Kirby

I had the good fortune to meet Kirby Puckett back in the late Spring of 1987, the same year he led his Minnesota Twins to the first of two World Series Championships (the second was in 1991). I was working for Nickelodeon at the time and we flew into Minneapolis for an event called Kids Day where a bunch of lucky winners got to be important people for one day (fireman, mayor, etc.). One extremely lucky kid got to be a Twin for the day, getting to suit up and hang out on the field with the team.

Without a doubt, Kirby was the most friendly and easy-going member of the Twins. I asked him on camera if he thought the kid had a chance to make the team and Kirby said, "It depends on if he can hit!" And, sure enough, Kirby got the kid into the batting cage, breaking probably a million major league baseball rules.

Kirby is the only modern-day (superstar) ballplayer (to my knowledge) that played his entire career with the same team, forsaking bigger bucks in bigger cities to play with the team he loved.

I was sad when he had to retire from baseball prematurely (due to glaucoma) and I'm of course even sadder today that Kirby passed away at such a young age (he was only 45 46).



R.I.P. Kirby.

(and R.I.P. Ali Farka Toure and Dana Reeve)