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Kent Hrbek's
Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout
CHAPTER EXCERPT
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| Kent Hrbek's Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout by Kent Hrbek with Dennis Brackin |
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EXCERPT : After The Slam
My buddy, Wade Boelter was at Game 6, and he and his wife, Natalie, and Jeanie and I went out after the game. I’ve known Wade since junior high, and we were the best man at each other’s wedding. And now he and his wife live down the block from us. We left the Dome about 7:30 that night and stopped for dinner at Fletcher’s on Lake Minnetonka. Jeanie and I ate at Fletcher’s quite a bit, because I was still living on the lake at the time.
I had my standard fare—prime rib—and we ordered a bottle of champagne.
I thought I deserved a glass of champagne after the grand slam. Jeanie saved the cork from that bottle, and we still have it downstairs, with Game 6 written on it as a reminder of the night.
I’d been to the restaurant enough that having Kent Hrbek eating dinner there was no big deal. It was exciting, but fairly subdued, although a few people came up and high-fived me. Minneapolis back then was the kind of place you could hit a World Series grand slam and still go out and have a nice meal without getting mauled. The people were polite and let us eat in relative peace. But you could sense the anticipation of Game 7.
We got home about 10 and my phone rang. It was Wade’s cousin from Litchfield, which is about 50 to 60 miles west of the Twin Cities.
Wade’s cousins were the Piepenberg brothers—Dale, Kevin and Doug—and I’d been hunting with them and their dad, Bud, a bunch of times. I could hear Wade saying, “Ah, you’re nuts. He’s not going with us tomorrow.”
I said, “What’s going on?” Wade put his hand over the phone and said the Bluebills came in last night. Well, when the Bluebills come in, you’ve usually got a two- or three-day hunt, and that’s it. The ducks are in, then they’re out. So I said to Wade: “Let’s go.” And Wade turned to me and said, “We’re not going. You’ve got a fairly important ball game tomorrow,” meaning Game 7 of the World Series.
I told Wade I wasn’t going to be able to sleep all night anyway, so I’d go to bed early, get a couple hours of sleep, be hunting by sunrise and come home and take a nap. That’s nothing I wouldn’t have done on a normal game day. I used to get up early and go fishing a lot, contrary to what my former manager Ray Miller might have thought.
So Wade finally relented, and said if you want to go, we’ll go. Jeanie was always great about making sure I stayed on the right path and didn’t do too many goofy things. I don’t remember her saying, “No, you idiot, you’re not going.”
Wade and his wife stayed overnight at our house, and we got up and left about 5 a.m. the next morning. I drove my pickup to Litchfield, and as was often the case I was low on gas. So we pulled into a station in Hutchinson, about 35 miles west of Minneapolis, and I asked Wade to pump the gas and go inside to pay because if I walked in they were going to ask: “What the hell is Kent Hrbek doing out here at 5:30 the morning of Game 7?” I actually wasn’t all that concerned about that—getting Wade to go in was just a ploy to get him to pay for the gas.
It worked. Wade went in, paid and came back with this big shit-eating grin on his face. He said the morning paper was out already, and my mug was plastered all over the front page. Wade said when he walked in, there was a group of guys talking about the Twins, and a highway patrol guy turned to him and said, “You think the boys are going to do it tonight?” Wade told me he came this close to telling the trooper, “Why don’t you just go ask the guy sitting in the truck?” But he bit his tongue.
When we reached the slew, I realized I must have been a little distracted. A flock flew over, and I’d forgotten to put bullets in my gun. I was probably thinking about the game, at least subconsciously.
But in the end, we got some ducks, drove home and I took a nice little nap and then headed to the ballpark.
To me, it was no big deal. I’m not the kind of person who’s going to sit and dwell on something. I’m going to do it my way, and for the most part that’s worked for me. I’m pretty certain of this: I got more sleep that night, counting my nap, than our Game 7 starter, Frank Viola.
Knowing Frankie, he was definitely up all night.
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