Cleveland legend Travis Hafner earns deserved honor after stellar MLB career
But one of the great sluggers in the history of the Indians just received some cool praise that makes up at least a little bit for one of the head-scratching parts of Hafner's career.
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Hafner was never named an MLB All Star.
Because of that, The Athletic's Tyler Kepner named him to his All-Quarter Century Team for players who fit that descriptor.
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It's a good excuse to revisit how special Hafner was.
Coming up in the minors, they called him "Pronk," for project plus donkey. The nickname stuck.
The project was a success, too.
After briefly breaking into the majors with the Rangers, Hafner starred for Cleveland.
In 10 seasons, he slugged .059 with exactly 200 homers. His Cleveland career OPS was .890.
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In 2006, he slugged 42 homers and drove in 117 runs with a league-high .659 slugging percentage.
The year before, he batted .305, slugged .595, hit a career-high 42 doubles and added 33 homers.
He struggled to stay healthy in the second half of his Cleveland career before finishing his MLB time off with 82 Yankees games in 2013.
But man, one of those seasons, he should've been an All Star.
As an American League designated hitter, he had the unfortunate timing to overlap with David Ortiz.
But there wasn't any rule preventing Big Papi and Pronk from being on the same All-Star team.
Hafner's baseball journey is incredible. He was valedictorian of his eight-person high school class in North Dakota, a school that didn't even have a baseball team. He played well enough in American Legion ball to earn a spot with Cowley County Community College in Kansas.
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From there, he was a 31st-round pick by the Rangers in 1996. He didn't debut in the majors until six years later.
Cleveland traded Einer Diaz and Ryan Drese to acquire Hafer and Aaron Myette. That deal sure worked out.
And now more than a decade after Pronk hung up his spikes, at least someone realizes that way back then when he was one of the most dangerous hitters in the American League, he probably should've been an All Star.
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