The Walkman disappeared long ago, but the sturdy, blue 1985 Toyota 4×4 pickup truck can still be found in the Texas Hill Country at Jeff Kent’s 3,000-acre ranch on the outskirts of San Antonio. Those items are reminders of the work ethic, drive and connection to family that defined Kent’s trek from Huntington Beach to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Kent doesn’t get in that truck much anymore. He notes that he’s only about two inches thicker around the waist and perhaps 40 pounds heavier than he was when he got the truck in high school, but the cabin seems small to him now.
Kent estimates that he has rebuilt that truck’s engine about half a dozen times. He uses it to take feed to cattle he runs in Helotes, Texas. The truck has been on that ranch for two decades, making its final stop there after early stops at Cal and the minor leagues while remaining in his possession during his 17-year baseball career from Toronto to New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, Houston and then Dodger Stadium.
Why does Kent, who was born in Bellflower and raised in Huntington Beach, still have the truck? Kent won’t say yet because he plans to answer that question Sunday afternoon during his induction speech in Cooperstown. Three years before Kent’s parents, Sherry and Alan, bought their eldest boy the Toyota truck, they saw his work ethic and drive in 1982 while Jeff tried to earn money for his Walkman.
Kent was only 14 ½ years old when he found out his parents were looking for a babysitter to take care of the three Kent boys while Alan and Sherry went on a four-day trip with friends. At that time, Jeff’s younger brothers Eric and Adam were only 7 and 5 years old.
By then, Kent had already earned the trust of neighbors who hired him to mow their lawns or babysit. Babysitting children for a few hours, however, is much different than staying at home alone for four days.
“We were scared to death to do it, but he convinced us that he was able to do it,” Sherry Kent says. “We called him several times a day, and everything was fine, and we knew he could go with our neighbors if he needed anything.
“He wanted that Walkman so bad that he was willing to babysit his brothers for four days.”
A few years later, Alan and Sherry offered Jeff another deal. They promised to buy him the 4×4 truck he wanted if he secured a college scholarship. He had always been a good student, securing almost all A’s with a few Bs sprinkled in.
Once Stanford, Cal and Fresno State showed interest, Alan and Sherry bought Jeff his truck.
“I sit in this thing and I wonder how in the hell it was such an awesome truck because it’s so stinkin’ small,” Jeff Kent says. “I don’t know. I guess it was a beacon. It was a beacon of something to work for when I was young. Like the Walkman. … I remember the Walkman. I saved up months and months to buy that stupid Walkman, and I don’t think I ever took it off my head.
“It was a beacon of reaching for something. It was a goal that I wanted to reach. And in order to reach that goal I had to do things, and it truly is a metaphor on how I’ve lived my life, which is, I want things in business or money or fame, whatever. I want things and instead of focusing on that I find ways to get there to get that. The old ‘climb the ladder,’ one step at time. But that’s how I’ve always been, and I’m a mechanical thinker.”
If the truck and the Walkman were metaphorical beacons, a modest gold, rope necklace and Jeff Kent’s mustache were concealed anchors even when in plain sight.
Jeff Kent sported a mustache throughout his career even though some folks teased him. The five-time All-Star and 2000 National League MVP never worried about what others thought of his mustache. Even now at 58, he still has a mustache.
He wore the mustache in honor of his father, Alan, a longtime police officer who also taught at Long Beach State before retiring. His mother, Sherry, gave him the necklace when he was in high school.
“My dad was a cop, and cops back in the day — still do today — they all wore mustaches,” Kent said while fighting back tears. “So the mustache was kind of a reminder of where I came from.”
The gold necklace, which he doesn’t wear anymore, also was a reminder of his family.
“In my era, [if] you wore a mustache, you were [considered] an idiot or they called you a porn star or whatever you want to say when you were wearing a mustache,” Jeff says. “I got ripped on that all the time.
“But not a lot of people saw my necklace. It was under my shirt, and it was just a rope necklace, golly, that my mom had bought me when I was in high school. And I wore that my whole career. I’m the only guy in the shower with a mustache and a necklace on, and people are looking at me like I was weird.”
Kent is grateful for the upbringing and support his parents gave him while also teaching him how to be a husband, father and now grandfather. Jeff and his wife, Dana, have been married 34 years.
They have four adult children Lauren, Hunter, Colton and Kaeden, a former Texas A&M star who was selected in the third round of the 2025 MLB draft by the New York Yankees. Jeff and Dana welcomed their fifth grandchild, a girl named Charlie, on July 18.
Kent, who is 6-foot-1 and played at around 185 pounds, accomplished much while building his Hall of Fame career in the majors. His 377 career home runs are the most by a player who spent the majority of his career at second base. He also had 560 doubles, 1,518 RBIs and 94 stolen bases while posting a career .290 batting average over 17 seasons.
Through it all, he paid tribute in his quiet way to his parents.
“The ultimate compliment a father can receive by his son is [for him to say,] ‘I want to honor my dad,’” Alan Kent says. “I am overwhelmed and extremely proud that my son paid me that ‘mustache’ remark. His interest in looking alike makes me very much appreciate our similarities.”
Jeff’s gold necklace was given as a symbol as well.
“I gave [Jeff] the necklace in his senior year of high school to mark a turning point in his life,” Sherry Kent says. “As gold is a symbol of strength and good fortune, I wanted him to remember the strong foundation he had and the bright future ahead.”
Jeff Kent never forgot that foundation. On Sunday he’ll tell us why he still has his 1985 Toyota truck.
The post Bellflower native Jeff Kent credits his parents for helping fuel his Hall of Fame career appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
