This is the twenty-second in a series of examinations of baseball-related legends and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball legends.

In honor of the opening of the 2010 baseball season, each legend installment this week (and next) will be a baseball one, spotlighting legends from one of the eight playoff teams last year. Today the featured team is the Minnesota Twins.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: Rod Carew converted to Judaism.

STATUS: False

In 1994, Adam Sandler came up with a popular song on Saturday Night Live called “The Chanukah Song,” in which Sandler would list (to music) a bunch of people in the world of show business who were Jewish

(sample lyrics include: You don’t need “Deck The Halls” or “Jingle Bell Rock”
‘Cause you can spin a dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock- both Jewish )

In any event, at one point in the song, he sings (remember, this 1994, so you’ll have to forgive the then-perfunctory reference to OJ Simpson):

“O.J. Simpson, not a Jew
But guess who is? Hall of famer Rod Carew- he converted.”

This did not originate the belief that Rod Carew was Jewish, but it certainly solidified it in the public consciousness.

It is not, however, the fact of the matter.

Carew, a Hall of Famer who first began playing for the Minnesota Twins in 1967 (when he won the American League Rookie of the Year) and stayed with the team until he was traded in 1978 (a year after winning the American League Most Valuable Player), is married to a woman of the Jewish faith.

And he and his wife, Marilyn, raised their children in the Jewish tradition, but he never himself became a member of the Jewish faith.

He certainly did a number of things to suggest as much to the public, though, like discussing the topic of possibly converting to Jet Magazine during the mid-70s, and he would also take off Jewish holidays in respect of his family.

So it’s not like it is an absurd leap of logic to think that he did, in fact, convert. But he did not. I don’t know if he is still an Episcopalian (the religion he grew up in and was still a member of the Episcopalian Church in the late 1970s), but he is not Jewish.

BASEBALL LEGEND: Tony Oliva once passed himself off as his own younger brother.

STATUS: True Enough for a True

When it comes to baseball prospects, it is almost stunning how important a single year can mean towards the development of a baseball player.

If a player is playing at a certain level at the age of 20, he is much worse of a prospect than a player with the exact same results but a year younger. Add in another year or two and the difference is staggering.

Prospects go from being one of the Top 50 Prospects in all of baseball to not even sniffing the Top 100 when teams learn that they fudged their age by a year or two.

An 18 year old who is struggling but has raw talent is a lot more enticing than a 21 year old in the same situation.

And that, in a roundabout way, is how Tony Oliva got the “nickname” Pedro Oliva, a name that stuck for so long that he eventually legally changed his name to Tony Pedro Oliva.

Born with the name “Antonio,” Oliva was an excellent baseball player in his native Cuba. He was eventually found by a scout for the Minnesota Twins, who brought Oliva to the United States to play for the Twins in Spring Training of 1960, when Oliva was 20 years old, turning 21 in July of that year.

21 is pretty old for a first-time baseball prospect, and although Oliva played very well in the few games he got to play (he was not brought up until the end of Spring Training), his age made him not exactly a sparkling prospect, and with their minor league rosters already set, the Twins parted company with Oliva.

With nowhere else really to go, Oliva traveled to Charlotte, where a friend of his had been assigned to the Twins’ Single A club. He trained with that team, whose manager, Phil Howser, was quite impressed with Oliva. One of Oliva’s friends told the staff at the camp (plus reporters) that Oliva was not actually ANTONIO, but really, his 18 year old brother PEDRO, who had just used Antonio’s identification to travel to the United States.

The story was picked up, and at the same time, Oliva was hyped enough by Howser that the Twins gave Oliva another chance, and signed him up and sent him to one of their low-level affiliates.

He played well, and when he played well in winter ball, he was assigned to Charlotte in 1962. He played well enough that he was called up to play in a few games at the end of the 1962 season. He was given a chance to make the team in 1963, but did not do so. In 1964, though, he finally broke through and not only made the roster but was named the American League Rookie of the Year for the 1964 season!

All throughout his career, the “fact” that he was really Pedro (and that he was two-three years younger than he actually was) followed him around, although people still officially called him “Tony.”

And what a career it was! Oliva would go on to become one of the best players in Minnesota Twins history…

Even with his late start on his career (he was 26 when he won Rookie of the Year), Oliva still likely would have made the Baseball Hall of Fame had it not been for injuries in the early 1970s that robbed him of his power (.507 slugging from 1964-1971, .390 the rest of his career).

Even now, he is at least a borderline candidate for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

And if he ever does get in, it will be as Tony Pedro Oliva, as Oliva eventually got tired of the name “Pedro” following him around for so long that he decided in the 1990s to just officially add Pedro to his name.

By the way, Pedro Oliva eventually DID come to America – in 2002 – to visit.

BASEBALL LEGEND: A Twins pitcher was once knocked out during a bar brawl…by his own manager!!

STATUS: True Enough

Dave Boswell was a strong, young pitcher coming into the 1969 season (Boswell’s Age 24 season). The big, brawny pitcher had already been to the playoffs in his second year with the Twins in 1965, and he seemed poised for big things in 1969.

His new manager for the 1969 was the fiery Billy Martin, who had actually technically been teammates with Boswell in 1965 (Martin’s last year in the big leagues).

Both Boswell and Martin were known to enjoy the night life, and it was one specific night, August 6th of 1969, that would forever link the two men together.

Boswell, who was in the midst of a great season (and the Twins were doing very well in the standings, as well, with a record of 68-42 at the time, following a defeat of the Detroit Tigers that night, putting the Twins three games ahead of second-place Oakland), was in a foul mood that night.

He was irritated that Twins pitching coach Art Fowler was giving him a hard time over not running enough sprints that day. So that night at the Lindell Athletic Club in Detroit, he began to give Fowler a piece of his mind.

Veteran outfielder, the big Bob Allison (Allison and Boswell were both 6 foot three, but Allison had a good deal of a muscle advantage on Boswell), took exception to Boswell’s complaints, and a brawl ensued in the parking lot of the bar.

Martin then waded into the action.

Here’s where things get a bit tricky.

Now, over forty years later, no one has really set it straight exactly what happened that night (them all being drunk probably does not help), but the biggest “dispute” over what happened was between the way Billy Martin tells the story and the way Dave Boswell tells it.

According to Martin, Boswell knocks Allison out and then charges Martin, who then laid Boswell out. According to Boswell, he was still fighting Allison when Martin came at him.

Martin was quite well known for his skills as a baseball fighter, and he has previously broken a player’s jaw during a brawl. So just because Martin was a skinny guy who was shorter than most of the players (and was, at the age of 41, a good deal older than the rest of them), it does not mean that he could not knock Boswell out. I tend to believe that he could.

However, I also tend to doubt that the smaller Martin was able to knock out Boswell as Boswell was coming at him, all 6 foot three inches and 200 pounds worth of him.

Most likely, Martin hit Boswell while Boswell was still occupied with Allison, and once he had Boswell down, he continued to punch him.

Whatever happened exactly, it DOES appear pretty clear that Martin DID, indeed, knock Boswell out, and while Boswell was out, Martin got a few other shots in.

Boswell needed over 20 stitches, while Martin need some stitches for his punching arm (and hand).

Boswell was due to pitch very soon at the point, but due to his recovery from the injuries he suffered during the brawl (and a semi-suspension by the Twins, in a sort of “maybe you shouldn’t be around the team for a few days” kind of way), Boswell did not pitch again until the 18th of August, with the divisional lead now down to 1 and a half games.

Here is Boswell during this recovery – note his TWO black eyes.

Boswell pulled through, though, and was dominant for the rest of the season, helping the Twins make it all the way to the American League Championship Series, where the Baltimore Orioles defeated them. Still, despite the defeat, it was a successful season for the Twins.

However, all was not well in Twin-land – even though Martin had taken them to the playoffs in his first season, he was dismissed at the end of the season. With the fight between he and his own player, it was likely the owners wanted to distance themselves from the out of control Martin. This started his career of being hired, helping to turn around a team, then fired because he was hard to get along with (that’s basically Scott Skiles’ career path, as well), as he next went to Detroit in 1971 where the cycle began all over again.

Interestingly enough, Martin and Boswell remained good friends for years to come – whatever might have happened that night, it appears that Martin approached it from a perspective of knowing just where Boswell was coming from, and I think Boswell respected that – they were both guys who had problems with their tempers and with excess, in general, and I think that might very well have bonded the two men, as, like I said, they were good friends well into the 1980s (before Martin’s excesses led to his death in a drunk driving accident in 1989).

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Tags: "The Chanukah Song", Adam Sandler, American League Championship Series, Art Fowler, Baltimore Orioles, Baseball Hall of Fame, Billy Martin, Bob Allison, Dave Boswell, Minnesota Twins, MVP Award, Phil Howser, Rod Carew, Rookie of the Year Award, Saturday Night Live, Tony Oliva