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Prize Catch: With his fearless fielding and a suddenly sizzling bat, Twins centerfielder Torii Hunter has been a gem for his endangered ballclub Hunter has no fear. "To catch a ball," he says, "I'd commit suicide." In 1999, his first full season as a Twin, he earned a spot in his pitchers' hearts by routinely robbing hitters of extra bases with acrobatic catches before crashing into the outfield wall at breakneck speed. To those who had followed his career, it was nothing new. On June 21, 1997, Michael Coleman, an outfielder for the Double A Trenton (N.J.) Thunder, smoked a shot to deep centerfield at Trenton's Waterfront Park. Just as the ball was leaving the stadium, Hunter, playing for the New Britain (Conn.) Rock Cats, leaped, stole Coleman's would-be home run and then crashed through the eight-foot-high plywood wall like a rock through construction paper. "That catch," says Al Newman, Hunter's manager at the time and now Minnesota's third base coach, "is the most athletically impressive play I've ever seen." -- Jeff Pearlman Issue date: April 29, 2002 Photograph by John Biever |
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