Kent Hrbek as a Rookie

A few weeks ago I posted an email interview with Howard Sinker here that I'd originally done for my defunct Twins blog. Here's another item from the blog, about Kent Hrbek's rookie year, 1982:

In early May, 1982, Kent Hrbek was leading the American League with eight homers and 22 RBIs in his rookie season, at age 21. Twins PR director Tom Mee called him “the best player to come into the American League since Mickey Mantle.” Hrbek had been hitting around .400 for a while in A ball in Visalia, California, in 1981, and wound up hitting .379 that year, leading all North American professional ballplayers. He’d signed with the Twins in 1979 as a 17th round pick out of Kennedy High School in Bloomington, down the road from the Met, for a $30,000 bonus. Calvin Griffith, the Twins owner, scouted him personally, and said: “Give him the money.”

Hrbek and the Twins opened up the Metrodome with an exhibition game against the Philadelphia Phillies in ’82, and Kent hit the Twins’ first homer in the place. He talked about going to games at the Met as a kid: “I used to sit out in left field or right field. I think I started going to games when I was about 8 years old, which would’ve been the year Carew was a rookie.”

Twins’ manager Billy Gardner said of Hrbek: “He’s hit everywhere he’s been. No reason he won’t keep hitting up here.” He’d had knee cartilage surgery in ’79, then went to Wisconsin Rapids and the Midwest League in 1980, batting .267, with 19 homers and 76 RBIs, then an enormous .379 at Visalia with 27 homers and 111 RBIs. I assume he led the California League in those three categories for 1981.

He went right from Visalia to the Twins and, in his major league debut on August 24, 1981, he hit a 12th-inning homer off George Frazier for a 3-2 victory at Yankee Stadium. Hrbek said: ”Whenever people ask me about my biggest thrills, I tell ‘em my first game wasn’t bad.” He added of the A.L. pitchers: ”Hopefully they won’t catch up with me within the next 20 years.”

I’d remembered Hrbek, more than anything else, as a fairly good-natured but subtly aggressive big guy, to put it gently, who specialized in homers and was one of the crew that led the Twins to the two titles in ’87 and ’91. I thought of him as a classic Minnesotan who, along with Gladden and Puckett, was at the core of those ’87 and ’91 Twins. I had no idea he once hit .379 or any memory of him being a standout rookie. Take a look at his 1982 season, game by game, here.

As a P.S., I got two comments on this post, both saying Hrbek, not Cal Ripken, should have been rookie of the year in '82. I'll reprint them here. One from "Rick":

Hrbek finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year balloting just below Cal Ripken. He actually had a better year then Ripken but the Twins were pretty bad so that didn't help his cause. Plus Ripken had a lot of pre-season hype, a better lineup surrounding him, and a father already coaching in the majors. But Hrbek should of been the Rookie of the Year.

And another from John Swol, who runs the Twins Trivia site:

I have to agree with the previous commentor, There was no question that Hrbek should have been ROY but with us being here in "flyover land" he was robbed. Hrbek was a very good player but I wonder how good he could have been if he had really worked at the game. I think what we all saw was his natural ability.