Minnesota Twins Hall Welcomes Brad Radke

The Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame is home to the best players to wear the uniform. Harmon Killebrew, Kirby Puckett, Bert Blyleven and others are enshrined in the Twins Hall and have an ever-lasting legacy to go with it.

Today, another such player will be honored and placed in the Hall of Fame. Brad Radke, who was selected in the 8th round of the 1991 amatuer draft, spent his entire career with the team.

Radke was known for two main attributes, his determination and his loyalty. It is often a rare sight to see a player wear only one uniform their whole career. Though he did not post numbers that would likely put him into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, he was still a beloved Twins player.

Reaching double digits in wins every but two, Radke's best year came in 1997 when he won twenty games and finished with a 3.87 earned run average, according to baseball-reference.com.

Radke was also a pioneer of the Twins style of pitching, as he never averaged worse than 2.3 walks per nine innings in a season.

Radke was a great mentor to many of the young guys who modeled their styles after Radke who preached to them to get strike one and work from there.

One of Radke's defining moments came in 2006, his final season, when he experienced major shoulder pain and fatigue. Radke, despite the pain, kept pitching harder each time.

Radke's efforts were never lost on his teammates either.

Personally, this is a special night for me, for as a kid growing up watching this team I idolized many Twins players. None more so than Brad Radke who is my favorite baseball player of all time.

To me Radke stood for more than just amazing control and solid mechanics, he was a player who was loyal to a team that was loyal to him. He also displayed true grit and determination. He will be remembered as a player for many things that have no statistics to go with them, but are no less meaningful.

For all that he has done for this team and this community, we say thank you Brad.