BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : WORLD SERIES : Twins’ Hrbek Says He Has Received Threats Because of Controversial Play

Kent Hrbek, the Minnesota Twins’ first baseman who made the controversial tag on Ron Gant in Game 2 of the World Series, said Tuesday that he was disturbed by the threatening nature of calls he received Monday in Atlanta and that his mother and sister received at their homes in the Twins Cities area after that game Sunday night.

“My mom should be excited about her son playing in the World Series and excited about coming to Atlanta, but right now she doesn’t have a very good impression of Atlanta,” Hrbek said.

“One caller told her, ‘Watch out for your son in Atlanta.’ Obviously, she wasn’t very happy about it.”

Neither was Hrbek.

“I can understand people getting fired up and excited about a World Series,” he said. “But it’s not life and death. It’s not the Persian Gulf War. This should be a fun time, but now I’ve got a situation that forces me to sit and think.”

The Braves and their supporters maintain that Hrbek lifted Gant’s leg off the first base bag in applying the tag that ended the third inning. Umpire Drew Coble ruled that Gant’s momentum had carried him off the base.

One fan carried a sign outside Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium Tuesday night that read, “Twins MVP--Drew Coble.”

Said Hrbek: “I’m not a dirty player. I’m just out there doing my job. I finally saw the replay and can see what everyone is talking about.

“At the end of the play, it looks like I’m picking him off the base, but he’s already been called out at that point. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because I saw it the way the umpire saw it.”

Hrbek was booed in the pregame introductions Tuesday night, but he was expecting it and had said earlier, “It won’t be a first. I’ve been booed before. I’ve been booed in my own park.”

Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox said that the Braves bore no animosity toward Hrbek, saying the first baseman was one of his favorite players when Cox managed the Toronto Blue Jays.

“He did what he was supposed to do, and the umpire called it,” Cox said.

A blimp painted to resemble Shamu the whale appeared over the stadium before Tuesday’s game, prompting Dan Gladden of the Twins to look up and yell, “Hey, Herbie (Hrbek), get down here with the rest of us.”

When a second, similarly painted blimp followed, Gladden yelled, “Look, it’s Herbie’s brother.”

Tom Glavine will move up a day and replace Charlie Leibrandt as Atlanta’s starter if there is a Game 5, Cox said, with Leibrandt, the Game 1 starter, working in relief for the rest of the Series.

Cox said he had not wanted to juggle his rotation and go with only three starters after the seven-game playoff against the Pittsburgh Pirates, but could do it now on a more normal schedule for Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery.

Smoltz, who will pitch tonight, will pitch if there is a Game 7.