“Touch em all - Kirby Puckett!!”
-John Gordon, countless home games
“Annnnnnd we’ll see ya.Tomorrow NIGHT.”
-Jack Buck 1991 World Series Game Six.
Kirby Puckett provided Minnesota sports fans with one of the magnificent moments in their lives among several other incredible moments during his career. Stop into Hubert’s Sports Bar and look at some of the walls. Stop into a Champps, drop his name into a crowd and overhear the moments recited with such furor and excitement as if they happened yesterday. He delivered every sports fan a vision of what they loved so deeply about sports. Willing yourself to accomplish a goal. Conquering insurmountable odds. Competition. Excitement. A commitment to the game.
Kirby grew up dirt poor with a baseball team of brothers and sisters. That’s not to say they all played baseball in some sports version of the Jackson 5, but there were nine of them. The Puckett 9. Kirby grew up using household items for bats and crumpled up aluminum foil for a ball. After high school he worked in an assembly line for the Ford Motor Company getting fired because he worked TOO hard.
He volunteered for every overtime shift during the 30 day trial period. The bosses knew once he was union there would be no way to ever get rid of him. So they canned him. Let that sink in.
While countless other athletes are wasting college careers with drugs and horrible choices, Kirby was originally offered.nothing. He was part of a human machine on an assembly line and got fired for being too conscientious at it. Eventually, he tried out for the Kansas City Royals, impressing a coach from Bradley University. You can read the rest of his statistics on baseball-reference.com, I won’t bore you with the incredible numbers he put up year after year. (But if you aren’t familiar, you should look at them. Here they are: http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/puckeki01.shtml)
No one handed him a Hummer during his sophomore year of high school. There was no million-dollar endorsement deal from Nike awaiting his entry into the professional ranks. Even when the red-carpets were rolled out during a 1992 free agency period, he chose to stay loyal for less money.
Kirby Puckett had a dream. Accomplish it or work on the lumberyard.
He built himself into one of the greatest baseball players you will ever see in your life. In the 23 years of watching sports, he is the first athlete from Minnesota that I’ve felt close enough to really feel comfortable saying that. HE IS ONE OF THE BEST FROM OUR GENERATION. Akin to Larry Bird and Boston, Magic Johnson to Los Angeles, Ernie Banks to Chicago. He was ours, he gave himself to us the fans, as unloyal and fickle as many of us can be. And now we were robbed of him.
My contemporaries grew up with Kirby Puckett. He taught us how to climb the center field wall. He taught us you CAN hit the first pitch and be a successful hitter (the fastest to 2,000 hits even). He taught us that you don’t need a dad to to play catch with. He taught us that if YOU want to be great. YOU need to do it.
More deeply, he was the first black person that many white people in Minnesota really let into their homes. Outside of the Twin Cities, Minnesota in the 80’s was a white-wash. (And I’m not talking about November through February). As Chris Rock said, “There aren’t any black people in Minnesota! The only black people in Minnesota are Prince and Kirby Puckett!”
Kirby Puckett inspired farmers that previously would tell their daughters, upon leaving for college, to not bring “colored folk” home, to name their pets and even children after a black man. He turned a racist old man into an awe-inspired fan (Calvin Griffith).
Yes he broke color lines that still exist in Minnesota. He stamped his name across more pieces of paper than immigration during Spring Break, while knowing that silently many “fans” still called him the n-word. And he no doubt transformed some of the ignorant just by his hard work, dedication, and sincere smile.
Now, when you’re reading this you’ll probably think of the past years involving Kirby. You’ll say this and that about his character. But that has nothing to do with why this man should or should not be beloved. Those were private, personal issues and Kirby Puckett was a man. No different than you or me. Do we not deserve to be forgiven of our trespasses? To err is human. In his excellence he reminded us the great things we can accomplish when motivated by greatness. In his darkest moments he reminded us of the ill conceived while motivated by other factors. He was a man, just like you and me.
Kirby Puckett reminds me of why I loved baseball once. Why I loved to be at the ballpark. How I loved to catch a pop-fly in center, crow-hop and nail a runner trying to tag up from third. How I loved to dig my back foot into in the agrilime of the batters box, knowing I was swinging like hell at the first pitch I saw, no doubt a fastball. The joy of slapping an outside pitch to right field. The cat-and-mouse game between first and second base, making a pitcher throw over to the base because you kept making a commotion. I still remember saying, “Annnnnnd we’ll see ya.Tomorrow NIGHT,” after a playoff game in 1997 that my team had won. We all immediately laughed and traded stories about “Hey I was there!” or “Yeah we watched it at my cousin’s house,” etc. etc. It went on for 10 minutes. And that was six years after the game.
People like Kirby Puckett remind you how other people can make YOUR life great, and that you can directly impact someone’s life by not even knowing them. I’ve never been to the “show”. But sitting in the $5, cramped right-field upper deck seats of the Dome (that are now blocked off with a huge drape); he let you come along for the ride. #34 played every game as it might be his last, every hit might be his last crack of the bat.
John Gordon and Jack Buck’s legendary calls still apply during this terribly joyless, horrible day. You did touch us all Kirby. And while we won’t see you tomorrow night, hopefully we will again someday.
Kirby Minnesota will always love you. Rest well.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll show up, and I’ll have a smile on my face. The only thing I won’t have is this uniform on. But you guys can have the memories of what I did when I did have it on…”-Kirby Puckett, 1996.
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