Harmon Killebrew remembered

When I learned that Harmon Killebrew passed away last week, my first thought was the graceful way in which he departed this life. He had simply decided that his long battle with esophageal cancer was over and he was ready to move on to the next life. How else would we expect Harmon Killebrew to face the toughest challenge of his 74 years?

The SPORT Magazine Who's Best in Sports series featured Harmon Killebrew in the 1964 through 1966 issues when he was arguably the most feared home run hitter in baseball, supplanting a still active but aging Mickey Mantle. The articles certainly pointed out Killebrew's consecutive seasons of 40-plus homers from 1961 through 1964. More significantly, the 1966 issue describes how Killebrew followed manager Sam Mele's instructions to occasionally forego the home run cut in favor of moving runners along in the Twins' 1965 A.L. pennant drive. Killbrew did so without complaint, also moving from first base to third base against right-handed pitchers so that Mele could put lefty slugger Don Mincher's bat into the lineup more often.

Killebrew's attitude toward team play should not have surprised Mele or anyone else. The 1965 Who's Best in Sports (p. 14) has a quote, "He is one of the few truly humble me I've ever met." The slugger with the husky build, large trunk and short legs is also described as "square-rigged, self-possessed, barely touched by fame, eager to be out of the public eye, accommodating but reticent." His home run swing reminded the SPORT editors of old-timer sluggers, yet said that periodic slumps kept him from putting together one full productive season. What? A league-leading 49 home runs the previous season isn't productive enough? I protest. But Harmon Killebrew didn't.

A close friend in the publishing business, Peter Hardin, has been a Minnesota Twins and Harmon Killebrew fan since the Kid broke into the majors as a bonus baby in 1955. The editor of the Milkweed dairy marketing publication out of Brooklyn, Wisconsin, Hardin grew up in New Jersey watching the powerful New York Yankees humble underdogs like Killebrew's Washington Senators, who became the Twins in 1961. "They had some terrible players, particularly in the infield," Hardin recalls. But he credits then-owner Calvin Griffith with putting a large chunk of team resources into a farm system that produced Killebrew, Bob Allison, Jim Kaat, Albie Pearson, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew and many others. In 1955, Killebrew hit his first home run off Detroit lefty Billy Hoeft after signing with Washington as a bonus baby out of Idaho on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Herman Welker, who contacted Griffith about a kid from Payette, Idaho high school who could hit the long ball. After signing for $30,000, Killebrew spent time on the Washington bench, then at Charlotte, Indianapolis and Chattanooga in the minor leagues. In 1959, Killebrew was in the bigs to stay, slamming 42 home runs in his first full season for a last-place team. Former American League catcher Robert "Red" Wilson remembers Killebrew was much as a person as he does a player and gives Killebrew credit for an eye-popping rookiew season, considering the spacious and run-down environs of Washington's Griffith Stadium.

After slipping to 31 round-trippers in 1960, the transplanted Minnesota Twin found the cozy fences at Metropolitan Stadium to his liking and began his five-year strtech of 40+ homers a year, until injuries and Mele's request reduced his output to 25 in 1965.

Killebrew is remembered most for his muscles. So where did they come from, so strong that a 5-11 chubster could smack all those taters?

"I don't know anybody that had more muscles per square inch than Killebrew," says Hardin, who believes Killebrew would have made a great spokesperson for the dairy industry. "He got his strength from llifting 10-gallon cans of milk working on local dairy farms." According to the New York Times obituary, Killebrew's grandfather made a genetic contribution as a blacksmith in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Another thing Killebrew was obviously taught was to do your job and that's it. He did not brag or flaunt his obvious talent. He appealed to all fans in an age before television started accentuating the controversial. All Harmon Killebrew did was play baseball wherever he was asked to play it. And he gave us all something to remember.

"We're gonna win, Twins, we're gonna score, we're gonna win Twins, Watch that baseball soar!

''Crack out a home run and shout a Hip Hooray! Cheer for the Minnesota Twins today! -- Lyrics of the Minnesota Twins fight song, 1960s. ''

With no baseball in Milwaukee from 1966 to 1969, the Twins regularly appeared on local Madison, Wisconsin television on Saturday afternoons during the baseball season.