Photograph © Steven L.J. Russo
At the plate, Gregory Goularte hit 10 Hrs and batted .279 while Daniel Blood hit 11 2Bs and batted .311. This combined with a very strong pitching staff had previously meant Championship seasons for Auburn and this would be no exception. Finishing with a 43-26 (.623) record, Auburn was back in 1st place for the 6th time in 8 seasons and this time, their pitching was strong enough to again reign as Champions… their 5th title in 8 years and 6th overall. The final Twins season at Falcon Park was highlighted by an exceptional year by two stunning players. First was the electricity generated by future Twins’ Mike Poepping who slammed 18 HRs easily taking the title away from Buddy Whitley (13) while batting .272. That seemed to pale in comparison to Jack Maloof however who would get 256 qualifying At-Bats giving him the batting title as he hit a whopping .402 … that’s not a typo. Sadly Maloof would never make the Major Leagues spending his final three professional seasons in Triple-A ball. As for the pitching, David Allen was great going 7-4 with a 1.97 ERA. Brad Cutler was 8-2, 2.47, Richard Mahlmann was 7-3, 3.13 and Coley Smith was 7-5, 3.34. All of this was good enough for 2nd place with a 42-28 (.600) record which normally would easily capture a post season run but unfortunately for the Auburn Twins, they were denied a playoff berth. It was an anti-climactic ending to a great 5 year run for the Auburn Twins who brought 2 Championships to add on to the Mets 3 giving them 5 titles in 10 years and 6 1st place finishes. The Twins vacancy would be filled by the Philadelphia Phillies as Auburn traditionally took on the name of the parent club and was renamed the Auburn Phillies.