It was D-Day 1988, the 44th anniversary of the Normandy landing, when I met Harmon Killebrew for the one and only time in my life.

I drove down from Greeley for an exhibition at Mile High Stadium, one of my favorite sports palaces ever. Denver didn't have major league baseball yet, but we had a touring group of Old Timers -- including several Hall of Famers -- for something called the Cracker Jack Old Timers Game. I wasn't covering the game. I was there to write a column, and the subject I chose was former Baltimore great Boog Powell.

Powell had done a great Miller Lite commercial, the one in which the umpire put on his glasses, focused his eyes, and delivered the punchline:

<em>"Hey, you're Boog Powell."</em>

If you're old enough to remember that commercial, you've got a fighting chance of being old enough to remember Killebrew, who retired from baseball after the 1975 season as the fifth-leading home run hitter of all time. He hit 573, and at the time he retired, that was more home runs than anyone in the American League other than Babe Ruth ever hit.

[caption id="attachment_1137" align="alignleft" width="244" caption="Hammerin&#39; Harmon"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/harmonkillebrew.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1137" title="harmonkillebrew" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/harmonkillebrew-244x300.jpg" alt="" width="244" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

Killebrew was there that day in Denver, and all I remembered was how small he seemed next to Powell. The record books say that he played at 5-foot-11, 210 pounds, but that summer he was three weeks shy of his 52nd birthday and he was smaller than I was. I was 5-11 and weighed about 210 that summer, and if he was 5-8, I'd be surprised.

He had Popeye-type forearms when he played, and while he was never much of a hitter for average (.256 for his career), no one else in baseball hit as many home runs as he did in the '60s.

He was beloved in Washington as a star for the original Washington Senators, and he was beloved in Minnesota when the Senators moved north in 1961 and became the Twins.

But he retired and then was voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he became pretty much a local celebrity in Minneapolis. He wasn't flashy. If you want to compare him to current athletes, you'll love the quote he gave when someone asked him what he did for fun.

"I like to wash dishes," he said.

There's a statue of him in Minnesota, just outside Target Field, where the Twins play now. He played his games and hit his home runs in a park that no longer exists except as the Mall of America.

Maybe the best quote about Killebrew ever came from Baltimore manager Paul Richards, who praised his power. "Killebrew can hit the ball out of any park," he said. "Including Yellowstone."

In recent years he hadn't been in the spotlight much, although Twins fans were well aware that he had been battling esophageal cancer.

[caption id="attachment_1138" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Killebrew in his final days"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/harmon_killebrew_98486597.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1138" title="harmon_killebrew_98486597" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/harmon_killebrew_98486597-300x217.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="217" /></a>[/caption]

He made the news just a couple of days ago when he announced he would no longer undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment and instead would avail himself of hospice care for what time he had left. He may have known at the time that he wasn't going to last long or it may have come as a surprise, but he died today at age 74.

I don't remember what he did in that game I saw in Denver in 1988, but that didn't really matter. I'm pretty sure I only saw him play once in person during his illustrious career. It was the 1969 All-Star Game in Washington, D.C., and he flied out as a pinch-hitter in the third inning.

It's funny.

I could have talked to him in 1988, and I wish I had, but when you're writing a column, you look for one good subject and then focus on it. I looked back and read the Boog Powell column again and it holds up well, so I can't complain.

Anyway, if I want to end on a maudlin note, I'll just say I figure they're writing Hammerin' Harmon into the American League lineup up there, probably playing third base and hitting sixth behind Lou Gehrig.