Gary Gaetti

by Brad Berreman
Love of Sports Correspondent

Can you name the first player in MLB history to hit a home run in their first two postseason at bats?

If you said Gary Gaetti, you must be a Minnesota Twins fan. Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria - another 3B like Gaetti - repeated the feat this postseason.

Gaetti’s first major league game came in 1981 with the Minnesota Twins.  He hit a homerun in his first major league at bat. 

Gaetti would enjoy most of his best seasons with the Twins, with whom he played until 1990. He was a two-time All-Star in his career (1988-89), won four American League Gold Gloves (1986-1989) and was the MVP of the 1987 American League Championship Series. All those career milestones obviously occurred in a Twins uniform. He was a key part of the Twins team that won the World Series in 1987, as he hit 31 HRs and drove in a career-high 109 runs that regular season.

Gaetti would move on to the then-California Angels before the 1991 season, where he would play until June 1993, when he was released. He then signed with the Kansas City Royals for the rest of the 1993 season, where hit 14 HRs and drove in 46 in 82 games.

In 1995, his last season as a Royal, Gaetti had one of his best seasons. He hit a career-high 35 home runs and had 96 RBIs, missing the Royals’ team record for home runs in a season by one.
Gaetti then signed with the St. Louis Cardinals before the 1996 season. He enjoyed two reasonably productive seasons in St. Louis before being released once again in August 1998. 

For the rest of the 1998 season, Gaetti signed with the Chicago Cubs and hit .320 in 37 games down the stretch to help the Cubs win the NL Wild Card. Gaetti played 113 games for the Cubs in 1999, and was released at the end of that season.

He played five games for the Boston Red Sox early in the 2000 season before retiring. For his career, Gaetti had 360 HRs and 1,341 RBIs to go along with a .255 career batting average.

Gaetti became the hitting coach for the Houston Astros in July 2004 after a mid-season coaching staff change allowed him to be promoted from the same position with the Astros’ AAA affiliate. He would keep that position until July 2006, when he was fired.

Gaetti was inducted into the Twins’ Hall of Fame in 2007, and he currently serves as the hitting coach for the Durham Bulls, the Tampa Bay Rays’ AAA affiliate.

So in recognition of a gritty 3B that got the most of his ability, here’s some OLD SCHOOL LOVE for Gary Gaetti.