Hangin' With Mr. Hunter: The Twins Birthday Party Promo

To paraphrase those great, American poets CSN&Y, it's been a long time gone from the blogoshpere for me. Settling in at the cockpit, testing the controls, with an easy subject...the effervescent Torii Hunter. He decided to leave via free agency over five years ago, we cheer on cue for him, while A.J. Pierzynski (traded for a cornucopia of talent) will poke his head out of the Rangers dugout at Target Field sometime this summer and STILL get the hell booed out of him. One smiles, the other smirks. Go figure.

This commercial is now six years old, but it still recalls the spontaneity we enjoy about the guy.

Were one an alien, intent on learning about the best of our culture (if not wanting to fry the brains out of our skulls), Torii Hunter and baseball would be a great place to start.

Joy or outright terror? You decide

There is also this Hunter Metrodome anecdote, regarding the pitfalls of playing on a rock-hard, artificial surface. It showcases the man's humor well, translating almost as well in print as it did when Torii held court for us at Twins Fests, or post-game interviews. It is from a fine, Oct. 3, 2009 piece by Jim Caple for SI.Com:

"In 2000, I dove for the ball to win the game against the Oakland A's and I started sliding across the turf, and when I stopped sliding, I smelled something ," Hunter said. "I smelled a melting smell. And it was my buttons. They were all melted. And I had a goatee and it was all kind of shaved off because my face hit the turf and the carpet burned it off. It was kind of melted and skin was missing and everything was bad because I started a fire diving for a ball on the old turf."

Now that Torii is now a member of our division rival Detroit Tigers, I look forward to the coming 2013 season, where he'll now be playing against the Twins for 19-some games. He has always been superb at saying something funny, and playing to his audience, dishing whatever it is they want to hear (i.e., "Yeah, sure, I'd love to come back to play for the Twins - they raised me from a baby"). Straight from the Reggie Jackson Institute of Public Speaking. Hopefully, a camera will be there to pick up the man's schtick. This is for certain: he's a universe away from the scared young guy who was flailing miserably at breaking pitches in his rookie season, circa 1998.

As our old friend at the broadcast mic used to say:
"So long, everybody!" - Herb Carneal