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Kirby Puckett
(March 14, 1960 – March 6, 2006) was an American Hall of Fame center
fielder in Major League Baseball who played his entire career with the
Minnesota Twins from 1984 to 1995. Puckett led the Twins to World Series
titles in 1987 and 1991. After being forced to retire at age 35 due to
loss of vision in one eye from glaucoma, he was elected to the Hall of
Fame in 2001 in his first year of eligibility. He passed away at the age
of 45 following a massive stroke.
****
Date of birth March 14, 1960
Place of birth Chicago, Illinois
Date of death March 6, 2006
Place of death Phoenix, Arizona
Position(s) Center field
College Bradley
Draft 1982 / Round 1
All Stars 1986–1995
Awards 1991 ALCS MVP,
1993 All-Star MVP
1993 Branch Rickey Award
Gold Glove 1986–1989, 1991–1992
Silver Slugger 1986–1989, 1992, 1994
Honors
Retired #s Minnesota #34 (1997)
Statistics BaseballAlmanac
Statistics MLB.com
Team(s)
1984–1995 Minnesota Twins
Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, 2001
****
Early life
Puckett was born in Chicago, Illinois.
Unheralded in high school, he showed no signs of being a great player
until after he had left the team at Bradley University in 1980. He
decided to give baseball a second chance a year later, after catching
the eye of scouts while playing recreational ball in Chicago. He moved
on to Triton College (in Illinois) and was subsequently drafted by the
Twins in the first round of the 1982 baseball draft.
1984-1990
At the time, Puckett was a slap hitter and
outstanding defensive center fielder. Puckett produced a .382 batting
average in his first minor league season, with Elizabethton (Tennessee)
in 1982, and was promoted to the major leagues in less than two years,
earning a spot on the Twins roster on May 8, 1984. Called up to replace
center fielder Jim Eisenreich, who was suffering from a severe ailment
that eventually was revealed to be Tourette's syndrome, Puckett quickly
proved himself. On May 8, he became only the 9th player in history to
record 4 hits in the first full game of a career, by going 4 for 5
against the California Angels.
He was one of the league's best rookies in 1984, batting .296 and
leading all American League center fielders in outfield assists, with
16. He had a similar season in 1985, when he played in every game and
batted .288. Coincidentally, in 1985, the song Centerfield by John
Fogerty was released as a single. The single created an immediate
association in Minnesota with the electric performance and humble
personality of the team's rapidly rising center fielder.
In his third season, Puckett burst into stardom. It all began in the
off-season, when he worked with hitting coach Tony Oliva on driving the
ball for distance. Despite his small stature 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m), Puckett
had immense strength and the quick wrists of a power hitter. In 1986, he
added this to his game, blasting 31 home runs, raising his average to
.328 and winning the first of his six Gold Glove Awards for outstanding
defensive play.
In 1987, Puckett led the Twins to their first title in the World Series
after batting .332 with 28 home runs and 99 RBI in the regular season.
His performance was even more impressive in the seven-game Series upset
over the St. Louis Cardinals, batting a whopping .357.
The Twins won even more games in 1988, though they finished second in
their division to the powerful Oakland Athletics. Puckett had his
statistically best season, hitting .356 with 24 home runs and 121 RBI,
to finish third in the MVP balloting for a second straight season.
He won the American League batting title in 1989 with a mark of .339,
making him the first right-handed batter to win the title in eight
years. He continued to play well in 1990, but the Twins slipped to last
place in their division.
1991-1995
In 1991, the Twins got back on the winning
track and Puckett led the way by batting .319, eighth in the league.
Minnesota surged past Oakland in midseason and captured the division
title, then upset the favored Toronto Blue Jays in five games in the
American League Championship Series. Puckett batted .429 with two home
runs and six RBI in the playoffs to win MVP honors.
The World Series that followed is considered by many to be the most
exciting ever. Both the Twins and their opponent, the Atlanta Braves,
had finished last in their respective divisions in the year before
winning their league pennant, something that had never been done before.
Going into Game 6, the Twins trailed three games to two and had to win
to stay alive. Puckett helped to hold off a late Atlanta rally with a
leaping catch off the outfield wall that stole a sure double by Ron
Gant. The game went into extra innings, and in the first at-bat of the
bottom of the 11th, Puckett hit a dramatic walk-off home run off Charlie
Leibrandt to keep his team alive. This dramatic game has been widely
remembered as the high point in Puckett's career. The images of Puckett
rounding the bases, arms raised in triumph, are always included in video
highlights of Puckett's career, often accompanied by CBS Sports
commentator Jack Buck's words, "And we'll see you tomorrow night!" The
next night, Puckett's Twins won 1-0 in 10 innings for their second World
Series title.
The Twins contended for one more season and then began to slip, but
Puckett never did. In 1994, he won his first league RBI title by driving
in 112 runs in just 108 games, and he was having another brilliant
season in 1995 before having his jaw broken by a Dennis Martínez
fastball in late September.
Retirement
He recovered fully and returned to the Twins
for spring training in 1996. On March 28, after tattooing the Grapefruit
League for a .360 average, he woke up unable to see out of his right
eye. He was diagnosed with glaucoma, and several surgeries in the months
to come were unable to save his vision in the eye. On July 12, Puckett
announced his retirement from baseball at age 36. His lifetime batting
average of .318 was the highest of any right-handed batter since Joe
DiMaggio.
Awards and accolades
The Twins retired his number 34 in 1997, and
in 2001 he became the third youngest individual ever elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame, going in at age 41 in his first year of
eligibility. In 1999, he ranked Number 86 on The Sporting News' list of
the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for
the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Kirby appeared in 10 straight All-Star Games and was named the MVP of
the 1993 All-Star Game in Baltimore Source.
Puckett had been well admired throughout his career and for some years
after. His unquestionable baseball prowess, outgoing personality,
charity work, community involvement, healthy image, good rapport with
the media, and nice-guy attitude earned him the respect and admiration
of fans across the country.
Controversy
Puckett became the subject of controversy in
the years before his death. Puckett was arrested and charged with
groping a woman in a bar restroom on September 5, 2002. He was
acquitted.
In the March 17, 2003 edition of Sports Illustrated, columnist Frank
Deford penned a piece entitled "The Rise and Fall of Kirby Puckett" that
documented Puckett's many indiscretions and contrasted his private image
with the much-revered public image he maintained prior to his arrest. A
companion, of many years to Puckett, commented once that when Puckett
couldn't play baseball anymore, "he started to become full of himself
and very abusive." He was alleged to have begun to perform lewd acts in
public, such as going to a fancy shopping center, parking there, then
opening his car door and stepping out and urinating in plain view of
other people. Because of mounting controversy in Minnesota, Puckett
moved to Arizona in the winter of 2003.
Death
On the morning of March 5, 2006, Kirby Puckett
suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke at his home in Scottsdale,
Arizona. He underwent emergency surgery that day to relieve pressure on
his brain. The surgery failed and his former teammates and coaches were
notified the following morning. He died of complications from the stroke
at approximately 5:30 PM Mountain Standard Time (6:30 Central), shortly
after being disconnected from life support, just 8 days away from his
46th birthday. Puckett is the second-youngest person (behind Lou Gehrig)
to die already a member of the Hall of Fame.
Puckett is survived by a son, Kirby Jr., and a daughter, Catherine. At
the time of his death he was engaged to remarry, with an expected
wedding date in June.
The Puckett family has issued a statement about Kirby's death.
Quotes
"I was told I would never make it because I'm
too short. Well, I'm still too short, but I've got 10 All-Star games,
two World Series championships, and I'm a very happy and contented guy.
It doesn't matter what your height is, it's what's in your heart." -- at
his 1996 retirement press conference.
"Don't take anything for granted, because tomorrow is not promised to
any of us."
"Kirby Puckett's going to be all right. 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."
Trivia
Puckett was one of seven Twins to be part of
both the 1987 and 1991 World Series teams. The other six were Randy
Bush, Greg Gagne, Kent Hrbek, Al Newman, Gene Larkin, who had the
winning hit in Game 7 of the 1991 series, and Dan Gladden, who was the
runner Larkin batted in.
Kirby Puckett is credited with giving the nickname "Donnie Baseball" to
New York Yankees' legend Don Mattingly.
Twins teammates used to wear T-shirts that read "I wanna be like Puck."
During the 1987 season, Warren Zevon rewrote the lyrics of a song called
"Poor Poor Pitiful Me" to include the line, "Looks like Kirby Puckett"
Until recently, Puckett had been listed as being born in 1961, however
research by the National Baseball Hall of Fame discovered he was born a
year earlier. Many baseball resources still list the incorrect birth
year.
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