MINNEAPOLIS — Harmon Killebrew and Clyde Doepner were good friends; the two spent plenty of time together during Killebrew’s retirement years. Doepner flew to Arizona one time to visit the Minnesota Twins legend. When Doepner was putting his bags into a car to return to the airport, Killebrew slipped a baseball bat into his luggage.
It wasn’t just any bat. It was a bat Killebrew and every MLB player received in 1976 with a bicentennial logo burned into it.
“Harmon said, ‘Don’t forget your bat,’” Doepner recalled. “I said, ‘My bat?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re going to get it someday anyhow, you might as well have it now.’ It was that kind of love. They knew that it’s the love of the game, preserving the game.”
Killebrew knew Doepner’s passion for baseball and his desire to tell the story of the game through historic memorabilia. You see, Doepner is the Minnesota Twins curator. It’s his job to get his hands on unique pieces that share the history of the Twins franchise.
That bicentennial bat that Killebrew gave to his friend? It’s now on display at Target Field.
Doepner has one of the greatest jobs in the world.
“I told them, ‘You quit paying me tomorrow, I’ll still be here at 6 every morning. Just don’t take my credentials away,’” Doepner said. “They treat me really well. They take care of me.”
Prior to becoming “Clyde the Curator,” Doepner was known to everyone within the Twins organization and in the sports memorabilia world as “Clyde the Collector.” Let’s tell that story first.
BASEBALL AN ‘ADDICTION’
Doepner’s baseball career started out promising, helping North St.
