Twins Legend Harmon Killebrew Dies

Sad news today for Minnesota Twins family of players and fans, Twins great Harmon Killebrew passed away at the age of 74 after a five month battle with esophageal cancer.

I remember meeting him when I was a kid, he signed my baseball glove and couldn't have been nicer to his fans.  He will be missed.

Killebrew was the face of the Twins franchise for 14 seasons after the franchise moved to Minnesota from Washington, D.C. before the 1961 season. He is 11th on the all-time major league home run list with 573, of which 475 were hit wearing a Twins uniform. He has the eight highest single-season totals in Twins' history. And he became the team's first MVP in 1969 and its first Hall of Fame inductee in 1984.

Killebrew became so popular that a root beer was named after him. And his home runs were such a drawing crowd that then-owner Calvin Griffith made the slugger the team's first $100,000 player in 1971.

Killebrew retained strong ties with Minnesota right up to his passing, making several appearances in the Twin Cities each year, and since 2006 making an annual trip to the Twins spring training camp.

"That was probably as good as a moment you can have as a manager, to say you were rubbing elbows with Harmon Killebrew,'' said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire.

via StarTribune