Torii Hunter and his bad memory

Published: 24^th Mar 12 8:17 am

by Peter Ellwood
peterellwood

RANT It!

Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

Torii Hunter is doing a great job of teaching revisionist history, showcasing how the human mind often chooses to remember things the way we want to remember things, as opposed to how they actually happened. Just like you may have a wacky uncle, or an aging grandpa who likes to embellish a story a little bit, so is Hunter.

It is probably tough to keep all the names, dates, faces, and events in line for Torii Hunter. After all, he has played 1,841 games at the MLB level, including postseason games. However, that doesn’t change the fact that his recollection of particular moments in his career is sometimes flawed, and in the next two exhibits, downright wrong.

First, in 2010, there was this story told by ol’ grandpa Hunter. The veteran Hunter graciously made the move from center field to right field to make room for Peter Bourjos. His explanation for doing so?

“Kirby did the same thing for me, he moved to right field to make room for me in center field,” Hunter said.
“[Bourjos] is a great kid. He’s 23 years old, he can run, so let him run. With that kind of speed, I’ll work with him. My job, like Kirby’s job, was to help the next guy coming along. And my job is to help us win games.”

That was very kind of him. The only issue with the memory is that Hunter’s first professional game for the Minnesota Twins took place 694 days after Kirby Puckett’s last game he ever played. Puckett’s last game was September 28, 1995. Hunter’s first game was August 22, 1997. Hunter entered that game as a pinch runner. It was the only game he played in all of 1997.

Then, yesterday came this story, as reported by Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. More interesting to me than that story, however, is this report by The Common Man of The Platoon Advantage.

The story is about a Twins-Yankees playoff game that took place in 2004. As Hunter tells the story to Heyman, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire asked Lew Ford to pinch-hit in a game against Mariano Rivera. Hunter then says that Ford shook his head no, and refused to face Rivera. Gardenhire was then forced to put in Jason Kubel to face Rivera. To Hunter (and the witch-hunter Heyman), this was a microcosm of the entire Minnesota Twins team mentality of intimidation and fear of the pinstripes. The story suggests this mentality was prevalent in not only that playoff series, but each of the four times the Twins faced the Yankees in the playoffs in the 2000s (including 2009 and 2010 when Hunter was a member of the Angels).

Appreciatively, The Common Man has a couple of observations about that recollection:

Kubel never pinch hit against Rivera in 2004 (his first year in the Majors), and Lew Ford started three of the four games, and in the one he didn’t start, Rivera faced six batters, and none of them were (or should have been) pinch hit for.

And Bill from TPA added the following:

Kubel’s only pinch-hit appearance in the series came against Tom Gordon, and he doubled.

Hunter very well may have been correct that the Twins did have an element of intimidation and fear against the Yankees in those playoff series. He was one of a handful of people in that clubhouse, he should know. Unfortunately, the example he chose to give to demonstrate his point was just flat wrong.

Connect with Rant Sports