Every week Stu delights you with a Hunt Down of a former Twin Cities sports personality. And every week, we try to find an image to match. Business in front, party in the back. Carry on. Stu?

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Name: Brian Harper

Claim to Fame, Minnesota: catcher, Minnesota Twins. Known for his above-average bat and below-average defense, which isn’t uncommon in baseball, but is the reverse of “Twins baseball,” which means you can kill any number of rallies so long as you throw the occasional runner out at second. (See also: Tom Nieto, Mark Salas, Tim Laudner, Junior Ortiz.) That said, he had some notable defensive moments, such as blocking the plate to prevent “Lonnie [redacted] Smith” (copyright Michael Rand) from scoring in the ’91 World Series, and a tremendous diving catch of a popped-up bunt at Oakland that made me and everyone else at Waterman’s in Lake City, Minnesota, debate whether we had just seen that. Aaron Gleeman makes a convincing case that his defense wasn’t all that bad. In addition, his tasty mustache/mullet combo gets a Clutchosity Index rating of .38 Special.

Claim to Fame, Everywhere Else: as Wiki notes, Harper had the best strikeout per at-bat ratio during his years in the American League, which shouldn’t surprise those who remember his knack for getting hits from an 0-2 count. Is also a notable fan of Jesus.

Where He Is Now: a catching instructor in the Giants organization, which must drive Tom Kelly nuts.

Glorious Randomness: Harper’s played his last professional game for the Tacoma Rainiers, the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate. The Rainiers, as you no doubt know, are owned in part by Nick Lachey, who is responsible for this. Stay out of it, Nick Lachey.

Proprietor note: “Business Up Front/Party in the Back” is also the name of a debut album by Christian rock group Family Force 5, which is probably nothing like the Fox Force Five. It is possible Brian Harper celebrates their entire catalog.

Possible discussion topic: Other notable good offense/bad defense Twin Cities athletes?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Hunt Down, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.