Fading Before Our Eyes

You may have missed it this week, but the sun is about to set for yet another of the great ball players of the past. Hall of Famer and Minnesota Twins great Harmon Killebrew announced on Friday that he is stopping his cancer treatment and will enter hospice care. Killebrew announced he had esophageal cancer late last year. At first it seemed he would beat the disease much in the same way he pounded his 573 home runs (11th all-time), but in his statement Friday he said doctors told him they had “exhausted all options with respect to controlling this awful disease.”

It is yet another reminder that time marches on. Even for men like Killebrew who must have been viewed as indestructible to those who saw him play. He hit at least 40 home runs eight times in his career and former major league pitcher Gary Peters told Richard Sandomir of the New York Times that Killebrew had as much power as Mickey Mantle or Frank Howard.

In the wake of the passing of Dodgers great Duke Snider, baseball will soon lose another hero. It's going to happen more in the coming years as Stan Musial (90), Hank Aaron (77) and Willie Mays (80) aren't getting any younger. Writers will wax eloquent of the feats these men performed on the diamond and I wonder if we did enough to honor them while they are still with us on this Earth. Everyone lauded the exploits of Mantle, Mays, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams while Musial and Aaron feel brushed aside to me. Perhaps much in the same way they raved about Babe Ruth while Lou Gehrig performed in the shadows.

It's a shame most of America and its baseball writers only rediscovered Hammerin' Hank's greatness in the wake of Barry Bonds passing him on the all-time home run list. It's probably why I was giddy to meet Doug Flynn, a utility infielder on the Big Red Machine. I just wanted him to know how much he and his teammates meant to me. The same way I walked over to Eric Davis a few years ago, wide-eyed and excited as a school boy, to tell him thank you for the 1990 World Series title. He seemed to look at me like "you are way too happy to meet me," but he couldn't have been more appreciative.

I met Killebrew once before a game in the mid 1970s. Way too young to know what a big deal that was, but my Dad did. Now I won't get the chance to meet him again, nor will I likely have the honor of meeting Musial, Aaron or Mays. Won't have the opportunity to tell them how great they were or voice how much I admired their accomplishments. Or even just to tell them how much joy they brought to the countless number of fans who watched them play and wishing I could have been one.

One of my regrets in life is I never made it possible for my Dad to meet his hero, Duke Snider. They say never meet your heroes. You only open yourself up to disappointment. But if it's just to say "thank you" isn't it worth the risk?