Kirby Puckett, 45, Dead....

Damnit Damnit Damnit!!!!!!

This is just surreal!!!

http://www.startribune.com/

O8)

like that great catch in the 'Series.

Rest easy, Kirby.

though it might be just the Minnesotans (or anyone who saw him play in the Dome) who know what I'm talking about.

I like to think that as he passed over Bob Casey was there to announce "And now, the centerfielder, number 34 KIRBEEEEEEEE Pucket!"

We won't forget you Kirby.

Little League World series- that they should play it like Pucket.

Flat-out and love every second of the game.

First ballot- Cooperstown.

I think you are right!!!

I imagine a lot of people have thought that.

by most accounts.

What a terrible loss of life. 45 is to young.

:shrug:

Oh yeah. That makes us feel better.

I hope you're not planning to become a mortician.

(91? I believe). He killed us, but I gained much respect for the man. RIP

I can't believe it.

especially when you consider that his professional career was also cut so cruelly short.

:(
rocknation

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

:cry:

Just seemed like he went from 30 years to 70 years somehow, to retire from glaucoma at 34 & a stroke at 44.

R.I.P. big guy.

I feel for his loved ones who have lost him at such a young age. Death was probably kinder than him living with the effects of such a major stroke. I hope that doesn't sound insensitive.

His aunt said he had gotten very very heavy she said "he just kept getting bigger and bigger and we were worried about him". Gotta take care of yourself. It is sad. I'm the same age- I'll be 46 on April 4 so it is a bit scary, but I'm not really overweight and my blood pressure and cholesterol are good. (Doesn't mean I won't get cancer or get hit by a truck though- gotta appreciate what you've got everyday)

What a shame, that's just far too young. :(

I remember he went 10 for 11 one weekend in Milwaukee!
What a ball player!

Rest in peace! I hope he's playing with Mantle, Thurman Munson, Babe, Ted, and other greats of the game.

Replayed the famous 6th game home run in the 1991 series...I started choking up...

This just totally sucks!!!

I was born in 1961, as well.

:cry: RIP

This is so sad for all baseball fans.

I posted on another thread: he was the most beloved player to ever wear a Minnesota uniform. More than Harmon, more than Rodney or Tony O, more than Tarkenton, more than Herb Brooks, more than anyone you can name.

:cry:

He played the game like he really loved what he was doing.

About his sordid off-field adventures or does he get a pass like other sports heroes?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2003/03/11/si_puckett/

"Laura Nygren, whom SI describes as Puckett's "mistress of many years," told the magazine that Puckett resumed an affair with her just seven weeks after he was married in 1986 -- then cheated on Nygren with numerous other women.

After the onset of glaucoma in his right eye forced him to retire in 1996, Puckett began committing lewd acts in public, such as urinating in mall parking lots, Nygren told SI. Her relationship with the ex-ballplayer ended last March after he allegedly threatened her and she obtained a temporary order of protection.

Shortly before Puckett was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in January 2001, a female employee of the Twins threatened to file a sexual harassment suit against the team because of Puckett’s and other men’s behavior. The Twins allegedly made a financial settlement with her, according to SI. The Twins declined to comment to the magazine about this allegation.

Puckett’s ex-wife, Tonya, divorced him in December, barely a year after she told police that he threatened to kill her during a telephone conversation. Over the years, she told SI, Puckett had also tried to strangle her with an electrical cord, locked her in the basement and used a power saw to cut through a door after she had locked herself in a room. Once, she said, he even put a cocked gun to her head while she was holding their young daughter."

more at link and many other links

And the last time I looked accusations were not proof!!!

No one is perfect and there are appropriate times to bring up people's faults and this just doesn't seem like one of those times. Even his ex-wife took his kids to be by his side and she was directly affected by his behavior. I would think that he never did anything to you personally, but I guess I could be wrong.

Well, yes, I do, but they'd get me banned.

This is one of those times where if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

I don't understand some of the people here tonight.

and for all we know the guy was practically a sexual assailant, are we supposed to forget that because he caught and hit a baseball?

People can make their own judgements about the man without your help. And they obviously have. A little sensitivity might be in order.

I had forgotten he had that history until the poster brought it up and reminded me. Praise him as a ballplayer if you want to, but as a human being he left a lot to be desired.

I wish he would have done so, but that is no guarantee he would have, and it doesn't change the past and his history. It's not like it was a one-time-only incident with him.

Nor were any of us there during his troubles, and none of us knows what happened. And it doesn't seem like it is any of our business frankly. His ex-wife thought enough of him to go to his side with their kids at the end. WHo are we to make a different judgement about him. And what public figure does not have skeletons in their closet.

A person does not have to be perfect in order to be worthy. Why not give it a rest for a few days. For alot of very smart people here, Kirby Puckett was somebody to be admired, and somebody who is going to be missed.

and if you want to praise his stats or such, fine. But to praise him as a good human being because he had a jovial personality is foolish - you don't know him any more than I did, but I know what the reports said about him. He had a MAJOR problem with women - and I guarantee you if we all looked into his political donations and found out the guy donated to Republicans, his support on this site would drop off in a flash.

He abused women, and most of the time on DU that's enough to get you on everyone's shit list, as long as you're not a beloved baseball hero.

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Despite that, I'm going to restrain myself - and show you more respect than you're showing Kirby.

he's a freakin' baseball player. If he didn't assault women, i wouldn't have a hard time with the idol worship.

People are acting like its okay to hit women as long as you can also hit baseballs.

I'm forced to overlook some loutish, insensitive comments for the time being.

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Say what you will at his funeral.
Bob Hope comes to mind.

That most people here know "the whole man" and have made their judgements. In any case now is not the appropriate time!!!

he was in the process of cleaning his life up, after some very public ugliness. He was losing weight, and was to be remarried in June.

I am for giving folks second chances.

"To err is human, but forgiveness is divine."

But we don't remember Lincoln because he was nice to his mother.

Peace
PsA

Babe Ruth? Entertaining bevies of, ah, loose women in his room?
Ty Cobb? The most virulent racist of his time?
Cap Anson? Who probably more than any other player was responsible for the color line?
Rogers Hornsby? Who had a gambling habit to make Michael Jordan look like am office-pool player, and who was known in his managerial days to urinate on his team's pitchers when in the shower?
Charles Comiskey? Whose penurious labor practices were the motivating factor behind the Black Sox scandal?
Joe DiMaggio? Who had a slush fund set up for him by organized crime figures?
Orlando Cepeda? Convicted of dealing drugs?
Mickey Mantle? Freshen that up for you, Mick? The guy who had a clubhouse man autograph balls for him?
Wade Boggs? How's Margo?

What of all the players who served drug suspensions?

If you took all the character cases out of the Hall, you'd lose two-thirds of the membership. You'd lose at least half of the pre-1920 guys, let alone the post-Ruth players.

I'm not defending Kirby's mistakes, or trying to mitigate them. I'm just pointing out that these shouldn't be more important than all of the good things he did, when they weren't for so many who preceded him. Otherwise, most guys would end up in the boat with Pete Rose.

Peace
PsA

sleeping around, gambling, drinking and dealing drugs to sexually assaulting women?

oy vey

Have some undisclosed evidence the jury that acquitted him did not have?

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/4754100.htm

It began a series of events that now has his life at a crossroads. Once voted Baseball's Best Role Model and Friendliest Player in a 1993 Baseball America reader survey, Puckett has spent the last year facing accusations not only of womanizing, but violence, and he faces a February trial on charges of felony false imprisonment and gross misdemeanor sexual conduct for an October incident. His job status with the Twins is in limbo after two decades with the franchise. And his divorce from Tonya, she says, is just a signature away from completion.

Looking back, Tonya describes a man she says she loved but sometimes feared, a portrayal repeated by a woman who says she was his mistress for 18 years.

"Kirby," says Laura Nygren, "is not the person everyone thinks he is."

Kirby also wrote that Tonya was one of the people "who give me the love and support I need to be the best I can be." However, once Tonya heard Kirby on the phone with another woman that day, Dec. 13, 2001, everything changed. Despite Kirby's denial that anything improper was going on, Tonya hired a private investigator at the urging of a close friend. Soon, Tonya was told that her husband had entered affairs with a number of women.
"In the beginning, I was absolutely devastated," Tonya says. "I loved him so much. I was one of those people who didn't think I could live without him. It's like you're in this tunnel and it's so dark and you can't see. And one day you wake up and you see light. You keep following this light."

Two days after she caught Kirby on the phone with the mystery woman, Tonya claims, Kirby threatened in a phone call that he "was going to kill me." Tonya told the private investigator, who advised her to call the Edina police so there would be a record of her allegation. When she did, six days later, on Dec. 21, 2001, Tonya gave police an account of the latest incident and laid out a pattern of violent behavior by Puckett — although none of it recent — over the course of their marriage, according to the police report.

She told of Kirby putting a cocked gun to her head as she held their then-2-year-old daughter.
She told of Kirby trying to strangle her with an electrical cord.
She told of Kirby locking her in the basement.
She told of Kirby using a power saw to cut through a door.

Kirby denied all the allegations to police, saying they argued after Tonya threatened to keep him from seeing their two adopted children again. Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar declined to file a felony complaint because the alleged threat came on a long-distance call from Atlantic City, making it hard to prove Tonya was in imminent danger. Edina city attorney Marsh Halberg declined to file a misdemeanor complaint because Tonya waited six days to file her report and because the two participants were the only witnesses, and their stories were so conflicting.

Even though the courts were out of it, the police report went public three weeks after the alleged threat.
"I don't take back anything that I said," says Tonya, 37. "What I said to that officer was the absolute truth. When I talked to the officer, I had no idea that report would go any further and become public knowledge.
"What they ask you is: Why would you be afraid? They say: Why would you have reason to be afraid? I beat around the bush, then I spilled my guts. I thought it was in confidence. How naive I was. I had no idea it would get to Amy Klobuchar's eyes and I would have people looking at me and thinking, 'She made this up to hurt him.' I have never and would never.

Welcome to my ignore list.

That I have seen many times, which he denies.

"Kirby denied all the allegations to police, saying they argued after Tonya threatened to keep him from seeing their two adopted children again. Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar declined to file a felony complaint because the alleged threat came on a long-distance call from Atlantic City, making it hard to prove Tonya was in imminent danger. Edina city attorney Marsh Halberg declined to file a misdemeanor complaint because Tonya waited six days to file her report and because the two participants were the only witnesses, and their stories were so conflicting."

BTW...Tonya brought the kids to be with Kirby at the end.

I love when people use non-sequiturs.

Fact is, there is much more to baseball history than people realize.


Hint: the good guys are slimed and scapegoated, all because some old money families think they still own the game.


All of the above are innocent.


Why don't you hold the corporate slime who manipulate them accountable instead.

It's all bullshit, I know from the inside.

I think it's possible to mourn the athlete and not the man. To mourn the excellence that was his, to mourn the man that made some incredible memories for a lot of people.

The personal side of Bill Clinton was not exactly to my liking, but he did some good things as President, and I honor those things. Ditto for JFK, FDR, LBJ, the list goes on . . .

Let's look at the record:

He broke in at the age of 23 and was gone at 34. That's a very short career for a Hall of Fame ballplayer; I can think of only one other in the last 50 years - Sandy Koufax - with a career that short. Yet he made the Hall on the first ballot (as did Koufax).

He played most of his career in an era that was largely (except 1987) at or slightly below normal hitting norms. His career numbers are not standout for a HOFer in the aggregate context; with ignorance of historical norms, people twenty years from now - who might not have seen him play - might look at the staggering numbers that players began to compile every season after 1994, the year he was forced to retire, and wonder why he was considered such a good player. Between 1972 and 1994, only two players - George Foster and Cecil Fielder - hit 50 home runs in a season. I don't think Kirby ever hit 40. His average of .318 was exceptional, but not in Wade Boggs or Tony Gwynn territory. His defense was quite good, but certainly not the best of the time; most people would pick Griffey on ability, if not name recognition.

So, by the numbers alone, he doesn't stand out.

But the more you look, the more you see. For a player to be a ten-time all-star in twelve years is an excellent record. He was a complete player, among the league leaders of his time, in almost every season he played, and in a diverse array of categories that reflect all of the critical skills of the game. He was far and away the greatest player on a team that won two world titles - the only ones won by that franchise since 1933, even with such players as Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, Harmon Killebrew, and Tony Oliva. The question of which was the all-time greatest player for the Senators/Twins comes down to him and only one other player I would consider as better, and it's really not fair to compare him to the original Big Train, Walter Johnson. Among position players, he is their greatest.

Finally, one has to ask: absent the injury that felled him, would Kirby have continued to excel for another five years? Absolutely. If anything, his numbers would have seen a slight uptick due to the inflated hitting context of the mid-to-late 1990's. As mentioned, only two players topped 50 homers in the 22 years during and immediately preceding his career. Consider the numbers we've seen since then. Gwynn hit .394 in 1994. A substantial number of players hit 50 homers - not just Bonds, Sosa and McGwire, but also Griffey, Alex Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, and Albert Belle. Several players who weren't nearly as good as these did it too - Luis Gonzalez, Brady Anderson, Greg Vaughn. The number of 100-RBI men and 100-runs-scored men per season has also increased substantially. Now imagine what Kirby could have done with the four or five years he lost.

I guess I'm writing this because I saw him play, and he was always a favorite of mine, even though I've been a lifelong Braves fan. The Hall voters, who also saw him play, elected him the first chance they got, in spite of the numbers that will puzzle those who never did in years to come. He was uncontestably one of the great players of his time. Perhaps one of the toughest criteria to demonstrate greatness is to ask yourself - if I could pick my own team, who would I take? With his ability, his desire, his leadership, his consistency, and his wonderful attitude toward the game and those who played it, he was the whole package. There have been contemporary players who may had greater skills, or better clubhouse presence. There might even have been one or two who excelled equally under the pressure of an all-important game. But I would absolutely choose him as my center fielder, and I cannot readily think of another position player of his time I would choose before him - not Cal Ripken, Dave Winfield, Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, Dale Murphy, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco at his peak, or even Barry Bonds. Kirby was comparable to almost all of those players in their best suits, and significantly better in their worst, with Dawson probably being the closest match overall. That, to me, is the strongest evidence of just how good Kirby really was.

Thanks for the memories, Kirby. Rest in peace - unless they have baseball where you've gone to.

Peace
PsA

on edit: correction on Sandy Koufax. Several other players have had shorter careers - Ross Youngs and Addie Joss, to name two - but none of them were the dominant force Kirby was (the only one I see who was in the same league was Hank Greenberg), and honestly, their selections were the results of favoritism on the HOF Veterans' Committee rather than the opinions of the BBWAA.

I liked your post but I think you are underappreciating his stats a bit

Better Batting average than Roberto Clemente

More career hits than Joe Dimaggio

Most all time hits first 10 seasons

Fourth all time in the number of hits in his first 12 seasons

Most number of hits and RBI in the same season since Joe Medwick.

Six Gold Gloves


His career was short, but he packed in Hall of Fame numbers!!!

His career numbers, total, are excellent, but imagine them with five more years. Overall the totals are in line with about an average HOF outfielder. Chuck Klein has somewhat similar numbers, but he played in the biggest hitting era before 1994, in a park with a 280-foot right field fence (and more than a few people, myself included - I've seen the photos of the Baker Bowl - believe it was more like 250). My point is that he did this in twelve years, not sixteen or twenty. A lot of players lasted long enough to put up total stats - not ten- or twelve-year totals, but much longer - that look larger if you don't scale them to equalize the time factor. Winfield got 3000 hits - more than Babe Ruth - but no one who could see the biases inherent in the numbers would seriously consider Winfield a better player. The ten-year comparisons are operative, and are definitely evidence in Kirby's favor - but Fred Lynn had a great stretch in the first part of his career, too. If he had been injured in the year after he joined the Angels, we might have been asking these questions about him fifteen or twenty years ago. As it turned out, he faded significantly after the early 80's, and is not even close to a realistic HOF candidate.

Clemente played throughout the 1960's, which saw a significant drop in hitting stats. The period from 1963 through 1968 was the weakest-hitting non-war period since 1920. Clemente's (and also Tony Oliva's) numbers have to be viewed in that light. Still, given the choice between Clemente (who died the year before I first began to follow baseball, so I know him only through others' eyes and through the numbers) and Kirby Puckett, I probably would take Kirby, even with the statistical biases. He was close to as good an outfielder, a much better runner, and hit for more power.

DiMaggio, remember, lost several years to the war, and also played in a park that was hell on right-handed hitters. Like Kirby, his career was shaped to a certain extent by factors beyond his control (imagine Joe D. in Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, let alone someplace like the Polo Grounds or - today - Coors Field). Dimaggio also was a team leader, but more than that, he was an icon in his own time in a way that very, very few players have ever been.

Joe Medwick was an infielder, rather than an outfielder, so his numbers are in a somewhat different context (otherwise no one would have even considered players like Nellie Fox, Phil Rizzuto, Pee Wee Reese, Bill Mazeroski, George Kell or Rabbit Maranville). There is some relevance to this - Rizzuto and Kell don't belong in the Hall, really, and the others all took years or decades to be elected. Nevertheless, Medwick also won a Triple Crown in 1937. That may not be a fair standard - Kirby didn't win one, but Yastrzemski is the only player in my lifetime who has - but it also carries some weight when comparing the two.

I left out one other player, also, who was close to him, maybe a half-step below, and that was Paul Molitor. Note that Molitor had probably the best stretch of his career during the years that Kirby missed. It just reinforces what might have been. Minnie Minoso has the opposite problem - he came along as the color bar was coming down, and didn't make the majors until he was 28. After that point, he was better than a number of players who are in the Hall (Goslin, Medwick, Sam Rice to name a few). Minoso probably should be in, but his career numbers aren't standout - and that is the very point that I am trying to make, that the career numbers just don't tell the whole story for Puckett, either.

Six Gold Gloves is very good indeed, but I can name at least two contemporary players who had more - Greg Maddux and Ozzie Smith - though in center field he was almost certainly the best fielder in the 80's. In a historical context, Schmidt, Brooks Robinson, Mazeroski, and Jim Kaat are all well ahead of him. Since the Gold Glove only dates to the 50's, a lot of players get cut out of that consideration as well (Maranville and Marty Marion come to mind).

Mind you, I'm not saying he was even a good player - knowing the context, you have to conclude he was a bona-fide great player. It's just that the whole seems smaller, the way a fifty-dollar bill might not look as impressive as a stack of thirty ones at first glance - but which would you rather have? Once you've counted them, it's not at all difficult to decide.

Peace
PsA

You are right of course that his march to a truly one of a kind career was cut short. That he packed hall of fame numbers into a 12 year career is mighty remarkable!!!

He was the greatest ballplayer of his time for sure.

Could hit anything, anywhere on the plate at anytime...

And the way he played center changed opponents entire strategy. He probaly alone was more responsible for "hit and run" baseball.

That series with St.Louis was a classic matchup of speed vs. braun.

Kirby laid the foundation for McGwire, Sosa and the other big powerhitters. He proved a stocky powerhouse could play the game of baseball with a athleticism that appeared to be so purposeful and controlled rather than chaotic and "lucky".

Despite the above posts on his personal problems off the field I will remeber Kirby as the great ballplayer that helped me rediscover a game I loved.

It's even more amazing that he grew up in the projects of Chicago and taught himself how to play baseball until he got into high school and college.

Truly one of the greats in the pantheon of baseball legends. He will be sorely missed.

He was a great player. :patriot:

:cry:

...after I'd pretty much written it off as a schizophrenic, corporatized mess of a sport, peopled by spoiled, pampered prima donnas and nonentities. The Twins' long drought didn't help either.

But even before the runup to the '87 Series, I was tuning in games again, just to see that little fireplug of a guy with the big grin and the twinkle in his eye step up to the plate, or perform miracles in CF. He played the game like it was a GAME, with a zest and a verve and a wholehearted enjoyment that made you feel it right through the TV screen, or way up in the nosebleed seats.

He made it fun again. He could be sly and tricky with demon pitchers, innocent and ferocious by turns as he stepped up to the plate, but always with a single-focused joy in what he was about to do-- namely, whack it over the Hefty bags, into the lights, and GONE.

And in the field? Magic, pure magic. You'd never believe a guy built like that could levitate so effortlessly to snag a ball, or trundle himself with such preternatural speed into the path of a line drive, giving it EVERYTHING he had, and with flawless accuracy, scooping up a one-bouncer and thwacking it right into Herbie's mitt to rob the batter.

RIP, Kirby. Too soon over, too soon...

sadly,
Bright

for having the guts to tell the truth.

Does anyone else think about what it's like for the victims of death threats and abuse and humiliation to see the rest of the world idol-worshipping their abuser?

The people who deserve our tears are those having to recover from the abuse they suffered, not those who were overpayed and adulated for hitting a ball.

Anyone who would sexually assault a woman is a straight-up loser. I don't care what else he has accomplished in life.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2003/03/11/si_puckett/

One day after he had retired, she told SI, they were together when Puckett said he had to leave to visit a sick child who was waiting to meet him.

“That’s great, you get to make that kid’s day,” Nygren told him. “That must make you feel good.” But she said Puckett just snapped back at her.

“I don’t give a s---,” he said. “It’s just another kid who’s sick.”

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45 is way too young for a good guy like him to leave us. Kirby, you will be sorely missed.