THIS DAY IN BÉISBOL November 22: Rod Carew named 1967 Rookie of the Year

The Minnesota Twins were coming off a disappointing second-place finish in 1966, a year after winning the American League pennant, when the team turned to another young player with Latin American roots to juice up the lineup.

Rod Carew, born in Panama and raised in upper Manhattan since he was a teen, won Rookie of the Year honors on this day in béisbol, November 22, 1967.

The second baseman had a .292 average after joining such young Twins stars as hit machine Tony Oliva and 1965 AL MVP Zoilo Versalles, both from Cuba, plus speedy Venezuelan outfielder Cesar Tovar.

Carew was inducted in the Half Fame in 1990 with seven batting titles — six of them in a seven-year span from 1972 to 1978 — and 3,053 hits. He was the 1977 AL MVP when he hit an MLB-best .388 with 239 hits.

Also on this day: Astros outfielder Richard Hidalgo of the Houston Astros was shot during a carjacking in his native Venezuela in 2002. The bullet, which lodged in his left forearm, didn’t stop Hidalgo from having one of his best seasons in 2003 when he hit 28 homers with 88 RBI and a .309 average.

RickDikeman, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; LatinoBaseball.com illustration