Kent Hrbek’s Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout
Posted by CarterHayes on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 6:00 am
[contributed by: CarterHayes]
Kent Hrbek's Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout
by Kent Hrbek with Dennis Brackin
Copyright © 2007 by Sports Publishing
Hardcover, 192 pages, several b/w photos
ISBN: 1596702524 / 9781596702523
About the Authors: "Kent Hrbek played 14 seasons for his hometown Minnesota Twins, helping the franchise to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. A .282 career hitter with 293 homers, he's one of five Twins to have his number retired. Since retiring, Hrbek has been active in charity work for Lou Gehrig's disease, hosts the Kent Hrbek Outdoors TV show and is a special assistant with the Twins. Dennis Brackin has worked at the Minneapolis Star Tribune since 1981, winning several national APSE (Associated Press Sports Editors) awards for reporting. He covered the Twins throughout Hrbek's career, and the two are native Minnesotans who share the same birthdate (May 21) and fondness for practical jokes. Brackin is currently an assistant sports editor at the paper who oversees Major League Baseball coverage." (from the dust jacket)
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Kent Hrbek needs no introduction to Twins fans. His book isn't a full autobiography but rather brief memoir stretching from Hrbek's youth, his abbreviated stint in the minors, and then on through his 14 years at first base for the Twins. Hrbek touches on the two topics one would expect - his relationship with Gary Gaetti and the Ron Gant incident - but the book is filled with entertaining and enlightening anecdotes, including a recollection of the antics of former Twins pitching coach Johnny Podres and a discussion of the infamous Tommy Herr trade. The book isn't the completely sugar-coated puff piece that many athletes' memoirs turn out to be. Hrbek comes across as a man loyal to an organization he still loves, but he does make enough critical comments in the book to save him from looking like a PR mouthpiece. The now-mandatory discussion of the PED issue is notable only for an interesting admission on Hrbek's part but pretty much conforms to MLBPA party line. The real value of the book comes from Hrbek's openness regarding his relationship with teammates.
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A few quotes:
On Chuck Knoblauch and New York:
Knobbie had a confident cockiness about him, but he backed it up. He was a rookie, and he knew his role, meaning he knew when he had to move runners up and do all the little things that Kelly demanded. To me, he kind of lost that attitude of being a role guy when he went to the Yankees later in his career. Maybe that's what playing in New York does to a guy. I wouldn't know. Thankfully.
On the city of Atlanta:
I'll be honest with you: I still try to avoid connecting flights through the Atlanta airport because of what happened in Game 2. Harmon Killebrew's son lives in Atlanta, and he says they still hate me down there. They've probably got my picture on a wall next to General Sherman, who burned his way through the city after the Civil War. I can tell you they don't forget the people they think did them wrong.
On Tony Oliva (Hrbek's childhood idol) as a hitting coach:
I think it's fair to say that Crow [Terry Crowley] was the best hitting coach we had. I hate saying that, because the guy he succeeded was Tony Oliva. I think that it was difficult for Tony to teach guys how to hit, because he was such a natural. One time in Seattle, John Moses asked Tony how to hit the pitcher we were facing. Tony looked out at the pitcher, then turned to John and said, "I don't know. I've never faced him before." And he was serious. Put a bat in Tony's hand and even then he'd have walked up to the plate and hit the guy. But he had a hard time explaining why or how to players.
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This book was a very quick, yet pleasant read. I polished it off in under 24 hours, reading a couple chapters at a time as a break from studying for my Comparative Politics final. I heard a few stories I'd missed out on by virtue of my young age during the early part of Hrbek's career (particularly the stories involving Ron Davis, Billy Gardner, and Johnny Podres) and confirmed a few suspicions I'd developed later in life (about the relationship between Puckett and Hrbek). I'm not sure how new some of the material might be for Twins fans a generation older, but nevertheless it should be an enjoyable read for just about any fan, regardless of age.
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I'm curious to hear the Nation's reaction to one of Hrbek's threads throughout the book: his lack of individual awards. Herbie goes to great lengths to make clear that winning the World Series (twice) was the greatest achievement of his playing career, but even though he says he's happy, his status as a "second-place kind of guy when it comes to awards" bugs him a bit. He claims the Gold Glove snubs and the second place finish in the 1982 RoY and 1984 MVP voting don't hurt him, but he brings up the topic enough that I'm left with an impression otherwise. I agree that he was robbed of a few Gold Gloves by Don Mattingly, and I'll side with Hrbek's statement that his rookie season was statistically better than Cal Jr.'s, mostly because of the difference in OBP and OPS+: .363 and 128 for Hrbek to .317 (ouch) and 115 for Ripken. The 1984 MVP seems a tougher call for me. What does the Nation think?
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See how easy this is, people? Even CarterHayes can do it!
Seriously, I don't have that many books at home here, and we don't want magazine covers to take over -- send your book write-up to SBGLibrary(at)hotmail(dot)com, and I can format it up for you and drop it in the schedule.
btw CH - great job!
Hrbek did get robbed of the ROY award and probably 5 or 6 gold gloves. Mark freakin' McGuire??? Are you kidding me!! He also got passed up on a few all star games too. I think it does bug him a bit, but being a Minnesota boy, he probably places more value in what Minnesota fans think about him. Most of us recognize his greatness, and honor him accordingly.
I was originally really bothered by Hrbek not getting the ROY, but if you're going to come in 2nd, do it to someone like Cal, for sure.
He'll just have to live with his two World Series rings.
It's hard for me to think about Hrbek's career without playing "What if"? As in, what if he'd taken better care of himself and, I don't know, maybe hired a personal trainer and a nutritionist. Hell, what if he'd just pushed away from the dinner table (or the bar, for that matter) and went for a nice walk instead. During his last 8 seasons (87-94) he averaged 124 GP, due to a series of nagging injuries that plagued the prime of his career. Only once did he appear in more than 150 ('85). He retired at 34.
What if?
What if he never enjoyed playing with that kind of attention to his physique? What if he was tired playing ball at 34? What if he was like the ballplayers nowdays, who have their own personal trainers and still sit out a good portion of the season?
You'll get headaches playing this game.
I don't have the book in front of me, so I can't give you Hrbek's exact rationale. He does address it in the book, and his conclusion is essentially the old Popeye defense - "I yam what I yam" - and that padding his personal stats weren't as important to him as winning. He gives the same reason to justify his going duck hunting before Game Seven of the '87 World Series.
Good thing Dick Cheney wasn't in Hrbie's hunting party.
It's a common sentiment to mull what might have been had Hrbek taken care of himself. I think I had that sentiment for a while, but it's so long ago who can remember now? Certainly not me.
At some point, though, I looked at it from Hrbek's perspective, but imagining his career had been mine:
"I played in my home state, my entire career was with the team I grew up with, I made millions, and won two World Series rings. I never had to work a real job, and after I retired from baseball people still asked me to do air conditioning commercials and tossed in a low-production TV show. I saw my kids grow up. Go ahead. Rip me. But I had it pretty good, so I don't care what you think. Bet you wish you were me."
As for Herbie's complaints about lack of individual hardware, that might be the price he paid for doing it his way.
Hrby's obviously got his head screwed on straight. He doesn't need to live his life for us.
Elite sports are so competitive, you'd expect the type A/win-at-all-cost, megalomaniacal types to drive out the (genuine) well-adjusted, good-citizen types.
If I had to choose, I'd want my kids to be like Hrbek instead of Bonds. As would most of us, I'd guess.
If I had to choose, I’d want my kids to be like Hrbek instead of Bonds. As would most of us, I’d guess.
As a baseball fan, I want team to have players that play like Bonds. But, given that kind of talent, I myself would be more like Hrbek.
You’ll get headaches playing this game.
I get headaches from watching it.
+100 mg Advil