Goodbye, Kirby Puckett: The Greatest Twin Ever

It came as a shock, to me even, when I heard the news on Sunday afternoon . . . Kirby Puckett had a stroke? Well, he'll be okay, right? I mean, how old is he? 45? And then there was the stunning announcement, late Monday, that Kirby had passed away. Much like the end of Puck's career, it seemed to happen way too fast.

I wasn't a Twins fan growing up. I'm not even an American League guy. Growing up in Jersey, I was a diehard Mets fan before anything else. But I couldn't hate Minnesota, not when I was well aware of Kirby Puckett and what he represented. He was one of those athletes you had to respect: an undersized, pudgy type. At 5'8, he was a guy who got way more out of his physical frame than most. He hustled, he was a great fielder, hit for a very high average (.318 in his career) and had a knack for making the key clutch play when it mattered most (just check the tape on Game 6 of the '91 World Series).

Kirby Puckett is the all-time greatest Twin, bar none. You can throw names like Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew and Tony Oliva into the conversation, but you'll still end up with Kirby's name rolling off your lips on the way out. Killebrew was the greatest power hitter in Twins lore, Carew was the greatest singles hitter and Oliva may have the been the flashiest of the bunch, but Kirby was the complete package. And he was the only one of the group to get a World Series ring. Two of 'em, in fact: Puckett was the absolute leader on both the '87 and the '91 championship Twins' ballclubs.

The championships are big reasons why so many fans remember Kirby so fondly. But clearly they're not the only ones. Kirby was the rare professional athlete who won everybody over---with the smile, with the warmth, with the air of realism. And here in the Upper Midwest, in the indisputable bread basket of Twinsland, the love for Minnesota baseball goes far beyond the singluar state's boundaries. The Twins are beloved in big parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North and South Dakota. And so is Kirby. His performances on and off the field made him public hero number one around here, and so he will likely stay.

Kirby could have left Minnesota during his career. He could have gotten bigger gobs of money elsewhere. But he never went for it. He was one of a dying breed of professional athletes who believed in loyalty to the organization that gave him his chance. And so he spent his entire 12 year career in a Twins uniform. For his fans, the impact of that fact cannot be understated.

The post-career stories don't faze me about Puckett. Forget the rumors, forget the Sports Illustrated article, forget the supposed "dark side" of the legend, forget the alleged sexual indiscretions . . . Everyone has secrets, and just because Kirby's private life was a little juicier than most doesn't dissuade whatsoever from the legend he created on the field.

And what a legend it was:

-Four straight 200-hit seasons. One of only three players to do that since the 1930s (Wade Boggs and Ichiro Suzuki being the other ones).

-2,040 hits in his first 10 years in the big leagues. No one else has bettered that since 1900.

-.318 career batting average. The highest total by a right-handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio.

-1,028 hits in his first five seasons. The only two players in history with more in such a span were Ichiro (1,130) and Paul Waner (1,057).

-3rd youngest player ever inducted to the Hall of Fame, at 40 years of age. Only Sandy Koufax and Lou Gehrig were honored younger.

You can see why Kirby struggled so much in his post-baseball life adjustment. This was a guy who was an all-time great at what he did, a guy who had it all yanked away from him in heartbreakingly quick fashion . . . There was the Dennis Martinez inside pitch late in September of 1995, a pitch that crushed Kirby's jaw and ruptured an artery in his face. People will dispute the degree to which that terrible injury contributed to the glaucoma that would envelop his right eye's vision the following March, but in my mind, there's no doubt it was a factor. And all of a sudden, Puckett went from the main guy in the spotlight, to all but completely out of it. That's a pretty huge change to deal with, and one that Kirby was probably never able to fully adapt to.

But as I like to do with great athletes when they leave their respective playing surfaces for the final time, I will always picture Kirby as he was at his best, in action, making big plays for his team in huge postseason spots. Kirby leaping against the plexiglass in center field at the Metrodome, robbing Ron Gant of an extra base hit in Game 6 with his own version of The Catch, just a phenomenal athletic display . . . Then winning the game with a home run off of Charlie Leibrandt in the bottom of the eleventh inning . . . and running around the bases with the huge ecstatic smile on his face.

King of the World.


-JAB