G-Man
Like My Brother
Gary Gaetti was like a brother to me. That’s no exaggeration. We grew up together as professionals—spending a year together at Wisconsin Rapids in Class-A ball; hitting our first big-league homers late in 1981; and losing 102 games together as rookies in ’82. Maybe it was all that losing that made us so close. One thing we had in common, maybe more than anything else, was that we hated to lose.
Tom Kelly told people at various times that there was no one on the team who wanted to win more than Kent Hrbek. I took a lot of pride in that. I hated every opponent, and I absolutely hated to lose. G-Man was the same way, and I liked that about him from the first time we met.
Gary would walk up on the top dugout step and scream obscenities at the opposing pitcher. There were times he’d strike out on three curve balls in the dirt, stomp back to the dugout, and yell at the pitcher that he was chicken shit for not having the guts to throw a fastball. Gary didn’t think much of a pitcher’s manliness if he had to rely on a curveball, rather than go toe-to-toe with a fastball.
Gary would even scream at our own pitchers when he felt they had thrown the wrong pitch. You can see that to this day in the video from Game 6 of the ’87 World Series. One of our pitchers gave up a hit, and you can see Gary kicking the dirt and cussing in the background.
Some writers described Gary as the heart and soul of our team in the ’80s. In a lot of ways, he was our leader. He had this Italian name, could grow a beard in half an hour, and grew up as this tough guy. He was a couple years older than me, and I always felt I could learn something from him.
Roomies
We roomed together on the road from our rookie year pretty much until late in the 1980s. It wasn’t cool to have a road roommate in those years. If you made enough money, most guys would get a single room.
Gary and I didn’t think that way. We liked rooming together. Not only could we save a little money, but we had someone to talk to at night. Many nights we’d be going over the games long after we shut the lights out. That year we lost 102 games, and it seemed like every stinking night we’d go back to the room and talk about what we could have done better.
Two of my best friends in baseball were Gary Gaetti (left) and Randy Bush (right). Courtesy of the Minnesota Twins
The one thing we almost never talked about was each other’s hitting because we were so different as hitters. Gary tried to guess on every pitch, and that’s why he looked so stupid sometimes. But if he guessed right on a fastball, look out. I tried to pick up every pitch as it was released. I always felt like I could pick up the spin. I’d try to see the curveball coming out of the pitcher’s hand because most pitchers pop up their hand a little more throwing a curve than a fastball. So we were on different wavelengths, and we left that subject alone.
But we talked a lot of other baseball and a lot of life in general. On the days we lost, we’d both be pissed off. A lot of times we’d go take it out on a bottle of beer or a glass of whiskey. We laughed together, drank a few pops and cocktails together, and sometimes got drunker than hell together. Through it all, I watched his back, and I knew he’d be there to watch mine.
All or Nothing
Gary was a little different in his approach than most guys, not only to baseball but life in general. When he dove into something, he’d go all the way up to his neck. He wasn’t a guy who touched the water with his toe before going in. He just jumped.
One example was when Roy Smalley brought this eat-to-win thing into the clubhouse. Well, Gary dove into that. Pretty soon, he was totally into the diet, even more than Smalley. Another time, Gary started going to a sports psychologist, and he became convinced that focus was the key to success.
Well, in 1988, Gary found religion. That came about shortly after we traded Tom Brunansky to the Cardinals for Tommy Herr, who is probably the only guy I played with whom I really didn’t like as a teammate. Herr was a born-again Christian and spent most of his time in the clubhouse sitting in front of his locker, reading the Bible. Gary’s locker was next to Herr’s, and by the end of the year, Gary was sitting in front of his locker, reading the Bible.
But I didn’t dislike Tommy Herr because he helped convert G-Man. I disliked Herr because he didn’t want to be here. He got off the plane in Minneapolis the night of the trade and told people he’d been crying over leaving the Cardinals. He never did seem like he wanted to be here, and he just didn’t fit in with us. That’s why I didn’t like Tommy Herr.
The religion was Gary’s choice, not Herr’s. What got to me—and what changed our relationship—was that Gary started preaching to me. I honestly didn’t care what Gary was into, or what he believed in, but I didn’t want him preaching to me.
He said some goofy things, like telling me that if I kept drinking beer, I was going to hell. Now, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? I said, “Gary, the same thing you were doing with me last year—running around, having a good time, closing up bars—now I’m going to hell because of it? And you’re not?” I never understood that. But Gary was convinced, even more so than he had been on diets and sports psychologists.
The summer of 1988 was a long one. It was like Gary Gaetti had died—at least the Gary Gaetti I knew. One day he was one person, the next day he was someone else. It was almost that quick.
Gary got involved with some people who were almost like a cult, and they had people in every city. We were still rooming together on the road, and there were nights Gary wouldn’t come back to the room because he’d be with some group talking religion all night. He’d show up in the clubhouse half an hour before batting practice, grab his Bible, and start reading.
It changed our clubhouse. I know it hurt TK, too. TK lost his fiery third baseman, the one who would be screaming at the opponent from the top steps of the dugout after striking out. Now when he struck out, he’d just walk back to the dugout, place his bat back in the rack, and sit down. All of a sudden everybody, including the opponent, was good. And if you didn’t do it his way, you were going to hell.
We had other guys who were into religion big-time back then. Greg Gagne was, but he didn’t preach to others. I had no problem at all with Gags. Brian Harper preached a little. Tommy Herr mostly just sat there and read his Bible. To each his own. I just didn’t like being preached to.
The End Wasn’t Near
But we were able to have a little fun with most of the guys who got into religion, even on the subject of religion. We had a road trip to Seattle that coincided with what some people thought was going to be the end of the world. Everybody thought they were going to be blasted off to heaven—they believed that was literally going to happen. Gagne and Harper brought their wives on the trip because they were so sure the end of the world was upon us.
Our clubhouse guy was Jimmy Wiesner, another guy I loved because he absolutely hated the opponent. I looked over in the dugout on the day all this was supposed to happen, and Wiesner had a batting helmet on. That was weird, even for Jimmy. He never even wore a hat. When I asked him why he had a helmet on, he said, “Well, if I’m going to take off straight to heaven, I’m going to be going through the roof of the Kingdome, and I’m going to hit my head like hell.” Wiesey was always a guy who could jab any player on the team.
Everybody took the joking well and laughed. By the end of the day, we were all still on Earth, and the guys were back reading their Bibles trying to figure out how the whole thing had been messed up.
But with G-Man, it got to the point that year where things became sticky. You couldn’t mess with him. G-Man started getting angry when you joked around, and you had to watch what you said.
So that was the year it was like I lost my brother, like I had suffered another death in the family. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. The fire that G-Man brought to the team—that fire that had helped us win the World Series in 1987—just went out.
At the end of the 1990 season, the Twins didn’t make much of an effort to re-sign Gaetti. So he left as a free agent and signed with the Angels. I think everybody felt a change of scenery would be best for both Gary and the team. Since 1988, when we won 91 games, our record had steadily declined to 78–84 in 1990.
Obviously, we had other problems those years than Gary’s conversion. The Herr trade was a fiasco, and the Twins packaged him in a trade after the ’88 season for left-hander Shane Rawley, who was 5–12 with an equally bad ERA in his only season.
By the time the 1990 season ended, things were better between Gary and me. I think we just learned to accept that this was the way things were. He went his way; I went mine. I certainly didn’t hate him. When he decided to leave, it wasn’t like I was pushing for the Twins to get rid of him. We were past all that stuff.
We talked about the preaching, and that got patched up. I’m not a guy who gives too many people second chances, but I did with him. Just like you’d give your brother a second chance. I loved the guy.
After he left, I rooted for him. Not when he played the Twins, of course. But the other times, I sure did.
A couple years later, he kind of chilled out a little. He even had a beer now and then, which was funny, because it kind of became big news around our club. “Geez, did you hear G-Man was seen having a beer?” Like I’d never seen that before.
We’ve been hunting a few times after that. We’ve laughed, told stories, had a heater or two, and sipped a few beers.
Almost like old times.