SPORTS FLASHBACK 2015: Koskie joins greats in Baseball Hall of Fame

Regarded as the greatest baseball player Manitoba has ever produced, Anola’s Corey Koskie, the former Minnesota Twins star, was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame last weekend at St Mary’s, Ontario.

Koskie is among five 2015 inductees that went into the Hall of Fame, which also included two of the greatest names in Canadian baseball, Felipe Alou of the Montreal Expos and Carlos Delgado of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Also inducted last weekend were long-time major leaguer Matt Stairs, a first baseman and designated hitter who holds the distinction of being only one of four Canadian players who played for both the Montreal Expos and Toronto Blue Jays, and baseball journalist Bob Elliott.

“It was an absolute honour to have my career recognized like this, especially with this group of fellow inductees,” Koskie said in an interview with The Carillon this week.

In nine Major League seasons, seven with the Twins and the final two years of his career with the Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers, he played in a total of 989 games. He ranked seventh all-time among Canadians in home runs (124) and on-base percentage (.367) and eighth in slugging percentage (.458).

Koskie, who was also inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 2013, has played more big league games at third base than any other Canadian and ranks first among Canadian third basemen in batting average, home runs, RBI and on-base percentage.

Koskie, 42, was a multi-sport star growing up in this area, excelling in volleyball, baseball and hockey, where he played for both the Eastman Selects and Selkirk Steelers.

Taken by the Twins in the 26th round of the 1994 MLB amateur draft, he spent four seasons in the minors before his breakout rookie season with the Twins in 1999, when he hit .310 and belted 11 home runs in 117 games, and was named to the Topps’ 1999 All-Star Rookie team.

His best season came in 2001, when he scored 100 runs, had 26 homers, 103 RBI and stole 27 bases to become the first third baseman in American League history to record at least 100 runs, 25 homers, 100 RBI and 25 stolen bases in the same season.

He was forced to retire from the game in 2006, after he suffered a concussion midway through the season with the Milwaukee Brewers.

The family now resides in Minneapolis, where Koskie had so much success with the Twins, including helping Minnesota to three playoff appearances along the way. He is kept busy with, among other things, the two Planet Fitness franchises he owns in the Twin Cities.

He is involved in coaching all four of his sons in both baseball and hockey, and this summer, is running a four-week hockey camp for young players.

But the Koskies are also all Twins’ season ticket holders, and they still find time to make it to Target Field for the big league games.