-Star appearances, not to mention leading the Twins to their only two World Series championships — that he was easily elected on the first ballot.
Dave Winfield
Pos.: OF
Ballot: 2001 (84.5%), first year
Cap (logo): SD (Padres)
The St. Paul native was 41 and had already played 19 stellar seasons when he joined the Twins in 1993, but he was still a productive hitter. Winfield batted .264 and hit 31 homers over two seasons in Minnesota, and collected his 3,000th hit, a single off future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, in the Metrodome. He joined Puckett, his former teammate, as a first-ballot selection in the class of 2001.
Paul Molitor
Pos.: DH/3B/2B
Ballot: 2004 (85.2%), first year
Cap (logo): mb (Brewers)
Like Winfield, the St. Paul native was a Twin when he reached 3,000 hits in 1996, making his election to the Hall of Fame a formality. It came in 2004, his first year of eligibility, the culmination of a 21-year career spent mostly in Milwaukee, where he received MVP votes nine different times.
Bert Blyleven
Pos.: P
Ballot: 2011 (79.7%), 14th year
Cap (logo): M (Twins)
When he retired, only Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton had struck out more hitters in baseball history, and only eight had pitched more shutouts. Yet Blyleven received only 17.5% of votes in his first year of Hall of Fame voting, and didn't surpass 50% until his ninth. He finally was elected in 2011, one year before he would have fallen off the ballot.
Jack Morris
Pos.: P
Class: 2018, veterans committee
Cap (logo): D (Tigers)
Another St. Paul native who returned to Minnesota, albeit for only one season, as his career wound down, Morris turned in the most famous pitching performance in Twins history, a 10-inning shutout of the Braves to win Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. But his 186 career losses and 3.90 career ERA were deemed unworthy by many Hall voters, and Morris never received more than 67.7% of BBWAA voting. He was finally elected, along with longtime teammate Alan Trammell, by the veterans committee in 2018.
Jim Thome
Pos.: 3B/1B/DH
Ballot: 2018 (89.8%), first year
Cap (logo): C (Indians)
Thome played only 179 games, just 7% of his 22-year total, with Minnesota, but the slugging DH became one of the most popular Twins ever. He hit his 600th career home run in a Twins uniform in 2011, one of only nine players ever to reach that milestone, and was easily elected to the Hall in his first election.
Jim Kaat
Pos.: P
Class: 2022, veterans committee
Cap (logo): TC (Twins)
No pitcher has ever won more games or pitched more innings for the Twins than the durable lefthander, and only Blyleven has struck out more. Yet even Kaat said he didn't consider himself a Hall of Famer, and the BBWAA electorate agreed, never even giving him 30% of the vote in 15 elections. But 39 years after his retirement, the veterans committee overruled and elected Kaat in 2022.
Tony Oliva
Pos.: RF/DH
Class: 2022, veterans committee
Cap (logo): TC (Twins)
His career included three AL batting titles, the 1964 Rookie of the Year award and two runner-up finishes in MVP voting, but was cut short by serious knee injuries that limited him to DH duty over his final four seasons. They also kept him from HOF election for 15 years, never reaching 50%. But as with Kaat, the veterans committee finally welcomed him to Cooperstown in 2022.
David Ortiz
Pos.: DH/1B
Ballot: 2022 (77.9%), first year
Cap (logo): B (Red Sox)
Despite an .809 OPS, the Twins gave up on Ortiz, one of the few Hall of Famers ever to be released, after six seasons, a historic mistake. Ortiz landed in Boston, where Big Papi became a beloved figure, helping to lead the Red Sox to three World Series titles. Voters overlooked suspected links to steroids, which scuttled several other notable candidacies, to elect Ortiz on the first ballot.