Twins greats remember Harmon Killebrew fondly
Tony Oliva and Julio Becquer sat at a table in the Target Field interview room Tuesday afternoon talking about the close friendship they shared with Harmon Killebrew. They had lost a friend. But it was the tributes that came from Kent Hrbek, Paul Molitor and Jack Morris that were the most touching. The Minnesota natives and former Twins hadn't just lost a friend, they also had lost someone who was their boyhood hero long before they stepped on a major league field. Morris was the last player to talk about Killebrew, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 74 after a six-month battle with esophageal cancer. Known as a hard-nosed, gritty competitor during his playing days, Morris made no attempt to hide his emotions. His eyes watering and his voice cracking, Morris paid tribute to Killebrew, saying, "I lost a hero." "The one thing that hits home the most with Harmon is his strength," Morris continued. "Not as a player but as a person. In his strength and his kindness. To me, juicy couture outelt he was a real man, he was all man, because he loved so much. He is this family that we call the Minnesota Twins." Killebrew's family released a statement last Friday that the Hall of Fame slugger's battle with cancer was near an end and that he was entering hospice care. "I think at this point, I think it's more of a celebration of his life than it is a mourning of his death for me," Morris said. "I'll always remember the good in Harmon and like Paul and like Kent to remember the innocence of being a young kid who just looked up to a guy he didn't know because of what he did as a baseball player that you hoped that maybe someday you could be like. As a grown man now, I look back at him not as that guy but as the guy that tried to show me you don't have to be angry, you don't have to be mad. You can love and share love." Hrbek, who grew up in the shadow of Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington and would sit in the left field seats hoping to catch a Killebrew home run as a kid, said Killebrew "was to me Paul Bunyan with a uniform on." Molitor, Oliva and Becquer all made trips to the Scottsdale, Ariz., area last weekend to say goodbye to Killebrew. Oliva and Becquer went together and found Killebrew in good spirits on Saturday before things took a turn for the worse on Sunday. "Killebrew was laughing and that was happy for me because I was thinking I would go see him in very bad shape and when I saw him laughing and talking it was a big surprise for me," Oliva said. "That was Saturday and I was happy for me to have that opportunity to get there and see him in person. Sunday was a different story. I came back and was visiting and he was very down. You could see he was hurting. He said, 'You know I love you.'" Twins President Dave St. Peter said Tuesday afternoon that details for Killebrew's services still hadn't been finalized. "The franchise will pay tribute to Harmon in a variety of ways," St. Peter said. "Hopefully by playing better baseball. That would be the first thing. I know when I spent time with Harmon the other night the one thing he wanted to talk about was our team. 'What's going on with our team, Dave?' He was always thinking about others. He was worried about Gardy (manager Ron Gardenhire)." The Twins will wear a No. 3 patch on its uniform starting Wednesday night in Seattle. When the club returns home next week, there will be a No. 3 stenciled in behind second base - work on that was being done Tuesday - and Killebrew's autograph will adorn the outfield wall at Target Field. Killebrew always went out of his way to make his signature as perfect as possible. A No. 3 flag also will fly immediately adjacent to the Twins Territory flag just on the other side of Target Plaza. A public memorial service also will take place at Target Field next week, most likely on Thursday. That is an off day for the club.