Soderholm played in 21 games for the Twins during the 1971 campaign, hitting only .156 as a 22-year-old, with 10 hits over 64 at-bats, with a home run and four runs batted in.
Though he played in 93 games the next year, his batting average didn’t quite make much headway as he hit at a .188 clip, though he did pop 13 homers with 39 at-bats over 287 at-bats.
He performed decent enough for Minnesota over the next few seasons before missing the entire year of 1976 because of a knee injury, which led to the Chicago White Sox taking a flyer on him and signing him as a Free Agent for 1977, and he paid off big time, having what turned out to be the best year of his career with 25 home runs, 67 RBIs and a .280 batting average for the “South Side Hitmen”.
That performance got him the American League “Comeback Player of the Year” Award, which he followed up in 1978 with another solid year, hitting 20 homers with 67 RBIs.
Sadly for him however, injuries, particularly to his knees, took it’s toll, and by 1980 he was out of baseball for good at the age of 31 after 95 games with the New York Yankees.
All told, in nine seasons, he finished with a career .264 batting average, with 102 homers and 383 runs batted in, with 764 hits over 2894 at-bats in 894 games.
