The Gentleman Called Killer
The gentleman the sportswriters somewhat desperately called "Killer" was just 23 years old in 1959 -- but by then Harmon Killebrew already had played parts of six seasons in the major leagues. Six seasons. He was of that peculiar bonus baby time, when owners (as owners tend to do) went looking for convoluted and spectacularly destructive methods to control their own spending. Certainly, they might have controlled spending by not spending as much money. But that was deemed unrealistic.
The point is that by 1959, Harmon Killebrew was no phenom. He had been up and down so many times that his name was achingly familiar to Senators fans (and this was right in the prime of the Senators "First in war, first in peace, last in the American League" glory). Killebrew had hit .224 in 280 plate appearances scattered over the years. He is the only Hall of Fame player to get fewer than 500 plate appearances total in his first five years. This is not to say that anyone in the game had given up on Killebrew's future. It's more that his promise had dulled. Albie Pearson won rookie of the year in 1958. People were more excited about him.
Then, the blossoming of Harmon Killebrew happened. It was not gradual. It was instant. On May 1, 1959, Harmon Killebrew hit two home runs at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. There were fewer than 2,000 people in the stands -- the Tigers were dreadful, they had lost 13 of their first 15 games. Killebrew homered in the second inning off a good young pitcher named Jim Bunning. In the 10th inning, with the score still tied, Killebrew hit another homer off Bunning.
Killebrew's amazing home runs stretch in 1959 more or less carried on for the next dozen years. It was his fate to play baseball in the worst hitting era since Deadball, and yet from 1959 to 1970 -- 12 years dominated by pitchers -- Killer hit a home run ever 12.7 at-bats. Up that point, only Babe Ruth had hit home runs so often. Forty-five times in his career he hit two homers in a game. Six times he led the league in home runs. Eight times he hit 40-plus homers in a season.
He was a low average hitter -- he spent a career fighting to make more solid contact -- but he was a ferocious worker, and he developed remarkable plate discipline. "If it isn't a strike, don't swing," he said years later when asked his philosophy of his hitting. He led the league in walks three times, and despite those low averages, from 1966-1971 he led the American League overall in on-base percentage (.401). He wasn't fast or particularly nimble and so playing defense was always a challenge, but he played five different positions, and he played hard, and observers will say he wrestled first base to a draw.
As a hitter, he was ahead of his time. His high-walk, big-power numbers would anticipate the 1990s, when various factors -- steroids not being the least of these, though weight training and advances in diet and so on played their role -- would give many players the superhuman strength of Harmon Killebrew. At the time, though, Killebrew was different. He was apart. He was larger than life.
Much more at link.
about 1 year ago
Chiburb
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I liked Josh Wilker's essay about his card a few years ago.
3. A sense of age. This may have been the most important of all the elements that drew me to this card. The picture on the front of the card hints of what struck my seven-year-old self as great age, in both the gray hair poking out from the cap and in the name that I probably figured must have only existed in a time long before the current era. But it is on the back of the card that this sense of time and history has its most powerful expression. Unlike most other cards, which fill up the empty spaces on the back left by the brief list of years in the major leagues with minor league stats and large-type bullet-item lists containing such information as "Tommy led Eastern League First-Sackers in Putouts," this Harmon Killebrew card only had room to list in unusually small type a line for each of Harmon Killebrew’s many, many seasons in the major leagues. Harmon Killebrew had basically been playing baseball forever. The first few years, which occurred long before I’d even been born, were spent on a team, the Senators, that no longer even existed. They were, like the wooly mammoth and tyrannosaurus rex, long extinct. And yet, here was one of them, an Original Senator, alive and well and still grayly slugging home runs. I was drawn to this not only for its mysteriousness but also for the odd feeling of comfort it gave me. I sensed at times that I was an infinitesimally small speck, inconsequential and frail in an unfathomably large expanse not only of space but of time. The universe went on forever and time stretched forward and backward forever and I was an almost-nothing within it. But Harmon Killebrew was something, and I could hold onto Harmon Killebrew.
http://cardboardgods.net/2007/02/24/harmon-killebrew/
Tommy John was that card to me.
Whales! Squids! Sharks! They're everywhere! Hello, I am Poseidon! Now, when people told me I was crazy that thinly sliced roast beef would be a delicious fast-food option, I knew it was the greatest idea, and you can thank me later for Arby's.
by Jim Margalus on May 17, 2011 2:33 PM CDT up reply actions 4 recs
That's very, very good.
Really makes sad for the baseball memories I didn’t have as a kid. I’m jealous of pretty much everyone on SSS for that reason.
"Analogous caliber is attainable and transcendence is not something of myth." -Rhubarb
for that reason and due to the fact that none of us are afflicted with micropenis.
Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
by MarketMaker on May 17, 2011 3:22 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
i'm sorry. i forgot you've already got the whole mom thing going on here. my bad.
Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
When did you pick up baseball?
I vaguely remember my father making me watch Pete Rose’s recordbreaking hit at teh age of 6.
Always enjoyed it, but didn't really get into it until about seven years ago.
"Analogous caliber is attainable and transcendence is not something of myth." -Rhubarb
pete rose had that effect.
dude started in 1963. my dad was 11 years old.
Kenwo4life=ratings. Just call me Mr. USA Today.



















