RIP Harmon Killebrew

Multiple Twitter feeds reporting that he died this morning in Scottsdale.

 

http://www.startribune.com/122004519.html

R.I.P.

 

RIP.

I remember watching him on that old Home Run Derby show in black and white. According to the always trusty wikipedia, he was 2-2 in four appearances.

 

A humble, good man. Hope his suffering was minimal.

RIP.

 

RIP. Sports could use more good men like Killebrew.

Godspeed, Mr. Twin.

 

In a 12-year period from 1959-1970, he hit 40 or more homers eight times, and 39 once. That's pretty staggering for what was unequivocally a pitcher's era.

This kind of hits home for me because my mother died in very much the same way. She came home from the hospital and entered hospice care after our family elected to end her cancer treatments (she was incapacitated by a stroke), and died three days later.

 

3:40 in:

 

RIP, to the Fat Kid.

 

In 2003 or so, my wife and I were driving home from a Dodgers game and listening to Dodgers Talk when the trivia question was "Besides Babe Ruth, who hit the most home runs in the American League."
People were guessing Reggie Jackson and Mickey Mantle, but I knew it was Killebrew.
Since I was driving, I had my wife call the radio station and when she got on the air and said she knew the answer, Ross Porter kind of scoffed.
Well, she was correct and we won tickets to a future game.
A couple years later we were in a memorabilia shop on the Strip in Las Vegas, and someone said Killebrew was signing autographs up the street. We told the shop owner our story and he said we had to share it with Harmon.
He locked the door and walked us to where Harmon was. Killebrew was gracious as we told the story and shook our hands, although we felt trapped into paying $30 for an autographed photo.
That experience proved to be worth much more than the $30 and the photo remains on the wall in our family room.
RIP to a great baseball player and a better man.

 

r.i.p. to one more childhood, bigger-than-life figure.

we knew it was cominga when they announced over the weekend he was being move to a hospice -- always seems to be within 3 days of making that decision -- but it still hurts nonetheless. by all accounts a wonderful, gentle man.

for all our youngin's, think: right-handed jim thome.