Chris Jaffe, of the Hardball Times, takes us back in time in today’s post on THT Live.

Check that. They saw a man matching Kent’s description earlier that day attempting to do stunts on his motorcycle. He didn’t really succeed, and instead they saw him wipe out but good. He brushed himself off and moved along, and told everyone not to tell anyone what they saw. You damn well better believe he didn’t anyone to know what he’d just done. It was against his contract with the Giants to do motorcycle stunts and if he injured himself doing one, he could lose a good chunk of cash.

The Jeff Kent ‘hurt himself by washing his truck’ story is still weird when you think about it. Just a strange, strange series of events.

Despite the injury, and the lie that accompanied it, Jeff Kent had a very Kent-like year for the Giants in 2002, batting .313/.368/.565 (147 OPS+). It also marked the last year that Kent was a Giant before he moved on to the Astros for a couple of seasons, and then the Dodgers from 2005-2008.

Kent will always be one of my favorite Giants. He was tough to beat during his prime.