num_pages: 186
description: Imagine a story in which a young man grows up so close to a major- league ballpark that he can see the stadium lights from his front yard. He pretends to be the team's star during neighborhood ball games and fantasizes about one day playing for his hometown team. Stop imagining. Kent Hrbek made those childhood dreams come true. Hrbek was born and raised in Bloomington, Minnesota, site of the Twins' first Minnesota home, Met Stadium. The kid who dreamed about being a Minnesota Twin played 14 seasons for the franchise, helping the club win two World Series titles. His jersey is now one of five retired by the Twins, hanging alongside the likes of Tony Oliva, the hitter he emulated as a child. It's a fairytale story. But it's only part of Kent Hrbek's Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout. There's a cruel reality to the story as well. Hrbek was a 20-year-old playing in Class-A ball when he learned that his father was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. He endured two serious knee injuries before playing a full minor-league season. And he played hurt most of his career, downing Tylenol as if they were M&amp;Ms. Kent Hrbek's Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout is the story of those dreams and realities. Enjoy the humorous tales of pranks pulled by him and his zany teammates, revel in the personal dreams that came true and ponder what might have been had Hrbek not shown such disdain for conditioning and diets. Savor the story of the hometown hero who remains to this day fiercely loyal to his Twins. Savor it, because the reality for modern-day baseball fans is that larger-than-life characters like Kent Hrbek have all but passed from the scene.
language: English
title: Kent Hrbek's Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout
titlecomplete: Kent Hrbek's Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout
genres: Nonfiction, Baseball, Sports, Memoir
ratings_count: 48
publisher: Sports Publishing LLC