BOSTON — Paul Molitor is absent again today in order to be in Cooperstown, N.Y., for the Hall of Fame inductions. Another manager in the Twins organization is not, but probably wishes he could be.
Joel Skinner, the Twins' manager at Class AAA Rochester, is a former teammate, confidante, coach and even manager to Jim Thome, one of six players being inducted Sunday afternoon. "He's one of the best human beings I've ever met, in baseball or out of it," Thome said of Skinner. "I owe him so much."
Included in that tab: One bat. Thome loves giving credit to Skinner for his first career home run, because he used a Joel Skinner model to hit it.
"I was just a young kid, a September call-up, and it was the last weekend of the season. In those days, rookies didn't get very many bats, and I was getting low," Thome, then a 21-year-old Indians third-base prospect, said of that game in Yankee Stadium, on Oct. 4, 1991. "It was the ninth inning, we were down a run, and they had their closer, breaking-ball specialist Steve Farr, on the mound. I had broken a bat that day, and Joel came over and said, 'Hey, kid, use this one.' When a veteran offers, you use it."
Recalls Skinner with a laugh, "You could see he didn't have any bats. And mine had plenty of hits left in them."
But the bat came with something just as valuable, Thome said: Advice. Skinner was a 30-year-old veteran catcher, the son of a former big-leaguer, too, and passed along a tip to the rookie who, in his first 25 games had yet to hit a home run.
"He said, 'He's going to throw you a fastball here. Don't miss it,' " Thome said. "Sure enough, I get up there and here comes the fastball."
It landed in the upper deck, and won the game, the first of 612 home runs, now eighth-most in major-league history, that Thome would hit over 22 seasons. Though it wasn't a walk-off winner, Thome belted plenty of those, too, 13 in all. It was also the beginning of a close friendship that endures more than 25 years later.
