I have been contemplating blogging about this for a long time now. On May 7th, Kirby Puckett passed away from a stoke. He was 45.In 1990, I became a baseball fan. I was at the age when boys truly start to understand the rules of the game. While I enjoyed the season that year; the following year I became a Minnesota Twins fan. That season I remember watching the Twins play the White Sox a million times, and I saw them beat the stuffing out of the Royal's every time they stepped on the field.
I have never been very athletic, and height has never been associated with my name. So imagine my surprise to find out short fat kids can play baseball too. I watch Kirby Puckett knock the cover off almost every ball pitched to him, and jump over the wall in center field to make a catch. He was shorted than the rest of the players, and he wasn't the skinniest guy on the field. I was inspired. In my mind I had a chance to make it to the "big game". That year I watched the Twins win the World Series and Kirby had a great series. From that season on I have been a Twins fan, and Kirby was my hero.
What captured me more than his ability on the diamond, was his heart off the field. Kirby was constantly being named "Man of the Year" by the league for his work in the community. He was always in the hospitals visiting kids with cancer, or starting his own foundation for underprivileged kids. His smile was as famous as the great catches he made. He was a great player, and a better person.
Kirby's career was cut short by an eye condition, and he became...Well, to be honest, fat. He gained a lot of weight, and it showed as he gave his Hall of Fame speech when he was inducted in 2001. Shortly after his induction, he and his wife divorced. Sports Illustrated ran a big story on Kirby after he assaulted a lady in a restraunt. The story told of Kirby's affair with a women that lasted during his marriage and it also told of his "true" feelings about the charitable work. He hated it. He hated spending time with the kids. Kirby never commented about the article, but he no longer helped in the Twins front office. And, he was no longer the face of the organization. I was in college when I read this article. It broke my heart. The image that I held of him was broken.
I remained a Twins fan, but I stopped talking about how great of a guy Kirby was. When I watched ESPN break the story of his death, I was little busted up. I always knew that any person that is put on a petalstool will let you down, but when he died I felt bad for the way I totally dismissed him as a person because of a magazine article. No matter how he felt about the charitable work he did, he still did the work. He still did mountains of good for the kids in his community. He never went to the media to complain about "the organization" or his team mates. He played for the Twins his whole career, even when it was becoming popular to play the free agent market. The kids that he visited still found hope even if he felt the inconvenience of his time.
I am a fan of Kirby Puckett. He was a great player, and did more good for the people he came in contact with than I have attempted to do. I am still a Twins fan, even though I have never stepped foot in Minnesota. Hero's can let us down in the ways Jesus never will... but I don't know if Jesus ever played baseball (please understand the humor of tat statement, do no take that seriously). I am thankful for the life of Kirby Puckett. He meant a lot to me as a kid who knew he would never reach the majors, but still loved the game. I played sports because I saw it was okay to be on the field even if I wasn't most athletic. He made it easy to watch a full nine inning of ball.
Thanks Kirby.
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