Hrbek and friends

Last night I played D&D. Judge not lest I jump on a table and cleave you in twain! I dubbed my dwarf Hrbek after Kent Hrbek, one time All Star first baseman of the Minnesota Twins in the eighties and early nineties (the beta baseball-reference is pretty sweet). My perception of Kent Hrbek was previously limited to the image of him as an R.B.I. Baseball 4 power hitter.



He hit 20 home runs in 1991! Although you could play as playoff teams from the eighties, I guess I never connected one of the best years of his career, 1987, to my general conception of him because I've erroneously likened his career to a flash in the pan sort of guy like, say, Brad Wilkerson. After browsing through his numbers, though, I found that he actually had a pretty consistent 14 year career (1981-1994): all but his initial year (only 24 games) as the Twins primary first baseman and a fixture in the middle of their order with Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti. He had 293 dingers and a respectable slash line of .282/.367/.481. Not bad, Kent Hrbek, not bad.

Speaking of Gaetti [known to my family as "Fucking Gaetti!" I believe because of his 3-run homer against the Padres in the 1996 ALDS (also because he's fucking ugly)], when I quickly looked at his numbers something stuck out to me; in 1984 he played in 162 games, had 588 at bats, and only had 5 home runs. He had 117.6 at bats per home runs that year while his career rate was 24.7 and the next highest season rate he put up was 38.0. None of his other stats that year are very out of the ordinary for him. Weird!

Looking further at the rest of Hrbek's 1987 World Champion Twins teammates, they all have some pretty inspiring names: Gaetti, Blyleven, Gladden, Larkin, Reardon... Presuming I continue rolling the dice (pretty sure I am), I believe I'll continue to name my characters after members of the 1987 Twins.