HIS EYES ARE clear and bright, the color of the sky on a late-summer afternoon. One look and you start wondering if he could still pick out a rising fastball on the outside corner of the plate and send it 425 feet over the fence.
Hall of Fame infielder Harmon Killebrew was in Salt Lake, Monday, as a spokesman for Vista Hospice Care, a national organization involved with caring for and comforting those with terminal illnesses. Thus, he spent most of the day at Salt Lake hospitals, meeting fans who remember, or have read of when he was the scourge of American League pitchers."This," he said, looking out at the nearly-full stands at Franklin Quest Field, "is wonderful."
Killebrew, of course, is a relic from the days when baseball was the national pastime. He's a treasure, but to younger fans he's also a curiosity. He was before free agency and long before gold chains and contract holdouts. In Killebrew's day, only the catchers wore their hats backward.
His was an era of heroes, not of greed and petulance. He hit 573 home runs in 22 years, in a time before the talent was diluted by expansion. He remains a link to a time when baseball was still a romantic notion. There was no George Steinbrenner, meddling and bullying his way to his luxury suite. There were few large corporations buying up teams and working out marketing strategies for the masses. Players played for fun. The most he ever made in a season was $120,000. Now the minimum salary is $109,000 and MLB is considering raising it to $150,000.
"I guess it's all relative," he said.
But unlike today's players, who work on finding endorsement deals and taking exotic vacations in the off-season, in Killebrew's era they had off-season jobs. He worked for a gas company and in amen's clothing store in the winters. That was his job. In the summers, his job was to hit prodigious home runs.
"We had real jobs in the winter," he said.
For fans who have grown up watching Barry Bonds and Albert Belle, Killebrew may as well be Christy Matthewson or Lou Gehrig. He's from a long-forgotten era when players still sang the words to the national anthem; an era when young kids memorized batting averages and home run totals. Still, Killebrew hasn't been forgotten. He spent 11/2 hours before Monday's Buzz-Edmonton game at Franklin Quest Field signing autographs. When he arrived at 5:30, about 80 people were already in line; by 6:45 he had signed some 250 autographs.
The interest in Killebrew illustrates a point: Though baseball has turned off millions of fans, many see it as a tie to their youth and an era when things were simpler. His name brings back memories of long summer afternoons and 5-cent bottled Cokes and strapping your mitt shut with a belt to break it in. It reminds them of a time when players spent entire careers in the same city, playing for the same team, and you could rattle off the entire starting lineup of your favorite team.
Killebrew neither excuses nor condemns today's players. He allows that players and owners can't afford to aleniate fans more than they already have, yet mentions players such as Cal Ripken Jr. as reason to be optimistic about the game.
"Baseball needs to get an agreement worked out," he said. "People were very forgiving last time. They may not be so forgiving next time."
A couple of years ago, Hall of Fame members were sent a questionnaire, asking what they thought baseball needs to do to revive interest. Most suggested changes such as speeding up the game. "But to me, if we could ever get back to where kids were talking about their stats, rather than their salaries, that would be great," he said. "But I don't know whether that will ever happen."
Still, Killebrew won't give up on the game that he lived for 22 years in the major leagues. He felt chills go up his spine last season when Ripken set the all-time record for consecutive games, and the fans stood and cheered as he circled the field. Killebrew still sees the intrigue of a one-out pitch with a man on first, and relishes the decisions to be made.
"Nothing," he said, "is wrong with the game. It's still basically the same game. If you really know the game, you can get something out of every play. You have a man on first and one out, what you gonna do with it?"
So as baseball struggles on, trying to find an answer, Killebrew prefers to think that the game never really left, it just lost its way. Now all it has to do is find its way back home.