Puckett Played The Game As If He Needed It To Survive

1960-2006


It is not too much to say that Kirby Puckett put the Minnesota Twins on his shoulders and carried them.

It is also not too much to say that Kirby Puckett played baseball as if it was as important to his very being as oxygen.

And it is certainly not too much to say that Kirby Puckett is gone dozens of years too early.

Puckett, 45, died yesterday of complications from a stroke he suffered at his Arizona home on Sunday.

They're starting to fall now -- those whose careers I remember in their entirety: Reggie White, Walter Payton, Ken Caminiti. And now Kirby Puckett, who I remember, pre-pudginess, skidaddling along the basepaths and chasing down flyballs, but never hitting homeruns. But something happened to Puckett about the same time the Twins changed their uniforms to the current version. No longer was he a spray hitter who had no punch. Puckett had bulked up, learned to drive the ball with power, and made himself one of the best centerfielders in the business.

He was also one of the players that I absolutely hated to see come to the plate with the game on the line.

There were a few of those that I labeled as Tigers killers: Dave Winfield, Eddie Murray, John Mayberry, and Paul Molitor, to name a few. Yeah, they killed other teams too -- that's why most of them are in the Hall of Fame. But they seemed to, in my eyes, save some of their most poisonous venom for our Tigers. And Kirby Puckett was among those guys -- especially in that God-awful Metrodome. Of course, I think the Atlanta Braves have me trumped in that department.

It was Puckett, of course, who single-handedly demoralized the Braves in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series. First he makes an acrobatic, climb-the-wall catch to rob the Braves of a homerun, then he smacks the game-winning tater, walk-off style, to force Game 7. Everyone remembers Jack Morris' 10-inning shutout in the seventh game, but none of it is possible without Kirby Puckett's heroics in Game 6.

I don't know that I ever saw Kirby Puckett make an easy out. He was never a walk in the park. Every at-bat with Puckett at the plate, you knew you were in for a struggle -- if you were a pitcher, or a fan of the opposing team watching on television, or at the ballpark. He went up to the plate with the intention of battling the pitcher on every pitch, whether it was fouling balls off or using his keen eye to take pitches and run up the count. There was always a sigh of relief when he was finished at the plate -- even if he was standing on first base, because that meant that at least he didn't slap a double or slug a homerun.

After he had to quit prematurely at age 35 due to glaucoma -- that came on suddenly, too -- some say he was never the same. The game was taken away from him, when he almost certainly had five or more years left in his roly-poly body. As a result, Puckett let himself go physically, ballooning to proportions that made his friends and colleagues concerned. I don't know if his obesity contributed to his stroke, for I am not a doctor. Skinny people have strokes, after all. But it is never a good thing when the weight gets too high; it can be a precursor to too many things, and a sign of too many others -- mostly bad.

Kirby Puckett dying at age 45 has already been compared to Lou Gehrig's untimely passing. With all due respect to Kirby, I don't know that I'd go quite that far. But I will allow you that Puckett's death has shaken more than a few of us who remember him as he once was: one of the most energetic, exciting, baddest dudes to pull on the double-knits and New Era cap. He loved the game, and the game loved him back. So did his people.

He was lucky that way.