It’s a memory etched in stone for most Minnesotans. And it was perfectly described by Herb Carneal on WCCO Radio on October 25, 1987, 35 years ago today.
“Bouncing ball to Gaetti, throws to Hrbek and the Minnesota Twins are baseball’s World’s Champions! The World Champion Minnesota Twins! McGee grounding to Gaetti for the last out of the World Series. The Twins win it 4-2, let’s listen to this crowd. What else?”
The man who caught that ball, Bloomington’s own Kent Hrbek, was one of the heroes of that ’87 Twins team. It was his dramatic grand slam in game six that blew the game open and got the Twins into game seven against the Cardinals.
Hrbek took some time to reflect on that team, the unbelievable fan support, and his clutch home run in game six, with WCCO’s Chad Hartman 35 years after clinching the World Championship at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
Chad Hartman: This is a text, and we could get hundreds and hundreds of them and they're all over Twitter, but here's a text: “Ken Hrbek, part of the greatest memories of my life, that fall was almost magical.” I think so many of us absolutely lived and breathed Twins that year, followed every game, every play. Truly best, Truly the best times. How often, if somebody recognizes you, how often does somebody just go down memory lane that way?
Kent Hrbek: It's almost automatic. It's funny because they'll come up and say thank you. And I go, what did I do? I didn't park your car. I wasn't working valet tonight. What did I do? You gave me the best times of my life back when I was a kid back in ‘87, following you guys and following the ride that you guys were on. It was the most memorable moments of their childhood. They drop on you sometimes. So thank you for thanking me and not just myself, but the other 25 guys, 24 guys, and coaches and front office and people that worked in the clubhouse and all that kind. You have to thank them too. So just a small part of it, but very happy to be a part of it. I get it every day, every time I bump into somebody that they bring it up about if they were there, or where they were when we won it and all that kind stuff. Nothing but a fun thing to talk about.
Hartman: So I want to talk more specifically about ‘87 and ‘91, but let me ask you this. ‘87 was the first one. Then I think a lot of us believe the ‘91 World Series was the greatest World Series ever. When people do approach you, can you tell if they bring up one more than the other? Or is it fairly even?
Hrbek: It's pretty even. I guess it all depends on how old the person is. Sometimes, it's funny, the question I get most is which one was more fun, or which team was better? Blah, blah, blah. And I always come back with the smart-aleck answer saying if you have two kids, which one do you like the most? They were both unbelievable events in my life. You look back at ‘87 with the group of guys we had, I think people in the state kind of knew our ‘87 team a little bit better than they did the ‘91 team.
We had kind of the group together, the Pucketts, the Burnansky’s, Gaetti’s, the Hrbek’s, the Viola’s, the Gladden’s, the Newman’s, the Laudner’s.
We had such a great group of guys then, that kind of came up in the minor leagues together and we seemed a little closer knit to the community I think.
Not that we weren't in ‘91 too, but just, I don't know, it seemed like it was a closer knit group of guys that were closer with the town. I mean, they showed it after we had won the pennant and in ‘87 when we beat Detroit, when we came back to the Dome that night putting 50,000 people in there. And we hadn’t even started the World Series yet. People loved that team.
Hartman: I agree with you. I think there was more of a connection. I'm so glad you brought up coming back from Detroit. I mean, you beat a great Detroit team, which battled Toronto down the stretch, and you play so well including winning the two games in Detroit. Among your most vivid memories, when you're on the bus, and you land out at MSP and you're going to the Metrodome, and all of a sudden the bus basically goes down onto the field. And when you look around and the place is packed, this isn't a game. This is this organic celebration that cannot be touched in Minnesota. How vivid is that among all your memories?
Hrbek: Well, I think if you talk to everybody on the ‘87 team, that's even more so than winning the World Series. It almost seemed that most of the guys that we talked to when we have reunions or I hear people on interviews and this and that, one of the most touching, the most heartwarming things ever was that welcome back from Detroit after winning the pennant. It was an unbelievable sight. We had just won in Detroit. We came back, we were on the plane thinking we're going to go back home, land, get in our cars and our cars were not at the Dome. They were at the airport. Or family was picking us up at the airport. They told us on the plane that actually, Laurel Prieb, the traveling secretary came on the intercom on the plane and said, ‘Hey, they decided to throw something together, a little welcome home for you guys back at the Dome’. Now this didn't start until after we had won in Detroit, so I don't know what time the game finished there in Detroit. Probably what, five, six o'clock.
So they threw this thing together and invited these people to come down to the Dome and 50,000 people said, ‘We're going down to the Dome’.
I mean, if you're having a party and you want some people to come over to your house, you're lucky if you get a half a dozen in a five hour span. They got 50,000 people to show up at this thing. They kept telling us, you know, there might be 15,000, 20,000 people. And we were like, come on. And then when we landed and the guys in the buses picked us up, the bus drivers going, ‘man, we heard it's crazy downtown, they're going to get a police escort because it can't get into town. The town's crazy.’ And we're like, well, what's going on here? Boy, when we pulled in, not even close to the Dome yet, into Minneapolis, it was just abuzz down there. It was crazy. And of course when we walked inside the Dome, it was so weird because I remember there was me and my no smoking thing all the time at first base doing no smoking. I just remember for some reason, when that gate opened up, when that door opened up in right field and we walked in, there was like a blue haze in there. Like the no smoking ban was off. It just seemed smoky. It was like walking in an old bar back in the day.
There were guys, Gary Gaetti was crying, Bert (Blyleven) was crying. I mean, we were just, it was really a heartwarming deal. That was just a pennant. We were going, holy smokes, what's going to happen if we win the World Series? So, it was a something that I know everybody on that team is never going to forget.
Hartman: We played the highlight at the start when Gary throws you the ball and you win it. But let's get to game six when the Cardinals are up 3-2. Cardinals jump out to the lead and you hit the Grand Slam. Take me through what you're thinking and how that played out and how it just essentially turned the game completely around. The team gets 15 hits and you win 11-5.
Hrbek: Yeah, Donnie Baylor had the big home run before I even got up there and earlier in the game I had been picked off the second base. I don’t know if you remember that. I get reminded of that and I remember my agent was telling me he was up in the stands when I got picked off the second base. They about threw him out of the stadium and everybody's hollering at him and blah, blah, blah.
I knew the situation was going to happen if Puck was going to get up, they were going to walk whoever was before him and they were going to bring (Ken) Dayley into face me at that time. I was 0-16 against lefthanders at that time in the playoffs. I was struggling a bit. I guess a lot more than a bit. I wasn't nervous at all when I walked up to the plate. I mean, that's what you play this game for when you're playing in your profession. You want that. I did it a million times in my backyard playing Whiffle Ball with my buddies, hitting the Grand Slam to win a World Series or hitting a Grand Slam in a World Series, or whatever. You played it as a kid.
So I felt at home. Literally at home, playing in my hometown here and everything. I was very calm up at the plate and said, you know, hit a good pitch. Give it a good rip. My dad always told me, hit the ball someplace hard and I looked fastball. He threw it where I was swinging and I wanted to run around the bases about 20 times, but they only let you run around once. It was, as far as a personal thing, it was one of my greatest memories. But boy, it didn't mean nothing because we still had to go into game seven. It got us to game seven and it was then we celebrate with 24 guys or how many other people were in that clubhouse when we were done. It’s a heck a lot more than celebrating. That meant nothing until we won the whole thing.