by Kent Hrbek
So they sent Angelo Guiliani, the Twins area scout, to watch me. I saw Angelo around the ball parks a lot my junior and senior years, and the summer after my senior year at Kennedy, the Twins drafted me in the 17th round, fairly late, partly because I had already signed a letter of intent to play college ball at the University of Minnesota.
The first offer the Twins made was for $5,000. I turned that down, although not because I had my heart set on going to college. When it came to school, I wasn’t a guy who skipped classes and stuff, mostly because I was afraid Mom and Dad would whoop my ass. But I admit I wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree.
George Thomas was coaching the Gophers at the time, and after my senior year in high school, I played on his summer league team. He told me if I could get the money I wanted, I should sign and go straight to professional baseball. That’s a little weird for a college coach to say to a kid, but he was fired up about the way I could play the game. I love George Thomas for being honest with me. He saw I had a better future on the ball field than the classroom. Plus, he was one of the funniest guys I know.
My dad pretty much left it up to me. We talked about signing, and we decided that if I could get $30,000, I’d sign. We figured that would cover my schooling if I didn’t make it in pro ball, although the truth is I was about as big on the thought of going to school as I was on jumping into a pot of boiling water.
It didn’t seem to matter much, because the Twins didn’t look too anxious to fork over that kind of bonus for a 17th-round draft choice. As baseball fans know, Calvin Griffith, the Twins owner, wasn’t known for handing out money.
But Angelo kept watching me after the draft. Finally, one night, he got Brophy and Calvin to come to a game at Valley View, which was across the street from my house. I remember that night mostly because there was a hush over the ballpark; everyone knew Calvin and Brophy were there to watch Hrbek. I hit a long home run to right-center field, but I don’t even know if Calvin and Brophy stayed the entire game. We never talked after the game or anything, so I had no idea whether they were impressed or not. As the summer went on, it began to look more and more like I was going to college.
At the end of the summer, our Legion team made the state playoffs and went to Austin, Minnesota, to play at McCracken Field. That’s a park where former Yankees star Moose Skowron supposedly hit the longest home run ever hit there. Well, I hit one straight over the center-field fence that the old timers said was longer than the one Skowron hit.
We ended up getting beat by Terry Steinbach’s team from New Ulm, but as we were heading to the bus, Angelo stopped me at the door and said, “I think I can get you the money, kid.” I guess that’s the story of my life as an amateur player—getting stopped by scouts as I was about to get on the bus.
I ended up signing right after that, although it was too late in the summer to send me to rookie ball. They told me to report to Instructional League in the fall. I have to admit I wasn’t quite honest with my dad about using that money for school if pro ball didn’t pan out. I took a good chunk of that $30,000 and bought myself a Ford pickup. In my mind, I was done with school. If this baseball thing didn’t pan out, I figured I’d rather pump gas at the neighborhood filling station.
This was at my high school graduation party in 1978. Hard to believe that four months later I started my pro career in the Instructional League. Courtesy of Kent Hrbek
CHAPTER THREE
My First Love
MY DISLIKE OF PRACTICES WASN’T THE only reason I gave up football at an early age. Football is played in the fall. To me, the fall is for hunting, not throwing around a pigskin and smashing into bodies.
A lot of people aren’t going to believe me when I say this, but the outdoors—and by that, I mean fishing and hunting—is definitely my first love. Don’t get me wrong, I loved playing baseball, and almost all sports, except for trying to dribble that damn basketball. But I get just as jacked up going fishing with a bunch of guys in Canada on a five-day trip as I got jacked up to play in the World Series.
I’d lose sleep over going on a fishing trip with my buddies. That didn’t happen too often playing baseball, except for the nights Gary Gaetti and I sipped cocktails all night. I just love packing the cooler and sitting around a campfire with the guys and getting up early the next morning to go fishing. There’s nothing like it.
We went to the White House after winning the World Series in 1987, and I couldn’t wait to get back to Minnesota. We literally got off the plane and climbed in a motor home that was waiting in my driveway to take a pheasant-hunting trip to South Dakota. Now that’s living.
Summers at Grandpa’s
I think my love of the outdoors came from my dad and my grandpa, Pete Kiminski, my mom’s dad. To this day I idolize my grandpa because he could basically live off the land.
He lived up in the Willow River area about 40 miles south of Duluth, an hour and a half north of the Twin Cities. You hit that area and it’s like you’re in the North Woods. I used to go up for the summer and chase frogs and catch minnows out of the creek that we’d use for fishing.
My grandpa was the guy who always organized the hunts every fall, telling the other guys, “You go here, you go there.” You didn’t hunt with him unless you listened to him. And kids didn’t hunt with his group, period. He died in 1973 when I was 13, right about the time that he would have allowed me to start hunting.
But even though I didn’t get to hunt with him, he’s probably where I got most of my love for the outdoors. My dad was a big part of that, too.
My mom and dad used to rent a cabin every August outside of Brainerd and spend a week there fishing. My memories of my dad are more from those weeks at the cabin than hitting grounders to me in the backyard or any baseball game. I used to look forward to that week all year. Want to know where I learned about loyalty and commitment? My baseball team in the Bloomington Athletic Association qualified for the playoffs one year and it was the exact same week we had reserved the Brainerd cabin. My dad drove me down in the afternoon for the games, and then we’d turn around and go back right after. I think too many people take the easy way out in those situations and put their vacation first. My dad wasn’t that way, and it always stuck with me.
I was about 16 when I got to go on my first deer hunt with my dad. We were hunting on my uncle’s land, up in the same area where my grandparents lived. I went out with my dad early in the morning, and he put me up next to a tree and told me to sit there. I always like to use my ears as much as my eyes and listen for sounds, because most of the time in the woods you hear stuff before you can see it.
Well, I heard this crunch, crunch, crunch of something coming up through the leaves, I looked, and there was a little squirrel running around. Pretty soon I heard a crunch, crunch, crunch again. I figured it was that squirrel, but I turned around and looked, and there was this little eight-point buck. I shot, and he went down on the first shot. True story. I got a deer on my first shot.
I was so fired up. My dad came running over when he heard the shot, yelling, “Way to go! Way to go!” Then he got out his knife and started gutting the deer. It was perfect because I not only shot a deer, but I didn’t have to gut him. My dad was known as the gutter. Whenever someone shot something, he was there with his knife, ready to gut. As you might guess, he was pretty well liked by everyone he hunted with.
Not Always Compatible
My love of the outdoors didn’t always mix well with baseball, which I learned about, oh, a week into my professional career. After I signed with the Twins and reported to the fall Instructional League in Florida, I immediately bought a fishing rod and headed to the ocean shore to try my hand at saltwater fishing. Johnny Castino also liked to fish and was my guide on that first trip, although I’m sure Johnny doesn’t want to take credit for it.
We were casting off a jetty, and I wanted to get as far out on the rocks as I could. I walked out along the rocks and slipped, falling into some coral, which is like sliding your l
eg along razor blades. I didn’t even know I was hurt, but I looked down, and there was blood all over the water, and my ankle was slit. I still have the scar.
I ended up at the doctor’s office getting my ankle stitched. When the doctor finished, he said it took 13 stitches to close the cut. I told him that 13 wasn’t a very good number and asked him if he could add another one. He was nice about it and put one more in so I could have 14, which is a good number for me since it became my uniform number with the Twins.
At the time, there was nothing lucky about the number, or the fishing trip, for me. It happened at exactly the same time Twins manager Gene Mauch arrived in Melbourne to watch a week of Instructional League games. Oh, did he chew my ass out. He told me, “I come down here to watch you play, and you guys are out farting around fishing, and you cut your ankle all to hell.”
Hunting and fishing were my first loves, and I often shared them with my teammates. Tim Laudner (left), Steve Lombardozzi (second from left), and Gary Gaetti (second from right) joined me on this pheasant hunt. Courtesy of Kent Hrbek
Then he pointed over at Castino and said, “You see that guy there? He just doesn’t do a lot of things right, and I’m not sure he’s ever going to make it.”
The next year Castino was playing for Mauch in the big leagues, and he was co-American League Rookie of the Year with Alfredo Griffin. I knew Gene Mauch was a great manager and all that. But when I got to the big leagues and we played California when he was managing the Angels, I wanted to kick his butt because he told me Johnny Castino wasn’t a very good ballplayer. I always thought Cas was one of the toughest competitors I ever played with—a guy who hated the opposition and would do whatever it took to win.
The Lure of Fishing
When I got called up to the big leagues late in the 1981 season, I lived at home in Bloomington. Pretty convenient, to be playing in the majors and living with Mom and Dad. There probably aren’t too many guys who can say that. In 1982 and ’83, Tom Brunansky and I rented a little house in Richfield. We called it the ODC—the on-deck circle. There were plenty of parties, with Domino’s pizza and beer as the nightly special.
Before the ’84 season, I bought a place on Lake Minnetonka and took in Brunansky as a roommate. Bruno liked to fish a bit, too, and there were a few charter flights back after road trips where we’d land at 5 a.m., drive home from the airport, and, as the sun was coming up, jump into the boat to do a little early morning fishing.
Over the years, I had quite a few teammates who liked to fish. Dave Engle, who became Bruno’s brother-in-law when they married sisters, lived on Lake Minnetonka, too, although Engle was more of a lake cruiser than a fisherman. Kirby Puckett liked to fish, and the thing about Puck is that any fish that landed in his boat ended up in his live well, destined for his dinner plate. Puck was one of those guys who kept every fish he caught.
Fishing was always my getaway, and not just at home. Dick Martin, our trainer, was an avid fisherman, and when we found we had that in common, we used to take fishing trips on the road. We’d fish for trout in Cleveland, go salmon fishing when we were in Seattle, and head to a reservoir in Texas. There were other cities where I’d ask the clubhouse kids where the fish were biting, and we’d get up early in the morning and head out there.
The Twins put me on the cover of their fan magazine, highlighting my love of fishing. I think I did a good job of balancing work and play. Courtesy of the Minnesota Twins
When we were in Milwaukee, I used to take charter boats out on Lake Michigan. One time the guy who owned our minor-league club in Kenosha took Rick Aguilera and me out fishing. It was horrible, windy weather, and Aggie got sicker than a dog. He puked the whole time, which wasn’t too good because we had a game that night.
When we got to the ballpark that afternoon, Aggie came up and said, “Hrbie, make sure we win by a bunch so I don’t have to pitch.” We ended up winning by a few runs, and he came up to me after the game and said thanks.
That was a lot to go through for one brown trout, which was all we caught that day.
That little outing on Lake Michigan was the exception. I usually used common sense and knew that I couldn’t go on an all-day outing because I’d be all pooped out and tired. Not that I didn’t bend the rule once in a while.
RD’s Mistake
I can’t say Ron Davis always displayed common sense when it came to fishing. Next to me, RD might have been the most avid fisherman to play for the Twins during my years with the club.
RD was a different cat. Nicest guy in the world, but he went about things a little differently. He was our closer in the mid-’80s—or at least he tried to be our closer—and there were games he’d give up four home runs in the ninth inning and afterward be singing “Jimmy Crack Corn” in the clubhouse. A lot of guys didn’t care too much for that, although I knew he was just blowing off steam. A couple times RD broke down and cried after blowing a lead, which he did fairly frequently in the mid-’80s. There were a lot of us who were crying right along with him.
But I always liked RD, because I knew he cared, and he was always trying to do his best. And how can you not like a guy who shows up with a cooler full of bass just before a ballgame?
RD had this place up by Chisago Lakes, about 45 minutes north of Minneapolis, that he used to fish all the time. The bass must have been hitting real good because one afternoon RD came running into the clubhouse with that cooler full of bass. He had stayed too long fishing and didn’t have time to swing by his house.
So he headed straight to the trainer’s room and dumped his mess of flopping bass into the sink and proceeded to clean them. We had guys in the whirlpool a couple feet away, getting ready for the game, and RD was cleaning his fish in the sink.
Ray Miller, our manager at the time, found out about it and banned fish in the clubhouse. I guess that was OK, but Ray was so fired up he told us he didn’t want us out in the sun, which meant he didn’t want us fishing during the day. Well, that lasted about two hours with me, although Ray probably had some basis for his edicts.
I know one time I had been fishing at Mille Lacs and I got so sunburned that when I got to the ballpark I could barely put on my uniform. That memory was probably on Ray’s mind when he banned outdoor activities.
Still, Ray didn’t crack my list of favorite managers. He was a nice, sincere guy, but I didn’t know if he was ever going to make a great manager—a great pitching coach, but not much of a manager, at least with us. Then again, he had RD as his closer.
Meeting Jeanie
It was hunting, not baseball, that allowed me to meet my former wife, Jeanie. I was deer hunting up by my grandparents’ home in the fall of ’81, after my first taste of the big leagues. We heard that a guy had shot a nice deer in a hunting camp by us. I said to the buddy I was hunting with—he was actually the brother of the girl I was dating at the time—that we should head over to that camp and see what the guy shot.
When we got there, the guy had a nice deer. We started talking to him and found out he was from Bloomington and lived about 10 blocks away from where I grew up. He said he was going to take the deer to a meat shop and weigh it when he got home, and I told him I’d be glad to help him out.
As fate would have it, the guy did call me for help when he got home, and my buddy and I went over to his house. We took the deer to the shop, weighed it, and went back to his house to have a beer and talk hunting in his basement. That’s when Jeanie walked down the stairs. If she hadn’t been home that night, I’d have never met her. Despite the divorce, we shared a lot of good times. I told my buddy on the way out to the car that the guy really had a nice-looking daughter, which maybe wasn’t the best thing to say since I was dating his sister. But there was something special about Jeanie, and I saw it immediately.
But it took me a year to ask her out. I’d stop by to visit with her dad, Gene Burns, who passed away a few years ago, and have a beer and talk hunting. I liked Gene because we shared similar interests. But I did have some u
lterior motives for visiting him. The problem was, it was pretty apparent Jeanie wasn’t quite as taken with me as I was with her. The truth is she had no interest in having anything to do with me. But I kept visiting Gene and finally got her to go out with me.
I met my wife Jeanie thanks to my love of the outdoors. Here is an indoor shot from a Twins Family Day gathering at the Dome. Courtesy of the Minnesota Twins
I finally won her over, and we were married in 1985. I give her a lot of credit for keeping me on the straight and narrow. I could have been a pretty wild guy living in this town and playing ball. I loved to party, and I loved to have a good time. But she knew when to tighten the reins when I needed that. Honestly, if it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I’d have had the career I did.
There is another benefit to our relationship: I still hunted with Geno every year. And he became a father to me. After my dad died, Gene became the guy who showed me how to fix things around the house. Plumbing problem? I called Gene. All things considered, I’m a pretty lucky guy to have been on that hunting trip in the fall of ’81.
Maybe that’s why hunting and fishing are my first loves.
CHAPTER FOUR
Headed to the Pros
Calling Home
For all the Grizzly Adams toughness I might portray as an outdoors guy, I wasn’t quite that tough when I signed my first pro contract and reported to the Instructional League in Melbourne in the fall of 1978. We had a phone booth outside the back of the place we stayed. The booth looked like something straight out of an old movie, with a light that came on when you shut the door.
My first week in Florida I’m surprised I didn’t single-handedly burn the light bulb out. There were some four-hour phone calls back home to my mom and my girlfriend. I cried on the phone a bunch of times, calling home and asking: “What am I doing? Is this what I want to do with my life?”
