By Mark Edwards, WTHV-TV Sports

It's the story of a kid from Pine Bluff that can fill up a highlight reel just like that, and like Michael Jackson, he does most of it with one glove.

He can bring the wood and he has some mean leather. For Minnesota Twins center fielder Torii Hunter, the dream has been accomplished, the ring is yet to come. That dream was to play major league baseball and it all began with the 1993 Major League Baseball draft.

Hunter says, “I didn't grow up with much; I had what I needed, but I didn't grow up with much. To get the signing bonus and get family out of debt and doing different things like that. To be able to do that, it was a blessing. So, I had to take that blessing and run with it.”

And run with it he did. In 2005, he picked up his fifth consecutive gold glove. However, ‘05 will be remembered for another reason. Hunter suffered a broken ankle and missed the rest of the season.

Strength and condition coach Jason Maresh recalls the accident, “I said, ‘Hey, your team's gonna take care of you up there. When you get back down here for the off-season and they release you, we'll see what we need to do as far as rehab on this end.’”

Now, Hunter has an even better wheel. He spent most of the off-season rehabbing at a facility near his home in Texas.

Maresh recommended that Hunter see a therapist and that got him back up and running again. Nevertheless, it's his relationship with Maresh that’s pushed his career to another level.

“He’ll be the first to tell you that his speed increased in his first year,” Maresh says. “That was the year he went to the all-star game and robbed Barry Bonds of a home run.”

2002 was quite a year, with 162 hits, 29 homeruns, 94 RBIs and 23 stolen bases. 2006 hopes to be an even bigger year.

He'll bank 10 million this year and after nine years in the league, it really is all about the benjamins. He can afford to splurge a little bit. The money and fame come with a price, however.

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“When you have fame and people see you on TV, they know who you are, it's different,” Hunter explains. “There's a politician or engineer out there that makes just as much as we do, but you don't see him on TV and you'll never know if he's making that much money, so it's tough to sue him. It's easy to sue me.”

In the near future, Hunter hopes to go from the majors to the minors.

“One of my main goals for this year is to get a lot of inner-city kids back to playing baseball and I will have that in effect next off season.

I'm willing to get out there and show them that if you go out there and work hard in major league baseball, because I know you can play this game, look what can happen,” he says. “You can have a lot of success, be financially stable, help your family out and get out of debt. Whatever it may be, you can do it. You gotta take the positive out of it.”

What jumped off in 1993 will someday end. Retirement anytime soon? No way. But Hunter hopes to go out in a major way.

“If you go out there and take care of business, if you get that World Series ring and you did everything. You show people that you're a winner and a classy guy,” Hunter says. “You gotta have character to get into the Hall of Fame. I want people to look back and say this guy worked hard. He was great off the field. So now, he's inducted into the Hall of Fame.”

Hunter arrived at the Minnesota Twins spring training facilities in Fort Myers, Fla., on Tuesday.

Mark Edwards, THV Sports

Created: 2/22/2006 7:43:20 PM
Updated: 2/28/2006 3:48:46 PM