) is very ill with esophageal cancer. This really kind of hits me hard because for some reason when I was eleven years old, I kind of adopted him as my first Major League hero, you know, the one that you have as your own special player that's not your dad or your brother's favorite, just yours. I'm not even sure why I picked Harmon Killebrew, since he was a very different type of player than me, especially in the power department. But I think it was just the way he played the game( of course he seemed to hit a homerun in every game I saw him play in the mid to late 1960's, but I know that's impossible). He seemed to be such a nice guy in interviews, very humble and he was willing to play outfield, first base or third base, where ever the team needed him really, and although he wasn't a gold glover at any of them, he always gave it everything he had.Harmon hit 573 steroid free HRs and everyone of them that I saw was a towering blast in the pitcher dominated 60's for the most part in many pitcher favored ballparks. At that time I thought he hit 40 plus HRs every year and might do it the rest of his life, but eight times of 40 plus in those years was really something. Yeah, he struck out a lot and only hit .256, but let me tell you, it was a HARD .256 with tons of walks. No throwing bats or cursing after strikeouts, sometimes even a little smile but a quite confident smile that said, "you got me that time, but I'll be up again in an inning or two", and so many times Harmon won the next battle.
We often wonder if our heroes are really like they seem to be on the TV screen or at the ballpark. All I've had to do is read all the comments following the report on ESPN, from former Yankee, Tiger, White Sox, etc. as well as Twins fans of course. Comment after comment, except for the usual one or two morons extoll what a nice man he was and is in real life with many recording personal experiences with Killebrew. So it seems Harmon Killebrew deserved to be my hero when I was kid after all and unlike many players can still be admired forty years later.
