Friday column: Recalling day-to-day graciousness

Treating people well — especially those who can’t do anything for you — is a mark of character.

Harmon Killebrew, who died this week at 74, demonstrated that mark.

The adage that it’s impolite to speak ill of the dead hardly deters anyone in this Internet age, but I’ve yet to read something negative about the Twins’ Hall of Fame slugger.

Instead, there are stories about his kindness — nothing spectacular, just account after account of his day-to-day graciousness. How he surprised a family by sending them a personal letter in response to a get-well card they sent him. How he went out of his way to make people feel welcome.

“He was a consummate professional who treated everyone from the brashest of rookies to the groundskeepers to the ushers in the stadium with the utmost of respect,” former teammate Rod Carew said. “I would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for Harmon Killebrew.”

Once asked why he was unfailingly nice to everybody, Killebrew said, “You never know. That might be the only time a person sees you play or meets you. I always tried to remember that.”

I never met Killebrew, but I did meet Chuck Tanner, who preceded Killebrew in death by three months.

In the early 1980s, Tanner was a few years removed from winning the World Series as manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I was the UCLA beat writer for a small Pasadena newspaper and occasionally subbed for our baseball writer.

One night after a Pirates-Dodgers game, I spent too much time in the L.A. locker room, and by time I got to the Bucs’ side, everyone was gone.

Everyone, that is, except for Tanner and his coaches, who were busy plotting next-game strategy in their cramped office.

I had missed the interview session, and Tanner had every reason to brush me off or grudgingly answer a question or two before shooing me on my way.

Instead, he invited me in and acted as though he had all the time in the world, as though nothing was more important to him than giving me whatever I needed to make my story complete. “Are you sure you have enough?” I remember him asking as I backed out the door.

Tanner may have heard of our small daily, but we didn’t mean anything to him in terms of coverage. We certainly couldn’t do anything for him.

But with Tanner, as with Killebrew, that wasn’t the point.
Both Killebrew and Tanner will be missed not so much for what they did — and they did plenty — but for who they were.

Retired Twin Paul Molitor summed up Killebew in words that also apply to Tanner:

“He didn’t differentiate how he treated other people based on their status or social standing,” Molitor said. “Whether you were an 18-year-old minor-leaguer or a clubhouse worker, you got the same Harmon. And that was a pretty good Harmon to get.”