Posted on 05/20/2011 5:38:56 AM PDT by WOBBLY BOB
OAKLAND, Calif. - By a strange twist of fate, the Twins will be in Arizona this morning to say goodbye to hall of fame slugger Harmon Killebrew, the face of the franchise when he played 14 seasons in Minnesota and their godfather the past decade.
Morneau is one of three current Twins joining manager Ron Gardenhire and Killebrew's former teammates Rod Carew and Tony Oliva and former manager Frank Quilici as pallbearers for this morning's funeral service in Peoria, Ariz.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
Interestingly, Charlie Pride will apparently sing at the funeral. Charlie Pride and Harmon Killebrew are two guys I wouldn’t intuitively put together!
Why?
Actually, I’d forgotten that Charlie Pride was a baseball prospect. He’s about the same age as Harmon and once played for Boise and Missoula, near where Harmon grew up.
Harmon had the bad luck of not being in a big market TV area. I saw him from the left field bleachers in the old Yankee Stadium one day in June of perhaps 1962 or so when he blasted a homer over the 457 sign in left. Had it been a Yankee, there would have been headlines but it appeared as a footnote in the paper.
“Harmon had the bad luck of not being in a big market TV area.”
Similar to the Braves’ third baseman Eddie Mathews who slugged 512 homers in the obscurity of Milwaukee.
That is a classic headline. :)
Killebrew was very happy to play in a small market like the Twin Cities. He said it suited his personality: low-key and friendly. Twin City residents remembered Killebrew as a very nice, down-to-earth person who didn’t use his celebrity to make waves. No Reggie Jackson here.
I have lived in Alabama almost all of my life. About 10 or 12 years ago, I was in Atlanta for a week on business. Some of my co-workers and I went to a Braves game.
I sat next to a guy who was keeping a book on the game. He proceeded to tell me that he went to MLB games all over the country, and he kept the book on every game he went to. He asked me if I went to a lot of Braves games.
I replied, “Let me put it this way . . . The last time I saw the Braves play, Eddie Matthews was playing 3rd base.”
But I love sports and baseball, even played one year junior college baseball. I just rarely go to games. Killebrew was one of my childhood favorites. Rest in peace, big guy.
Born in Idaho, 1936.
The TWinkies were no pushovers in their day.. but for Sandy Koufax.. 1965
They would go another 22 years before claiming the World Series trophy.. 1987.. and again in 1991
He retired in 1975 after 21 years in MLB.. and announced games almost to the end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmon_Killebrew
Hall of Fame skills, batboy humility.
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