Twins Announce the 2024 Harmon Killebrew Award for Community Service Recipients

[Seth Stohs]

573 homers. 1969 AL MVP. Played in 13 All Star games. Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984.  Harmon Killebrew  was a great baseball player, but those who knew him will always talk about how kind he was and how much he did for people in the community. 

Image courtesy of Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Harmon Killebrew spent 22 seasons in the big leagues. After parts of seven seasons with the Washington Senators, he came to Minnesota with the organization before the 1961 season. He remained with the Twins through the 1974 season. He also played for the Royals in 1975, but he struggled and retired after the season. 

Between 1959 and 1969, Killebrew played the league in home runs six times. He led the league in RBI three times. A power hitter, he led the league in walks four times and walked more than 100 times seven times. He won the AL Cy Young Award in 1969 when he hit .276/.427/.584 (1.011) with 20 doubles, 49 home runs and 140 RBI. He walked a career-high 145 times and struck out just 84 times. He finished second in MVP voting in 1967, third in 1962, and fourth in 1963 and 1966. 

Along with other Twins greats, Killebrew led the Twins to the 1965 World Series. Killebrew was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1984. Hard to believe that was his fourth year on the Hall of Fame ballot. 

Following his career, he was involved in several endeavors. He spent time in the ‘80s as a color analyst on broadcasts. He was active in the Twins community and at events. 

Those that knew him will tell you that as great of a ballplayer as Killebrew was, he was an even better person. He grew up in Payette, Idaho. In 2011, at the age of 74, he passed away due to cancer. 

The Twins decided to continue the Killebrew legacy of community work by creating the Harmon Killebrew Award for Community Service. Each season, the organization recognizes one player from each of the Twins four full-season affiliates. Each affiliate’s General Manager nominates players and lets the organization know what type of community work the players have done. 

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Recently, the Twins announced their 2024 Killebrew Award winners. 

St. Paul Saints: C/1B/OF/DH Chris Williams 
Williams was the Twins eighth-round pick in the 2018 MLB draft out of Clemson University. That summer, he played in Elizabethton and was named the Twins Daily Short-Season Minor League Hitter of the Year. Since then, he has had a gradual rise through the Twins organization.

He joined the Saints for the final third of the 2022 season. That year, he had 18 homers in 75 games in Wichita and added 10 more long balls in 42 games with the Saints. In 2023, he hit 21 homers with the Saints. This season, he has hit another 14 home runs for St. Paul. He passed Mark Contreras for the home run lead in Saints history since they became a Twins affiliate in 2021.   

The 27-year-old took part in a variety of community events. During the Twins Week of Service, he spent time at Crossroads Motessori School and played with the kids for recess. He talked to classes and encouraged all to participate. He was active with the Saints Reading Tree program. He joined author Nancy Carlson in presenting “Sometimes You Barf” to kids and their families before a home game. He also co-hosted the Children’s Minnesota Star Studio during a hospital visit with patients and families battling pediatric cancer. 

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Wichita Wind Surge: IF Jake Rucker 
Jake Rucker was the Twins seventh-round draft pick in 2021 out of the University of Tennessee. After signing, he was quickly assigned to Fort Myers. In 2022, he started with with the Mussels but then ended the season at Cedar Rapids. He was able to spend the last couple of weeks with the Saints. He moved up to Wichita for the 2023 season. In 119 games, he hit .248/.323/.381 (.704) with 21 doubles, four triples and nine home runs. In 2024, he returned to the Wind Surge and in 121 games, he hit .261/.321/.372 (.693) with 23 doubles, one triple, and nine home runs. His biggest area of improvement was with putting the ball in play. After striking out 25.8% of the time in 2023, he reduced that number to 15.0% in 2024. 

Regarding the award, Rucker, who turned 25 early this week, recently told Twins Daily, “It means a lot because it shows that we are more than just baseball players. Giving back to the community is something we should all do, especially us players who have this platform of playing at a high level with a lot of people watching us.”  

The Wind Surge do a lot in their community. Rucker said, “I helped with all the baseball camps the Wind Surge and Twins hosted in Wichita as well as delivering canned goods and food to the local food bank.” 

However, he said that it wasn’t just him and credited others. “A lot of the guys on the team helped chime in with the funds for the food. This award is for them too and all their hard work and love for the community as well.” 

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Cedar Rapids Kernels: RHP John Klein 
John Klein graduated from Osseo High School in the spring of 2020. Out of high school, he went to Iowa Central Community College. After not being selected in the 2022 MLB Draft, Klein signed with the Twins as a non-drafted free agent in August of 2022 and was assigned to the FCL Twins. In 2023, he made six starts in the FCL, six starts for Fort Myers, and one start for the Kernels.   

This season, he pitched in 22 games for the Kernels and made 20 starts. He went 8-3 with a 4.57 ERA, and in 100 1/3 innings, he had 90 strikeouts to just 38 walks. Overall, a very solid season for the 6-5, 22-year-old. 

It wasn’t just on the mound that Klein had an impact. He was busy working with a variety of people and groups around the Cedar Rapids area. 

Klein was active in the Kernels Home Run for Hunger campaign. He helped collect and deliver food for the HACAP Food Reservoir. He also was active in the Kernels kids camps. 

He told Twins Daily, “Thank you! I’m grateful to be able to use the platform I was blessed with to give back to the people who support my team and I. I pride myself on being the best role model I can be for people that look up to me. I remember being a young kid looking up to guys like Joe Mauer and Tim Tebow. Noticing how not only they are great ball players, but even better people.”

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Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: Maddux Houghton 
Maddux Houghton grew up and went to high school in Dalton, Georgia, a city in the northwest corner of the state. At Dalton High, he starred on the baseball diamond and the gridiron. He went to Lipscomb University. He took advantage of the bonus Covid year and played five seasons. He went undrafted. 

In January of 2023, Houghton signed with the Twins. He hit .216 over 99 games in 2023 for the Mussels. In the first half of this season, he was playing every day and played very well. In total, he played in 84 games for the Mussels and hit .254/.346/.363 (.709) with 12 doubles, two triples and four homers. Over the past two seasons, he had 42 stolen bases in 47 attempts. He was promoted to St. Paul twice when they just needed players. In five games, he went 3-for-13 (.231). 

Off the field, the Mussels noted that Houghton “enthusiastically participated in every available volunteer opportunity while conducting himself with professionalism and positivity.” 

Regarding the award, Houghton told Twins Daily, “Receiving the Harmon Killebrew Award for community service means a lot to me. Anytime your name is associated with the name of a Hall of Famer, that is extremely humbling and an incredible honor.” 

He continued, “As a Christ-follower, I try to do my best every day to share His love with others and bring positivity to the ballpark every day. Jesus was the ultimate servant leader, and that’s how I strive to live my life. To see that others recognized these qualities in me, was very special.”

While a lot of community work is done away from the field, it starts at the ballpark. “First, I try to interact with the fans everyday, especially kids. I will never forget the feeling of excitement I got from going to a professional baseball game when I was younger. It was the coolest thing ever if one of the players acknowledged me, so I try to keep that in mind when I interact with people at the park. I also have enjoyed getting to build relationships with some of the season ticket holders, ushers, and Mussels front office staff. These people are vital to the success of an organization and sometimes don’t get the appreciation they deserve. I love the daily interactions with these people and the Mussels community.”

“I helped as a group of us went to Franklin Park Elementary school and got them packed up to move into their new school building. Again, this was a great opportunity to be around and interact with the kids of the Fort Myers community. Finally, I worked at the D3Day Camp for children with disabilities, which is such an impactful camp. To see those kids run around and have the time of their lives playing baseball is such a special experience. That camp is a true joy every year.”

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As these guys pointed out, they aren’t the only players on these teams and rosters who do work in their communities. The Twins have their Week of Service each June where the big-league club and the affiliates do something almost every day, but the minor league affiliates keep the players busy with various programs in the cities they play. Working with food shelves, providing meals, reading or just spending time with kids. 

Congratulations to each of these players on their well-earned and well-deserved recipients of the Killebrew Award.

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[Doctor Wu]

Congratulations to all of those young men for winning the award. Good to have such quality people in the organization. 

[LambchoP]

I love hearing about these guys and all the good they do for people and the community. So much better than these stupid kids who get the 100 million dollar contracts and go wild with their money and end up in trouble for drugs, guns and other crimes. For some reason you hear about those guys in the NFL and NBA all the time but not so much in the MLB. Baseball has some really classy players and it's a good influence on the younger generation.

[Seth Stohs]

11 hours ago, LambchoP said:

I love hearing about these guys and all the good they do for people and the community. So much better than these stupid kids who get the 100 million dollar contracts and go wild with their money and end up in trouble for drugs, guns and other crimes. For some reason you hear about those guys in the NFL and NBA all the time but not so much in the MLB. Baseball has some really classy players and it's a good influence on the younger generation.

To be fair, the combined signing bonuses of these four players is less than $290,000... and $250K of that was Rucker's as a sixth-round pick two years ago. And even though MILB players are finally making halfway decent money, it's not much more than $2000 per month for the lower levels and no more than $3-4,000 for the upper levels.  

That's not to take away from the classiness of the players. I've met a ton of Twins minor leaguers and big leaguers over the past 15-20 years and 90% of them are really good people, down to earth, just 'regular' people... And I've met some that have made some big money and for the most part they are good people as well.