Kirby Puckett

1960-

American baseball player

Baseball player Kirby Puckett played twelve seasons with the Minnesota Twins, from 1984 to 1996, helping his team win the World Series in 1987 and 1991. A superstar beloved of Minnesota fans, he was given the nickname "Puck" for his short stature and jovial nature. He was forced to retire as a player at age thirty-six after losing the sight in his right eye to glaucoma. Puckett finished his career with a .318 batting average, the best by a right-handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio . He set a record with 2,040 hits in his first ten seasons. Puckett was

named to the American League All-Star team for ten consecutive years, from 1986 to 1995. Among many other awards, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, at age forty-one.

Humble Beginnings

Kirby Puckett was born March 14, 1960 (some sources say 1961), in Chicago, Illinois, the son of postal worker William Puckett and his wife, Catherine. He was the youngest of nine children. The family was poor, making their home in the Robert Taylor housing project on Chicago's South Side. As a boy, Puckett loved baseball and played his early games using aluminum-foil bats and balls made from rolled-up socks. He played ball whenever and wherever he could, scratching out makeshift baseball diamonds and scrounging a team from among neighborhood playmates. Puckett considers his parents heroes because they supported him in his interest and made life in the projects bearable.

Short and stocky, Puckett began body building at Calumet High School in Chicago. He played baseball there and for the semipro Chicago Pirates, at third base. By the time he graduated, however, no major league scouts had made him an offer. He went to work in a Ford Motor Company plant and later worked as a census taker. One year after graduation, he was offered a scholarship to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, after trying out for the Kansas City Royals.

Discovered by the Twins

After his first year at Bradley, however, Puckett's father died, and he moved back to Chicago to be closer to his mother. He attended Triton Community College, where he continued to play baseball. By this time, he could bench press 300 pounds and was hitting .472, with forty-two stolen bases. A Minnesota Twins scout picked him out, and the Twins drafted him in the first round in January 1982. He started his career on the Twins' minor league team in Elizabethton, Tennessee, in the Appalachian League, where he led the league in seven categories. The following season he was sent to Visalia, California, and chosen best major league prospect. By the spring of 1984, Puckett was moved up to the majors. He made his debut with the Minnesota Twins on May 8, 1984, when he had four hits in five times at bat. As good as his batting was, however, Puckett could not seem to hit home runs, prompting Reggie Jackson to refer to him as "a Punch and Judy hitter."

Chronology

During spring training in 1986, new Twins manager Tom Kelly and batting coach Tony Oliva helped Puckett overcome his fear of being hit by the ball and trust his strength and speed at the plate. By the start of the season he had found his powerful, accurate swing and hit thirty-one home runs, with ninety-six runs batted in (RBI), in the 1986 season as a lead-off hitter. The same season, he won his first Gold Glove award as a centerfielder.

In 1987, Puckett batted .332, with twenty-eight home runs and ninety-nine RBIs. The Twins won the World Series, and Puckett was third in Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting. He finished third again in 1988, his best season, after batting .356, with twenty-four home runs and a total of 234 hits. In 1991, Puckett was named MVP of the Twins' Championship victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. In game six of the World Series, Puckett proved himself a superstar when he had three RBIs in the first inning, made astounding plays in the third, fifth, and eighth innings, and hit a game-winning home run in the eleventh inning. This forced a seventh World Series game, which the Twins also won, taking the World Series championship for the second time in five years.

Puckett passed up a chance to earn more money elsewhere in 1992 and decided to stay with the Minnesota Twins for the rest of his career. His loyalty and his humility—coupled with his outstanding playing ability, short stature, and friendly demeanor—made him a favorite of Minnesota fans. He began shaving his head before the baseball season, which made him look even more like a storybook character, and he always drove to ball games in an old pickup truck. In 1995 he turned down his chance to become a free agent and settled in for a long career in Minneapolis. He had married Tonya Hudson in 1986, and they had a young daughter. He told Esquire, "I'm living out my dream every day." Then, in September of 1995, everything began to change.

Injury and Glaucoma

On September 28, 1995, Puckett was hit in the face by a fastball. The blow shattered his jaw and put him out of play for the rest of the season. At spring training camp the following March he was batting well, but on March 28 he woke up unable to see out of his right eye. Doctors discovered he had glaucoma. The problem could not be corrected, even after four surgeries, and on July 12, 1996, he announced his retirement as a player. Puckett told his fans that he was happy with the twelve seasons he had been able to play, including two World Series championships and ten All-Star games. The Twins kept him on as executive vice president of the club, and he and his family were able to stay in Minneapolis, the adopted city they loved.

During his playing years and after retirement, Puckett established and worked for a number of charities, including serving as a national spokesperson for the Glaucoma Foundation and making public appearances to encourage people to get eye exams for the disease. He and his wife hosted an annual invitational pool tournament to raise money for the Children's HeartLink in Minneapolis, to help those in need pay for life-saving heart surgery. Both of Puckett's parents died of heart attacks. As an executive with the Minnesota Twins, he chaired the club's Community Fund committee. He won both the Wesley Branch Rickey Award and the Roberto Clemente Award for service to the community.

Awards and Accomplishments

Where Is He Now?

Retired from the Minnesota Twins as a player since 1995, Kirby Puckett has remained with the club as executive vice president. He has kept a fairly low profile, according to his former teammates. They say he seems to prefer spending time with his family and fishing to being in the public eye, although he remains tremendously popular with his fans. He also devotes a good deal of time to charity work. However, after a great year in 2001, in which he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, 2002 was a difficult one for Puckett. His wife, Tonya, filed for divorce in February, citing domestic violence and an "irretrievable breakdown" in their marriage. She sought sole custody of their two children. Then, in September, Puckett was charged with felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor criminal sexual conduct. Puckett declared that he was innocent of the charges. He remained free on his own recognizance, and a pretrial was set for late November.

Hall of Fame

Puckett was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 2001. He was the third youngest player still living at the time of induction to receive the sport's highest honor, behind only Lou Gehrig and Sandy Koufax . Twelve busloads of fans from Minneapolis-St. Paul came to support their favorite son at the ceremony, many wearing Puckett's Number 34 jersey. At his acceptance speech, he told the crowd, "Don't feel sorry for yourself if obstacles get in your way. I faced odds when glaucoma took the bat out of my hands, but I didn't give in or feel sorry for myself. It may be cloudy in my right eye, but the sun is shining very brightly in my left eye."

Kirby Puckett followed his dream as a young boy growing up in the inner city of Chicago, and it led him to stardom. He appears to have remained humble throughout the process, however, and thankful for the years he had as a player as well as for the years ahead. As a young player he did not let his short stature prevent him from becoming a strong and gifted hitter and fielder. Instead of becoming discouraged, he hung a photo of an even shorter player, Hall of Famer Hack Wilson at 5'6" and 190 pounds, for inspiration. While playing award-winning ball games, Puckett still found time to give back to his community, and even after losing part of his eyesight continued to serve in an uplifting way.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: Kirby Puckett, c/o Minnesota Twins, Metro-dome, 34 Kirby Puckett Place, Minneapolis, MN 55415. Phone: 612-375-1366. Email: [email protected]. Online: http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY PUCKETT:

(As told to Greg Brown) Be the Best You Can Be, Waldman House Press, 1993.

I Love This Game!: My Life and Baseball, Harper-Collins, 1993.

Career Statistics

(With Andre Gutelle) Kirby Puckett's Baseball Games, Workman, 1996.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Contemporary Black Biography. Volume 4.

"Kirby Puckett." Detroit: Gale Group, 1993.

Who's Who Among African Americans. 14th edition. "Kirby Puckett." Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.

Periodicals

Swanson, William. "Kirby without Tears." MPLS-St. Paul Magazine (June, 2000): 84.

"When It Comes to Helping Kids, Kirby Puckett Is All Heart!" Sports Illustrated for Kids (May, 1997): 19.

"Winfield, Puckett Head Baseball's Class of 2001 Hall of Fame Inductees." Jet (August 20, 2001): 52.

"Zorich, Puckett & Johnson among Most Caring Athletes." Jet (February 20, 1995): 47.

Other

Baseball Reference.com. "Kirby Puckett." http://www.baseball-reference.com/ (October 31, 2002).

Boone, Matthew. "MLB Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett Divorcing Wife." SportsScoops.com. http://www.sportsscoops.com/ (February 22, 2002).

Major League Baseball Official Info: Community Programs. http://mlb.mlb.com/ (November 1, 2002).

Minnesota Twins Official Web Site. http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/ (November 1, 2002).

National Baseball Hall of Fame. "Kirby Puckett." http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/ (November 1, 2002).

Ramstad, Evan, Associated Press. "Puckett Declares Innocence after Appearing at County Jail." Yahoo! Sports. http://sports.yahoo.com/ (October 21, 2002).

"Rotary Club Releases Branch Rickey Award Finalists." BizJournals.com. http://www.bizjournals.com/Denver/ (August 6, 2002).

Yahoo! Sports. "Hall of Famer Puckett Charged with Sexual Assault." http://sports.yahoo.com/ (October 18, 2002).

Sketch by Ann H. Shurgin