Your Favorite #14 memory

[John Bonnes]

To countdown the days til pitchers and catchers report, we're going to list the Twins with those numbers (thanks to this awesome list) and let you can reminisce about one of theM. So who is the poster boy for day #14....

 

Pedro Ramos, 1961

Sam Mele, 1961-67 (Manager)

Danny Monzon, 1972-73

Glenn Borgmann, 1974-79

Pete Mackanin, 1980-81

Kent Hrbek, 1982-94

 

Sam Mele was a hell of a manager and turned the Twins into contenders, but I need to go with my hometown boy Kent Hrbek. He gets credit because he is the only time I correlate "Hometown" and "Bloomington". I didn't move to Bloomington until 6th grade, and that was from Minneapolis, which is where I live now and from which I plan to never leave. Usually that's my hometown. Except when I can claim Herbie.

[mcrow]

Has to Kent Hrbek. Most of here are probably not old enough to remember much of the other guys.

 

However, it's hard to argue against a guy that was part of two WS and the epic T-Rex tag.

[Seth Stohs]

Is it Hrbek's terrific rookie season? Was it the Game 6 grand slam? Was it pulling Ron Gant off of first base? Was it creating a divot at the old-timer's game at Target Field?

[Squirrel]

How could it not be pulling Ron Gant off 1st? It's just so Hrbek. I still laugh about that ... in front of my Braves fan friends ... they don't laugh about it; I just laugh more. Heh, and any time he stole a base, which wasn't often, but always memorable.

[mcrow]

Is it Hrbek's terrific rookie season? Was it the Game 6 grand slam? Was it pulling Ron Gant off of first base? Was it creating a divot at the old-timer's game at Target Field?

I would say all of the above.

 

He's definitely a Twins great eventhough not a HoF type of player. There are just guys from that era of the Twins that will always give me the "good old days" feeling. Gaetti, Gagne, and Bruno are all players like that to a lesser degree as well.

[biggentleben]

Best Hrbek moment was when we didn't have to see him play anymore.

[Squirrel]

Settle down. It's just a game. And it's not being a jerk enjoying the things that go your way. Sheesh. Find a Braves forum if this makes you upset.

[twinsnorth49]

Hrbek,is there really another choice? The Gant play was an all time classic for it's significance and in the way Hrbek just ran off the field as if it was just another routine play at first.

[mcrow]

Best Hrbek moment was when we didn't have to see him play anymore.

 

Sore loser....

[John Bonnes]

I prefer the idiosyncrasies. Like "No Smoking In The Metrodome" hand signal or the "fingers walking" signal he's share with Gaetti when people left early.

[twinsnorth49]

Yep, because that's funny right there. You remember the time Joe Mauer hit a crucial double that was called foul? That was some funny crap right there, wasn't it?

 

Taking delight in being an ass is just reaching a whole new level of jerk-dom.

 

And being an oversensitive Braves fan on a Twins forum is a whole new level of dumb-ass.

[rickyriolo]

caught my first foul ball off the bat of Danny Monzon in 1972 at the Old Met Stadium when i was a sophmore in high school

[Top Gun]

The day I became a Twins fan Pedro Ramos shut out Whitey Ford and Yankees in the first game ever.

[Oldgoat_MN]

Favorite Hrbek memory - in the late 80s or early 90s the Twins were playing a game that was out of reach (they were behind, I believe). Hrbek was on first. Tom Kelly gave Hrbek the sign to steal. The pitch was fouled off for strike two. Kelley had him continue to try to steal every pitch as the batter fouled off the next several pitches. Hrbek was huffing back to first after every foul. Kelly & the whole Twins dugout were laughing so hard most could not sit on the bench. Announcers were laughing, too.

That is the kind of thing that makes baseball great.

[Guest USAFChief]

Hrbek's WS grand slam still gives me goosebumps. One of my all time favorite Twins moments.

 

and I still don't think he pulled Gant off first. Gant's momentum took him past the bag.

[LimestoneBaggy]

Hrbeck and the divot get my vote. Everything else he accomplished/did/didn't do were great, but I've never laughed at a baseball game like that in my life.

 

I should have added, that my three-year-old son and I were watching it together, and he still refers to it as "the fat man hole."

[ashbury]

My favorite Hrbek memory is watching him taking grounders at shortstop during BP and having a great time doing it.

[ashbury]

He's definitely a Twins great eventhough not a HoF type of player.

 

I agree. But in his prime, he was the guy in the lineup, not Puckett or anyone else, that the opposing team would plan around and decide "in a tight situation we'll walk him but we won't let him beat us".

[Oldgoat_MN]

I agree. But in his prime, he was the guy in the lineup, not Puckett or anyone else, that the opposing team would plan around and decide "in a tight situation we'll walk him but we won't let him beat us".

 

I agree. So many people don't get this. Was Puckett the better player? Yes. But it was Hrbek who was the one you really had to look out for. Too many of his hits left the park.

[mcrow]

I agree. But in his prime, he was the guy in the lineup, not Puckett or anyone else, that the opposing team would plan around and decide "in a tight situation we'll walk him but we won't let him beat us".

 

No doubt about that, but on career as a whole Puckett was better. Hrbek is underrated outside of MN, IMO but still not HoF level.

[RIP BYTO]

Hrbek/Gant nothing more needed

[Longdistancetwins]

All of the above, but also Herbie’s first home run in Yankee Stadium. I’ve always rooted long distance, growing up in New Jersey and living in New York City: Was I there? No. Was I watching on TV? No, I turned it off to go to sleep in the 11^th inning, the first time I’d ever turned off a Twins game. But I was so excited to read about this rookie from Bloomington, Minnesota hitting a home run in Yankee Stadium, that my somewhat waning interest in baseball was thoroughly renewed. And I was able to follow with passion as the Terrible Twins of ’82 blossomed into the champions of 1987.

[Riverbrian]

So many great Hrbek moments but I still gotta go back to... I think it was sometime in August in 1981... Straight from A-Ball I believe... Kent Hrbek in his first game beat the Yankees with a home run in extra innings.

 

Minnesota kid from straight from A Ball? Are you kidding me... Instant Hero for me as a 16 year old.

 

The World Series Grand Slam and his arms up in the air as he rounded matched exactly what my arms were doing when it happened. That was special... My heart was in my throat watching every game of that series. It was huge and I will never take that moment for granted.

 

I also still remember a fairly meaningless home run he hit at the dome in 1987. I had a great first row seat behind the plate. Didn't want the game to end because those seats were so exceptional. Hrbek hit a home run that game that got out so quick... Never seen anything like it.

 

It left his bat and in what seemed like less then a second... the ball bounced off the folded blue seats behind the RF Baggie and back on the field. I swear the ball had already bounced back and landed in RF before the right fielder could even turn around.

 

Still the hardest hit ball I have ever seen and I can still remember it like it was yesterday and it was just a meaningless home run out of many for him.

[Longdistancetwins]

[

 

How’s this for a meaningless homerun: Since he didn’t live too far from there, my brother invited me to see Rod Carew inducted into the HOF in 1991. The Twins were also in the Hall of Fame game that was also played that weekend. We were sitting in right center in that little Doubleday Field, so when Herbie first came up, my brother echoed my thought and said, “Get ready to catch one.” On the next pitch, Herbie hit it right toward us, but it went over our heads into someone’s backyard or something (now it is a parking lot). Yet another way that 1991 was a great year. Went back to Cooperstown for Kirby (2001) and Bert (2011). Once a decade thing, I guess.

[Riverbrian]

[

 

How’s this for a meaningless homerun: Since he didn’t live too far from there, my brother invited me to see Rod Carew inducted into the HOF in 1991. The Twins were also in the Hall of Fame game that was also played that weekend. We were sitting in right center in that little Doubleday Field, so when Herbie first came up, my brother echoed my thought and said, “Get ready to catch one.” On the next pitch, Herbie hit it right toward us, but it went over our heads into someone’s backyard or something (now it is a parking lot). Yet another way that 1991 was a great year. Went back to Cooperstown for Kirby (2001) and Bert (2011). Once a decade thing, I guess.

 

Always gonna be memorable when you almost make a call prior to it happening.

[ashbury]

No doubt about that, but on career as a whole Puckett was better. Hrbek is underrated outside of MN, IMO but still not HoF level.

 

I should have picked a better word than "but" to preface my observation. No, I wasn't building a HOF case for Hrbek; he needed to play someplace other than 1B for his hitting skills to rise to quite that level.

[luke829]

I'm nominating his Taco John's commercial from a few years back. Herbie Like!

[ScottyB]

First all of Herbie's 1981 efforts are not in play - he was wearing #26 at the time. But you also have to give a nod to Pete MacKanin - last twins homer hit at the old Met.

[Longdistancetwins]

You're right. My bad.

[LaBombo]

Hrbek's WS grand slam still gives me goosebumps. One of my all time favorite Twins moments.

 

and I still don't think he pulled Gant off first. Gant's momentum took him past the bag.

 

 

Yup. Gant was out because he didn't slide. Coble explains it at the end of this

for the physics-challenged people who don't understand that Gant was falling on his own after running into Hrbek and that Hrbek has every right to apply the tag as Gant gets himself out with a dumb play.

 

My favorite memory of Hrbek is the fact that he played the rest of the World Series despite the fact that he received multiple death threats after that game, including one helpfully phoned in to his mom's house. Stay classy, Atlanta!