Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout

by Kent Hrbek

  Bert knew me pretty well, didn’t he? I watched Bert pitch with the Twins when I was a kid, and I felt fortunate to have had the chance to play with him. He was one of the guys who gave you everything he had. He always gave up a lot of homers, but if you check you’ll find most of them were solo homers that didn’t hurt him.

  My lasting memory of Bert might be more smell than anything else. Our trainer, Dick Martin, used to rub the hottest atomic balm on Bert’s back and shoulder the day he pitched. I couldn’t even put my finger in the stuff because it burned. There were three different kinds of balm in our trainer’s room, but until Bert showed up, no one ever used the atomic hot stuff. Dick had to put on rubber gloves to rub the stuff on Bert’s shoulder.

  Bert had enough innings on that right shoulder that he needed the super hot stuff to loosen up the muscles. He was a true workhouse.

  Little Big Man

  The unfortunate trade for Herr put the handwriting on the wall for Lombardozzi. Lombo stuck around through the ’88 season, then was traded to Houston near the end of the 1989 spring training.

  The strange thing is, the relationship between Lombo and Tom Kelly might have been one of the big reasons the trade for Herr was made in the first place. I think maybe TK wanted to find a second baseman to move Lombo out, and we ended up with Herr. Talk about backfiring. TK and Lombo just weren’t on the same page, and TK wasn’t the kind of manager to tolerate players who weren’t on his page.

  I think Lombo had a little bit of what they call “Little Big Man Disease.” Lombo went to the University of Florida, and he was probably a big stud in college. TK was big on fundamentals and doing all the little things that make teams winners. Well, Lombo wanted to be more than a guy who advanced people over and get hit-and-run signs. He wanted to be The Guy once in a while. That’s how I saw the rift develop between TK and Lombo. Lombo would get frustrated when he was given a bunt sign, and he showed that frustration. And I think that really pissed TK off.

  Probably the final straw came in the ’87 World Series. Lombo had a great World Series (7-for-17, four RBIs). After the Cardinals jumped to a 2–0 lead in Game 7, Lombo had a two-out RBI single in the bottom of the second to score our first run. At that point, Lombo looked like one of the leading contenders to be the World Series MW. And he might have won it with one more big hit, but he never got the chance. In the bottom of the sixth with the score tied 2–2, and two runners on and one out, TK pinch hit Roy Smalley for Lombo.

  The move made strategic sense because the Cardinals had right-hander Todd Worrell pitching and Smalley was a switch- hitter, while Lombo was a right-handed hitter. But Lombo didn’t see it that way, of course. I didn’t see it, but I’m told Lombo stormed up the runway and threw his helmet when TK told him he was going to send up Smalley as a pinch-hitter. You can guess how that went over with TK in Game 7 of the World Series.

  For the record, the move worked. Smalley walked to load the bases with one out. Dan Gladden struck out, but Greg Gagne beat out an infield single with two out that scored Bruno with what proved to be the winning run in a 4–2 victory.

  The sad thing is, the rift ended up hurting both TK and Lombo. We got saddled with Tom Herr, and Lombo ended up getting traded to Houston. Lombo never got a chance to start in Houston, and he was out of the majors at the end of the 1990 season. I know Lombo always felt he got labeled with a bad attitude. Like I said, Lombo was the best defensive second baseman I ever played with, and he had a little pop in his bat, too.

  You take a look at the careers of Lombo and Herr, and you realize baseball is a strange game. Sometimes it has as much to do with personalities as performance.

  More Changes

  Our slide really started in 1989, and years like that I’ve pretty much forgotten about—at least the games. You remember the people. Another Class of 582 member, Tim Laudner, played his final game in 1989.

  Tim played most of his major-league career with a sore right knee, and finally had surgery in early September of ’89. He tried to come back the next spring but ended up leaving the club and never played in another big-league game. Timmy and I had been high school rivals and were both called up to the majors for the first time late in the 1981 season. It’s hard to see guys like that leave the team. Timmy remained in the Twin Cities, and we still see each other from time to time.

  It’s kind of funny looking back, but my number through high school was always 15. When I got called up to the big leagues in 1981, I had jersey No. 26 hanging in my locker, and I was just so happy to be there I didn’t give the number any thought. You wore whatever number they gave you in the minors, and I think I had No. 29 at Visalia that summer.

  Timmy got called up about two days after me, and when he walked into the clubhouse, he had No. 15 hanging in his locker.

  It was kind of funny because that used to be my number and had I thought of it, I’m sure I could have requested it. But I never said anything, and when I showed up for spring training the next year, I had No. 14 hanging in my locker. I have no idea why they made the change, and at the time it was no big deal. But over the years I grew pretty attached to No. 14.

  Frank’s Farewell

  The most memorable thing about the summer of ’89 was the departure of another Class of ’82 guy, Frank Viola, right before the July trading deadline.

  A lot of people were under the impression that Frank and I had a falling out and didn’t get along. That wasn’t really the case. I did get upset with Frank that summer when he made a statement to the effect that he thought a trade might be a good thing for him. I just told Frank that if he didn’t want to pitch here anymore, then no one wanted him around. I don’t think that was really a rift. That’s just the way I’d feel about any teammate. If you go public that you don’t want to be here, then it was time to leave.

  It was a rough year, mostly because of pitching. Our offensive stats were pretty comparable to what they’d been in 1987, but in ’89, we had no Bert Blyleven to lead the way. Frankie and Alan Anderson were about all we had in the way of starting pitching.

  Andy MacPhail clearly realized that, too. Frank, after winning the Cy Young in 1988, was pretty attractive trade bait. Andy was able to get five pitchers from the Mets for Frank: Rick Aguilera, Kevin Tapani, David West, Jack Savage, and Tim Drummond. Five-for-one. The odds are one or two of them are going to work out, and that’s what happened for us. Aggie became one of the best relievers in the league, and Tap became a solid starting pitcher.

  I wasn’t sad to see Frank go. He wanted out, and hopefully he was moving on to bigger and better things. Frankie was a different guy—one of the most nervous guys I’d ever been around. On the days he pitched, he had to take anti-diarrhea medicine so he wouldn’t crap his pants on the mound. I’m sure that’ll surprise people because he looked so in control on the mound. But inside he was as nervous as a whore in church when it was his day to pitch.

  My relationship with Frankie was a little like my relationship with Kirby Puckett. I thought they were both great players and great teammates. But I didn’t hang around with either one of them away from the ballpark. That’s just the way it is on a team. They had guys they were close to, I had guys I was close to.

  But if I had to rank my favorite starting pitchers to play behind, Frank would be in the top four. I’d put Bert and Jack Morris at the top, tied for one, followed by Frankie and Kevin Tapani. No one knows about Tap. But he was just like the others on that list: When he got the ball back from the catcher, he didn’t waste any time. And he threw strikes. Those are the guys you want to be playing behind. They were competitors, they worked fast, and they threw strikes.

  Am I Gone?

  My contract expired after the 1989 season, and for most players, that would have been the end of their Twins career. They’d have taken the money and run to a bigger market and brighter lights. I had the chance.

  Detroit, Seattle, and Boston all offered more money. I could have gotten $15.5 million for five years if I’d have left the Twins.
But I took $14 million for five years to stay with Minnesota. For a while it didn’t look like the Twins were even going to be in the neighborhood of the other offers, and that might have forced my hand to move on.

  There was one night that Jeanie and I sat downstairs, in what I call the Twins room because she’s decorated it with all the memorabilia from my career. We talked seriously that night about the possibility of leaving. We sat at the counter, surrounded by Twins stuff everywhere, and talked about whether it was worth moving. In the end, we just couldn’t see ourselves doing that. Our roots run too deep in Minnesota, and I didn’t want to dig them up. But then again, I wasn’t going to stay in Minnesota for half the money that others were offering.

  I called my agent, Ron Simon, and told him that if he could get the Twins to make a competitive offer, I wanted to stay in Minnesota. Ron’s a native Minnesotan, and he understood how I felt. We had to play the game out, and threaten to leave, but we both knew that wasn’t what Jeanie and I wanted.

  In the end, what’s a couple million dollars over five years? Am I going to be happier trying to spend $15.5 million than I am $14 million? So that was Ron’s goal, to try to get the Twins within a couple million dollars.

  That offseason made me think a lot about players who had to move around during their careers. Think about how tough that is—to pack up your family and move, find a new home, go to new schools. You follow the money, and that’s what you get.

  Bowling For Dollars

  It was a Wednesday afternoon when I got the call from Ron that the Twins had hit our figure. Being Wednesday meant I was bowling in a league at the West Side Lanes in South St. Paul. It was kind of nice to get the news there because that Wednesday league has been a staple of the Twins organization for years, and I was surrounded by friends when I got the news. It helped balance out the other news of the day: Earlier that morning Jeff Reardon announced that he was going to sign with the Red Sox.

  But everyone was happy when I told them my news, and I got a lot of slaps on the back and probably a few more beers bought for me. That league is one of the neat things about being a Twin. I don’t think many other organizations have an offseason weekly get-together like that.

  Billy Martin and Tony Oliva bowled in it in the early ’60s, with a bunch of front-office people like Don Cassidy and Jim Rantz. When I played, we had Ron Davis, Kirby Puckett, Gene Larkin, Al Newman, and Gary Gaetti. There were others, too, who’d show up to sub when we needed someone. Ron Gardenhire, pitching coach Rick Anderson, and I still bowl in the league every Wednesday.

  I’ve met some of my best friends in that league. The average age of the guys in the league is about 70, and we had a guy sub for us, Frank Kulhanek, who was 94 years old and wasn’t afraid to stick around after bowling to have a beer with us.

  Bowling and beer—it doesn’t get much better than that. I spent a lot of time as a kid at bowling alleys because my mom and dad were both bowlers. Over the years, I developed a real fondness for the game.

  In fact, I consider bowling to be one of the greatest sports in the world. You can sit and drink a beer, get up and throw a ball, and it comes right back to you. You don’t have to chase it or anything.

  How great is that?

  Costly Prank

  The joy over my new contract didn’t last long. We hit rock bottom in 1990, finishing last in the AL West, so far behind the A’s all we could see was their dust. Hard to believe that a couple years earlier we had been the A’s chief rival. I think all the changes just caught up to us. We were in a rebuilding mode, trying to work Rick Aguilera in as a closer and find a starting rotation.

  I had a solid year, although my power numbers (22 homers, 79 RBIs) would have been better had I not missed the final two weeks with a fractured ankle. Now, I’d like to end the story there, and let you think I did it sliding into second base to break up a double play. Something with a little guts and glory to it.

  The truth is I broke my ankle chasing one of the clubhouse attendants in the clubhouse lunchroom. I was sitting at a table talking with one of our clubhouse guys, Chico McGinn, and a couple other people. Another clubhouse guy, Jimmy Dunn, was working the visitors’ room at the time. We called Jimmy “Doughboy,” because he looked a little like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I’d been ragging on Doughboy about something, and he came around the corner and flipped me off. So I jumped up and was going to try to catch him.

  As soon as I rounded the first corner, my ankle cracked. I went down, and a bunch of guys just stood there, thinking I was screwing around. I wasn’t. After I got to my feet I knew something was really wrong, and I told Chico to go tell TK that I wasn’t going to make it out for pregame. Chico looked at me and said, “No way. I’m not telling TK.”

  So I did it myself. TK wasn’t too happy with me, but he knew that was just me being myself. I always joked around with the clubhouse guys. I didn’t walk around on glass worried about getting hurt. We used to wrestle and chase each other all the time. This time I just happened to get hurt.

  I think that’s the only time I ever got hurt screwing around. I did end up with a bent finger once, and it’s still bent to this day. That came when we were shagging balls in the outfield in Cleveland before a game, trying to make goofy catches. I had my glove on, but it caught me right on the tip of my finger, I thought I broke it, but I was able to tape it up and play.

  I wasn’t so lucky chasing Doughboy. The thing about that is I was honest about it with everyone, including the media. I know that a lot of guys get injured off the field, and the media gets told it happened the night before sliding into second, or whatever. A lot of injuries that happen off the field get hidden from the media. But I didn’t do that. And I wasn’t ashamed to say I got hurt screwing around in the clubhouse. You’ve got to have fun playing this game.

  TK gave me a pretty long leash when it came to fun. I have to admit there was a time or two he told me to tone it down. But there were other times, like when I was slumping at the plate, when he told me I need to have more fun and not get so down.

  Mr. Turkey

  Pat Reusse is a veteran columnist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He’s an old-time baseball writer who worked his way up to column writing. One of his annual traditions is to pick a Turkey of the Year for his Thanksgiving column.

  Like I said earlier, my numbers were pretty solid in 1990. But on Thanksgiving morning I opened up the paper to learn that I had received his Turkey of the Year award. You could say I was a little angry. I certainly didn’t think I deserved to be the Turkey of the Year. I didn’t shoot anyone or rob a bank, did I?

  His logic was that we finished in last place and that we let it be known that I had turned down more money elsewhere to stay with Minnesota. I guess I shouldn’t have said that. And then, yes, I broke my ankle screwing around in the clubhouse, although I think it should be known that we were already about 30 games out of first when that happened.

  Reusse and I didn’t talk the whole next year, and we never talked a whole lot after that. Other than that, though, I always had a good relationship with the media. There were a lot of stories about my weight, and that got a little old. But it was something to write about, I guess.

  I can laugh about being Turkey of the Year now. Every year he runs a list of past winners, and it seems like every Thanksgiving I get a call from someone who says: “I didn’t know you were Turkey of the Year.”

  Yes, I really was. Never the MVP or Rookie of the Year—both of which I felt I could have won—but Turkey of the Year.

  That’s me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Return to Glory

  A New Friend

  By the time we reached spring training for the 1991 season, it was a little easier to forget that we had finished last in our division the previous summer. Our front office made a number of significant offseason additions, signing Jack Morris, Chili Davis, and Mike Pagliarulo as free agents, trading for Steve Bedrosian, and bringing up a rookie second baseman, Chuck Knoblauch.
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br />   Pagliarulo was brought in to replace my old buddy Gary Gaetti, who signed a free agent contract with California during the offseason. Like I said before, Gaetti and I were like brothers early in our careers. But his religious conversion during 1988, and subsequent preaching, changed our relationship. We’d patched things up by the time he left, but I didn’t feel like I was missing my brother in spring of ’91.

  As the ’91 season went on, the guy I probably hung around with the most was Knoblauch. It was a little different relationship than I had with Gaetti. I started out the year as Knobby’s babysitter more than his buddy.

  When he first came up, Knobby was very hot tempered and could get pretty moody. Our manager, Tom Kelly, essentially gave me the job of babysitting him. Since I played next to him in the field, TK wanted me to make sure that Knobby kept his head in the game. If Knobby struck out at the plate, it was my job to make sure he didn’t take it out on the field with him.

  When I looked in the dugout, I’d often see TK pointing at me, then pointing at second, and I knew it was time to get Knobby’s head on straight. What usually happened is that I’d say something to Knobby, and he’d tell me to go screw myself. So at least I knew he heard me. Some of it must have sunk in.

  Knobby 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.

  But as the summer of 1991 went on, Knobby became one of those guys you loved to have on your team, but hated to play against. And it wasn’t long into the season when I became more of a friend than a babysitter.