With American League attendance down and AL run production markedly lower than the National League’s, major league owners approved the designated hitter rule for the junior circuit on January 11, 1973.
Yes, the designated hitter has been around for 43 years. Its passage, which wasn’t a sure thing, was something Twins owner Calvin Griffith was unlikely to support. Adding another regular to the lineup could mean another substantial salary, but Griffith was on board. The rule was tailor-made for his team.
The two big bats in the middle of the Minnesota batting order, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva, were on the downside of their careers and struggling with bad knees. Both had endured offseason surgical procedures. Killebrew had gone under the knife for varicose veins and a toe injury the previous winter, and aggravating an old football injury to his left knee would limit him to just 69 games in ’73.
Oliva was coming off two knee surgeries, the second of which harvested roughly 100 pieces of floating cartilage. He would never play a defensive position again, but made his mark as the club’s first designated hitter. After missing all but 10 games in 1972, Oliva stroked a first-inning, two-run homer off Oakland ace Catfish Hunter on Opening Day 1973—good for the first home run ever by a designated hitter.
Neither Twins star relished the idea of only hitting, but the rule was the only way to keep both Killebrew and Oliva in the lineup. By 1974, with both veterans playing on only one healthy leg, they were sharing DH duties. The rule kept both players in the majors, though in time it created a difficult situation.
The Twins needed only one DH, but even before Griffith addressed that issue after the 1974 season, Oliva admits he was uncomfortable when Twins manager Frank Quilici once asked him to pinch-hit for Killebrew, his longtime friend. “I told Harmon, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to pinch-hit for you,’” Oliva recalls. “But when a manager said something in those days, you did it.”
In 1975, Killebrew, unable to play in the field, moved on to Kansas City for one final season after Griffith had offered him a choice of a coaching position, a minor-league managerial assignment or his outright release. Twins fans were unhappy to see Killebrew go, but he wasn’t ready to call it a career.
Neither was Oliva when big league owners approved the DH rule in 1973, and both he and Killebrew were able to stay in the game a few more years because of it.