MLB.com is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by highlighting stories that pay tribute to some of the most significant and talented players from Latin America in the game's history.

---

When the Twins celebrated Tony Oliva's long-awaited election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Target Field on Dec. 6, 2021, club president Dave St. Peter referred to the beloved Minnesota icon as "arguably the greatest ambassador our franchise has ever had" -- and it would be difficult to find anyone in the Upper Midwest who would disagree with that sentiment.

That's because Oliva's career -- now a Hall of Fame career -- encompasses more than just his record-setting splash in the Majors as a player during his 15 years on the diamond; his story would be incomplete without talking about his stints as a Twins coach and his lasting impact on the organization through his constant focus on the community as a lifelong Twin.

With all that in mind, let's take a look through the 10 most memorable moments of Oliva's career across his six decades with the Twins.

1. Bursting in with a batting title
1964

While dealing with a tough adjustment to life in the United States as a Black Cuban with sparing English amid growing tensions between the American and Cuban governments, Oliva also faced a piecemeal adjustment to the big leagues with small cameos in the Majors in '62 and '63 before he became a fixture of the big league lineup for good in '64, hitting second on Opening Day ahead of Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall and Harmon Killebrew.

Oliva collected two hits and scored a run that day -- and thus began one of the most remarkable rookie seasons in big league history. The 25-year-old collected multiple hits in each of his first five games, picked up a trio of four-hit games in early May and was hitting .392 as late as June 2 en route to a .323/.359/.557 finish that made him the first player in modern baseball history to win a batting title as a rookie. (Only Ichiro Suzuki has since joined him.) Oliva also led the league in runs, hits and doubles that year, making him an easy shoo-in as the AL Rookie of the Year.

2. Twice as nice
1965

Forget any talk of a sophomore slump; instead of taking a step back, Oliva spent his second full season in the league asserting himself as one of the most feared hitters in the Junior Circuit. Though he got off to a slower start in the early months, Oliva heated up by hitting .374 from July through the end of the season as the Twins held fast atop the AL standings. His three-hit performance on Sept. 21 against Baltimore surged him ahead of Carl Yastrzemski for good in what became a tight AL batting race, and an eventual nine-point win (.321 to .312) made Oliva the only player in AL/NL history to win batting titles in his first two seasons.

3. Twins win the pennant
Sept. 26, 1965

In just their fifth season calling Minnesota home, the Twins, under manager Sam Mele, maintained a steady lead in the AL standings from July 4 on, with a solid pitching staff supported by a pair of future Hall of Famers in Oliva and Harmon Killebrew, along with the eventual AL MVP Award winner in shortstop Zoilo Versalles. They carried a magic number of one into a Sept. 26 matchup against the Washington Senators, and though Oliva only mustered an infield single in the first inning off left-hander Pete Richert, Jim Kaat tossed a one-run complete game effort for Minnesota as Oliva and his teammates officially claimed the first of three AL championships in club history.

4. Homer off Drysdale in '65 WS
Oct. 10, 1965

Oliva was largely held in check in the Fall Classic by a Dodgers pitching staff led by the one-two punch of future Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, going 5-for-26 with two extra-base hits in Minnesota's eventual seven-game defeat. Still, one of those knocks carried over the wall in Dodger Stadium for the only World Series homer of Oliva's 15-year career. The sixth-inning solo blast to right-center field off Drysdale in Game 4 cut the Dodgers' lead to 3-2, but Los Angeles punched back with three more in the bottom of the frame and eventually cruised to a 7-2 win, evening the series at two games apiece.

5. The World Series championships
1987, 1991

Tony O would never again play in a World Series himself, but two decades later, he still found himself in the middle of two of the most meaningful moments in Minnesota sports history as a member of the coaching staff for both of the Twins' World Series championships in 1987 and '91. He was the hitting coach of the '87 squad that triumphed in seven over the Cardinals, helping to establish the career and legacy of another Hall of Famer, Kirby Puckett, while he served as bench coach of the '91 team that persevered in seven over the Braves, mere months after the Twins officially retired Oliva's uniform number 6.

Oliva is the only person to have been in the dugout for all three of Minnesota's American League pennants in 1965, '87 and '91.

6. The Gold Glove Award
1966

When Jim Kaat talked about his longtime Twins teammate, he noted that Oliva might very well be as proud of his lone Gold Glove Award as he is of his three batting titles, sharing his memories of how Oliva would sometimes miss fly balls altogether in the instructional league in Florida in the '60s. Oliva was blessed with a strong arm in right field but struggled otherwise with fielding when he arrived from Cuba, but by modeling his game after Hall of Famer Al Kaline and working tirelessly with his coaches, Oliva earned his lone Gold Glove Award in '66 alongside a sixth-place finish in MVP voting.

"No one worked harder than me," Oliva said. "I was the worst fielder you could ever see. I used to sit down on the ground -- the ball goes through my legs in my first years. I didn't play outfield that much in Cuba. But four years later, I won the Gold Glove."

7. Oliva makes DH history
April 6, 1973

Perhaps nobody benefited more immediately from the introduction of the designated hitter to the AL in 1973 than Oliva, who lost nearly the entire '72 season to persistent knee issues that sapped him of much of his power at the plate and made it prohibitive for him to play the outfield in the final four seasons of his career. It's only fitting, then, that Oliva holds a fun place in history as the first player to homer as a DH with a first-inning blast off Oakland's Catfish Hunter on Opening Day, a two-run shot at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum that plated close friend and roommate Rod Carew.

8. Eight in a row
June 29, 1969

The most memorable two-game span by a Twins batter belongs to Puckett, who notably collected 10 hits and 24 total bases in Milwaukee from Aug. 29-30, 1987, but Oliva's doubleheader performance against the Royals on June 29, 1969, has to be up there, too. Not only did he record a five-hit game that day, one of only four in his career, but that performance in the nightcap came on the heels of a three-hit performance in Game 1 that gave Oliva hits in eight consecutive plate appearances, three shy of the record in MLB's expansion era (since 1961).

Following three singles in the first game, Oliva knocked a bunt single, a three-run homer, a double, a two-run blast and another single in Game 2 before manager Billy Martin lifted him for pinch-runner Charlie Manuel in the eighth inning.

9. The five-homer inning
June 9, 1966

Considering the power in the Twins lineups of the early to mid-'60s, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Oliva and his teammates were in the middle of a home run record, long before the 2019 "Bomba Squad" broke other home run records in Minneapolis. On a seasonable June day at Metropolitan Stadium, the Twins put on a seventh-inning power show with long balls from five players in the span of six plate appearances, as Rich Rollins and Zoilo Versalles went back-to-back before Oliva, Don Mincher and Killebrew clubbed back-to-back-to-back blasts one out later for the first five-homer frame in AL history. The only other such occasion from an AL club came in 2020, when the Yankees clubbed five homers in a fourth inning against the Blue Jays.

10. The statue is unveiled
April 8, 2011

When Target Field opened to fans in 2010, one of the fan entryways was named "Gate 6" in Oliva's honor. One year later, they took an additional step to honor the legend for his lifetime of service to the Twins by dedicating a life-sized statue of Oliva outside of that gate -- one of seven such pieces by local artist Bill Mack commemorating the most significant figures in club history.

"I think I¡¯ve been in the Hall of Fame all my life," Oliva said. "It¡¯s the truth. Playing here in Minnesota, having the best family in the world. I have a good family. I think about the way I feel about the people in Minnesota, the fans in Minnesota, and how the Minnesota Twins built me a statue in front of the stadium. I come from Cuba, a little town in Cuba."