by Kent Hrbek
The same could not be said for many of the players who were my teammates in the early to mid-’80s. We had a revolving door for pitchers, most of whom have long since been forgotten, except by those of us who called them teammates. One of the starters on the ’82 team was Al Williams, a big right-hander who was a Nicaraguan freedom fighter during his offseasons. At least that’s what we heard. Al was pretty spooky, and you didn’t mess with him. If you said anything to Al that he didn’t think was funny, he’d just say, “I’ll get you.” So no one said much to him.
We also had Terry Felton, who lost 16 straight games with the Twins, including going 0–13 in ’82. I just couldn’t figure that one out because he had some really nasty stuff. I’d face him in spring training games, and the guy had one of the best breaking balls I’d seen and a nasty fastball. Terry handled it well. He had a great sense of humor. Even during the bad times, Terry would joke around. One night we were at the apartment Brunansky and I rented in Richfield, and we heard a thump thump thump. It was Terry sliding down the basement stairs on his butt, having a good time. But he just couldn’t win. It’s not like he went out to lose. I had the feeling the guy could throw a no-hitter every time he went to the mound.
We were always searching the scrapheap for pitching help those early years. In 1985, we found Steve Howe, who had been one of the game’s top relievers, but he then ran into a lengthy series of drug problems. The guy was left-handed and he was breathing, so we took a shot. He had a little baggage, and we found it. He went AWOL after appearing in a few games, and that was it.
Then there was Juan Agosto, a little left-hander we picked up in 1986. Word was he was into voodoo stuff. I didn’t get close enough to find out. All I know is that he was a different cat.
The guy who epitomized our pitching problems in those years was Ron Davis. We picked up RD the first week of the ’82 season in a multiplayer deal with the Yankees, and RD was supposed to solidify our bullpen. It didn’t quite work out that way.
That deal did, however, bring us a young shortstop named Greg Gagne. He was sent to the minors after the trade but made it to the big leagues for his first cup of coffee the next season, and he was a starter on both our World Series championship teams.
We traded veteran Roy Smalley and a young pitcher named Gary “Truth” Serum to the Yankees in the deal. So even though we got RD and spent years trying to make him a closer, getting Gagne made it one of the best deals in Twins history.
Fighting Words
We lost 102 games in ’82, which is the most any Twins team has ever lost. The funny thing is, we never thought of ourselves as being that bad. Losing didn’t seem that hard, I guess, because we were young, trying to play in the big leagues, and get our feet wet. Still, we had this air about us. We weren’t afraid of anybody.
I think even some of our teammates were surprised by that. Roy Smalley was one of the Twins’ few veterans when I was called up in 1981. A couple years later, he looked back at his first meeting with Gaetti and me while talking to a Minneapolis reporter. I think what he said is pretty accurate and tells a lot about our frame of mind back then.
“They were the most different rookies I’d ever been around,” Smalley said. “I’d never seen anything like it. Here was Hrbek, up from A-ball, and Gaetti, up from AA, and they’d walk around on the field like they had the jobs and there wasn’t anything to it . . . I’m not saying that with any rancor. I used to laugh about it. They were brash and confident, just like they are now.”
I think that air might be why we ended up having some bigtime brawls in those early years, especially with Milwaukee and Detroit. I used to hit the crap out of Milwaukee, and I think that was one of the things that agitated the Brewers. Harvey Kuehn, their manager, used to stand on the top steps of the dugout screaming at me: “We’re going to throw one right down the middle, Hrbek. See if you can hit this one.”
The Brewers at the time were the best team in the American League, winning the Series in ’82. They had a bunch of guys who had come up through their system, like Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner. And they had some real power hitters in Cecil Cooper, Gorman Thomas, and Ben Oglivie.
I think, in a way, we saw ourselves in them. We were young and scuffling, but we were going to learn the game together and someday be like the Brewers. I think from the Brewers’ perspective maybe we were a little too cocky in that belief and didn’t show them the respect they figured they deserved.
The first big brawl started when our center fielder, Bobby Mitchell, slid hard into second and took out Yount. I guess maybe they thought Yount shouldn’t be treated like that. Well, a couple innings later, one of the Brewers basically veered into the outfield to get our shortstop, Lenny Faedo, and knocked him into next week. I was standing on first watching, and the next thing I know, the whole Brewers dugout was running toward me, and I was heading toward right field.
My mom and grandmother were at the game, and my mom told me later that my grandmother turned to her and said, “I sure hope Kent didn’t get hurt.” Well, they beat the hell out of me. I can still remember Ted Simmons on top of me, punching on me. There was a picture of me in the paper the next day after the fight. I’m carrying one shoe, my hat is off, and I’ve got no glove. I wasn’t even mouthy to the Brewers. They just didn’t care for me.
We had problems with the Brewers right up to 1987. We had a brawl that year, too, when they threw Joe Niekro on the ground and hurt his shoulder. That was the tail end of our fighting years with the Brewers.
We might have been losing games, but there were signs that things were going to turn someday. I hit .301 with 23 homers, drove in 92 runs, and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting to Cal Ripken. G-Man hit 25 homers, and Brunansky hit 20. Not bad for rookies. Problem was: We continued to hold tryouts, trying to find pitchers who could get anybody out. One guy who showed some promise was Viola, although he had to learn on the job like the rest of us, going 4–10 with a 5.21 ERA in his first major-league season.
CHAPTER SEVEN
G-Man
Like My Brother
Gary Gaetti was like a brother to me. That’s no exaggeration. We grew up together as professionals—spending a year together at Wisconsin Rapids in Class-A ball; hitting our first big-league homers late in 1981; and losing 102 games together as rookies in ’82. Maybe it was all that losing that made us so close. One thing we had in common, maybe more than anything else, was that we hated to lose.
Tom Kelly told people at various times that there was no one on the team who wanted to win more than Kent Hrbek. I took a lot of pride in that. I hated every opponent, and I absolutely hated to lose. G-Man was the same way, and I liked that about him from the first time we met.
Gary would walk up on the top dugout step and scream obscenities at the opposing pitcher. There were times he’d strike out on three curve balls in the dirt, stomp back to the dugout, and yell at the pitcher that he was chicken shit for not having the guts to throw a fastball. Gary didn’t think much of a pitcher’s manliness if he had to rely on a curveball, rather than go toe-to-toe with a fastball.
Gary would even scream at our own pitchers when he felt they had thrown the wrong pitch. You can see that to this day in the video from Game 6 of the ’87 World Series. One of our pitchers gave up a hit, and you can see Gary kicking the dirt and cussing in the background.
Some writers described Gary as the heart and soul of our team in the ’80s. In a lot of ways, he was our leader. He had this Italian name, could grow a beard in half an hour, and grew up as this tough guy. He was a couple years older than me, and I always felt I could learn something from him.
Roomies
We roomed together on the road from our rookie year pretty much until late in the 1980s. It wasn’t cool to have a road roommate in those years. If you made enough money, most guys would get a single room.
Gary and I didn’t think that way. We liked rooming together. Not only could we save a little money, but we had someone to talk to
at night. Many nights we’d be going over the games long after we shut the lights out. That year we lost 102 games, and it seemed like every stinking night we’d go back to the room and talk about what we could have done better.
Two of my best friends in baseball were Gary Gaetti (left) and Randy Bush (right). Courtesy of the Minnesota Twins
The one thing we almost never talked about was each other’s hitting because we were so different as hitters. Gary tried to guess on every pitch, and that’s why he looked so stupid sometimes. But if he guessed right on a fastball, look out. I tried to pick up every pitch as it was released. I always felt like I could pick up the spin. I’d try to see the curveball coming out of the pitcher’s hand because most pitchers pop up their hand a little more throwing a curve than a fastball. So we were on different wavelengths, and we left that subject alone.
But we talked a lot of other baseball and a lot of life in general. On the days we lost, we’d both be pissed off. A lot of times we’d go take it out on a bottle of beer or a glass of whiskey. We laughed together, drank a few pops and cocktails together, and sometimes got drunker than hell together. Through it all, I watched his back, and I knew he’d be there to watch mine.
All or Nothing
Gary was a little different in his approach than most guys, not only to baseball but life in general. When he dove into something, he’d go all the way up to his neck. He wasn’t a guy who touched the water with his toe before going in. He just jumped.
One example was when Roy Smalley brought this eat-to-win thing into the clubhouse. Well, Gary dove into that. Pretty soon, he was totally into the diet, even more than Smalley. Another time, Gary started going to a sports psychologist, and he became convinced that focus was the key to success.
Well, in 1988, Gary found religion. That came about shortly after we traded Tom Brunansky to the Cardinals for Tommy Herr, who is probably the only guy I played with whom I really didn’t like as a teammate. Herr was a born-again Christian and spent most of his time in the clubhouse sitting in front of his locker, reading the Bible. Gary’s locker was next to Herr’s, and by the end of the year, Gary was sitting in front of his locker, reading the Bible.
But I didn’t dislike Tommy Herr because he helped convert G-Man. I disliked Herr because he didn’t want to be here. He got off the plane in Minneapolis the night of the trade and told people he’d been crying over leaving the Cardinals. He never did seem like he wanted to be here, and he just didn’t fit in with us. That’s why I didn’t like Tommy Herr.
The religion was Gary’s choice, not Herr’s. What got to me—and what changed our relationship—was that Gary started preaching to me. I honestly didn’t care what Gary was into, or what he believed in, but I didn’t want him preaching to me.
He said some goofy things, like telling me that if I kept drinking beer, I was going to hell. Now, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? I said, “Gary, the same thing you were doing with me last year—running around, having a good time, closing up bars—now I’m going to hell because of it? And you’re not?” I never understood that. But Gary was convinced, even more so than he had been on diets and sports psychologists.
The summer of 1988 was a long one. It was like Gary Gaetti had died—at least the Gary Gaetti I knew. One day he was one person, the next day he was someone else. It was almost that quick.
Gary got involved with some people who were almost like a cult, and they had people in every city. We were still rooming together on the road, and there were nights Gary wouldn’t come back to the room because he’d be with some group talking religion all night. He’d show up in the clubhouse half an hour before batting practice, grab his Bible, and start reading.
It changed our clubhouse. I know it hurt TK, too. TK lost his fiery third baseman, the one who would be screaming at the opponent from the top steps of the dugout after striking out. Now when he struck out, he’d just walk back to the dugout, place his bat back in the rack, and sit down. All of a sudden everybody, including the opponent, was good. And if you didn’t do it his way, you were going to hell.
We had other guys who were into religion big-time back then. Greg Gagne was, but he didn’t preach to others. I had no problem at all with Gags. Brian Harper preached a little. Tommy Herr mostly just sat there and read his Bible. To each his own. I just didn’t like being preached to.
The End Wasn’t Near
But we were able to have a little fun with most of the guys who got into religion, even on the subject of religion. We had a road trip to Seattle that coincided with what some people thought was going to be the end of the world. Everybody thought they were going to be blasted off to heaven—they believed that was literally going to happen. Gagne and Harper brought their wives on the trip because they were so sure the end of the world was upon us.
Our clubhouse guy was Jimmy Wiesner, another guy I loved because he absolutely hated the opponent. I looked over in the dugout on the day all this was supposed to happen, and Wiesner had a batting helmet on. That was weird, even for Jimmy. He never even wore a hat. When I asked him why he had a helmet on, he said, “Well, if I’m going to take off straight to heaven, I’m going to be going through the roof of the Kingdome, and I’m going to hit my head like hell.” Wiesey was always a guy who could jab any player on the team.
Everybody took the joking well and laughed. By the end of the day, we were all still on Earth, and the guys were back reading their Bibles trying to figure out how the whole thing had been messed up.
But with G-Man, it got to the point that year where things became sticky. You couldn’t mess with him. G-Man started getting angry when you joked around, and you had to watch what you said.
So that was the year it was like I lost my brother, like I had suffered another death in the family. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. The fire that G-Man brought to the team—that fire that had helped us win the World Series in 1987—just went out.
G-Man Departs
At the end of the 1990 season, the Twins didn’t make much of an effort to re-sign Gaetti. So he left as a free agent and signed with the Angels. I think everybody felt a change of scenery would be best for both Gary and the team. Since 1988, when we won 91 games, our record had steadily declined to 78–84 in 1990.
Obviously, we had other problems those years than Gary’s conversion. The Herr trade was a fiasco, and the Twins packaged him in a trade after the ’88 season for left-hander Shane Rawley, who was 5–12 with an equally bad ERA in his only season.
By the time the 1990 season ended, things were better between Gary and me. I think we just learned to accept that this was the way things were. He went his way; I went mine. I certainly didn’t hate him. When he decided to leave, it wasn’t like I was pushing for the Twins to get rid of him. We were past all that stuff.
We talked about the preaching, and that got patched up. I’m not a guy who gives too many people second chances, but I did with him. Just like you’d give your brother a second chance. I loved the guy.
After he left, I rooted for him. Not when he played the Twins, of course. But the other times, I sure did.
A couple years later, he kind of chilled out a little. He even had a beer now and then, which was funny, because it kind of became big news around our club. “Geez, did you hear G-Man was seen having a beer?” Like I’d never seen that before.
We’ve been hunting a few times after that. We’ve laughed, told stories, had a heater or two, and sipped a few beers.
Almost like old times.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Moving Up
Still Learning
After our 102-loss season as rookies in 1982, things got a little better. Not overnight, mind you. In 1983, we took a baby step, winning 10 more games to finish 70–92. Tom Brunansky, Gary Gaetti, and I combined for 65 homers. But once again we had trouble getting anyone out. We kept searching through baseballs scrap heap, trying to sign guys who had been released or pick up someone with a little promise in a low-profil
e trade.
We got lucky in Ken Schrom, who had been released by Toronto after the 1982 season. All getting released meant was that Schrom was good enough to start for us, and he led the staff with 15 victories in ’83. He was also a new fishing buddy for me, a good guy who was one of the few pitchers I really got to know well early in my career. Most of the others were, well, a little different. You didn’t talk to them on days they pitched, stuff like that.
But Schrom was different. He gave us a ray of hope. We even ended up rooming together on the road for a while in ’84. I wasn’t married yet, and Debby Gaetti told Gary she didn’t want him rooming with me. I guess she thought I liked to party a little too much, although I’d like to note for the record that Debby lifted her ban after I married Jeanie in 1985.
Anyway, Schrom and Big Al Williams were the only guys on our staff with more than 10 victories in 1983. We had 10 different pitchers start at least four games. Frankie Viola led our staff with 34 starts, but he was still learning on the job, as his 715 record and his 5.49 ERA showed.
During spring training in 1983, I mug for the camera. Courtesy of the Minnesota Twins
It took a while for Frankie to mature into a great pitcher, which as I look back doesn’t surprise me. He was one of the most nervous pitchers I’ve ever been around. I don’t remember why, but on a road trip to Oakland I ended up rooming with Frankie. Big mistake. He was up all night—didn’t sleep a wink. Every time there’d be a noise in the parking lot, Frankie would jump out of bed and run to the window. Finally, I said, “Frankie, at least stay in bed. I’ve got to play tomorrow, too.”