TwinsTube: Keeping Kirby Puckett

If we are already to Kirby remembrances, this is going to be a long cold stretch of no baseball.

I recall hearing a story told recently (possibly from Reusse) about Puckett. Apparently, he was tearing the cover off the ball in the spring before he had his eye issue. Better than ever. The team has brought in Molitor, and it appeared as though Puckett was poised to drive him in about 150 times that year.

I remember it like it was yesterday, though I was relatively young at the time. What I never knew was how well he was performing right up until the day he woke up and couldn’t see.

Despite all of that, the man is a legend. On the short list of most entertaining players to watch in the history of the game, IMO.

I recall hearing a story told recently (possibly from Reusse) about Puckett. Apparently, he was tearing the cover off the ball in the spring before he had his eye issue. Better than ever. The team has brought in Molitor, and it appeared as though Puckett was poised to drive him in about 150 times that year.

I remember it like it was yesterday, though I was relatively young at the time. What I never knew was how well he was performing right up until the day he woke up and couldn’t see.

Despite all of that, the man is a legend. On the short list of most entertaining players to watch in the history of the game, IMO.

Kirby was going to get to bat cleanup that year.  Considering Molitor and Knoblauch both batted .346 and Cordova drove in 111 runs knocking them in, Kirby probably gets at least 130 if he played.  IIRC he had two hits off Greg Maddux in his final spring game.   Maybe they play .500 ball and the franchise gets turned around a bit earlier than 2001.

I'm old enough to remember the uproar when Kirby became baseball's first $3 million per year player.  Musta been '89ish?

Before he moved to Arizona before his death, Kirby lived in my neighborhood.   Lets just say that he looked like that fat man image in the video.  I think those were hard times for Kirby and you could see that his health was deteriorating.  

Hard to watch any of this without tears because he was really a once in a lifetime type of sports personality.