Torii Hunter Returns to the Minnesota Twins: The 11 Great Years There That Made Him a Star

Now that Torii Hunter is a Minnesota Twin again and roses are red and violets are blue and everything is back to the way it was when you were a little boy, it's time for a refresher course. First, the news: Hunter, 39, signed a 1-year, $10.5 million contract with the Twins, the team he played his first 11 MLB seasons for. He left Minnesota in 2008 when he signed a $90 million contract with the Angels, and for the past two years has been a consistently potent top-of-the-order threat for the Detroit Tigers.

Hunter was a dynamic yet fairly overlooked player of the early 2000s, maybe because his name was never linked to any drug-related controversy, or maybe because his Twins never reached a World Series despite four playoff appearances. Either way, here's what he accomplished in his first go-around in the Twin Cities, in case you forgot.

4. Seven Consecutive Gold Gloves

A sprawling, fearless centerfielder, Hunter won nine consecutive Gold Glove awards in total from 2001-2009. Seven of those came in Minnesota. Back then, advanced defensive metrics like Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved weren't widespread. For the most part, we relied only on our eyes. And Hunter, over and over, made it hard for us to believe what we were seeing.

3. Four AL Central titles

After a decade of ineptitude following the 1991 World Series, the Twins suddenly became a model franchise in the 2000s, winning six AL Central titles in nine years, often with limited financial means. Hunter was a middle of the order hitter and star defender for four of those division title teams: 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006.

2. The Franchise-Saving 2002 team

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig spent the better part of the 2001-2002 offseason exploring (threatening?) the idea of league contraction — a fancy term for the elimination of two teams. The Twins were prime candidates due to a poor performing team and a long since obsolete ballpark. But Selig's efforts failed in the Supreme Court and the Twins, behind a fledgling team full of future stars, ran away with the AL Central to clinch their first playoff birth in more than a decade.

On a team featuring Johan Santana, David Ortiz and Kyle Lohse, it was Hunter who proved the breakout star. He put up a .289/.334/.524 slash line with 29 home runs and 94 RBI, won his second consecutive Gold Glove and placed sixth in AL MVP voting.

1. Robbing Barry Bonds — The Catch

It was also the year he made the play of his life. The play that he will be etched in stone making if he is ever immortalized in Cooperstown (you decide). The play that was easily the play of the year and one that went down as one of the greatest in All-Star Game history. Words don't really do it justice. Just enjoy.