Kirby Puckett - Early life, Early career - 1982-1990, Late career - 1991-1995

Baseball player, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. When playing for Bradley University and Triton College in Illinois, he was scouted and drafted by the MLB team Minnesota Twins in 1982, remaining with them for the whole of his career. A popular player, he became a 10-time All-Star outfielder who helped the Twins to two World Series wins (1987, 1991). Problems with glaucoma brought his retirement in 1996. During his career he made 2304 hits, 207 home runs, and had a batting average of .318 but was also a standout in the field, winning six Golden Gloves. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.

Kirby Puckett
Kirby Puckett
Date of birth	March 14, 1960
Place of birth	Chicago, Illinois
Date of death	March 6, 2006
Place of death	Phoenix, Arizona
Height	5'8"
Weight	210
Bats	Right
Throws	Right
Position(s)	Center field
College	Bradley
Draft	1982 / Round 1
All Stars	1986–1995
Awards	1991 1991 ALCS MVP, 1993 All-Star MVP 1993 Branch Rickey Award Gold Glove 1986–1989, 1991–1992 Silver Slugger 1986–1989, 1992, 1994
Honors	All-Star (10): 1986-1995; All-Star Game MVP 1993; Gold Glove (6): 1986-1989, 1991-1992;
Retired #s	Minnesota #34 (1997)
Career Highlights	1987 World Series champion 1991 World Series champion
Statistics	BaseballAlmanac
Team(s) as a Player
1984–1995	Minnesota Twins
Baseball Hall of Fame, 2001

Member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame

Kirby Puckett

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Inducted as a member of the Minnesota Twins (34)

Year Inducted: 2001

First Year Elligible: 2001

Kirby Puckett (March 14, 1960 – March 6, 2006) was a center fielder in Major League Baseball who played his entire career with the Minnesota Twins from 1984 to 1995. Puckett led the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991, the only two championships for the franchise since their move to Minnesota in 1961.

He was the only baseball player during the 20th century to record 1,000 hits in his first five full calendar years in Major League Baseball, and one of only two to record 2,000 hits during his first ten full calendar years. On March 5, 2006, Kirby Puckett suffered a massive stroke at his home in Arizona and died the following day.

Early life

Puckett was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project.

Early career - 1982-1990

Puckett started his minor league career with the Elizabethton Twins in Tennessee in 1982. At the time, Puckett was a slap hitter and outstanding defensive center fielder and produced a .382 batting average in his first season.

In his third season, Puckett burst into stardom.

1987

In 1987, Puckett led the Twins to their first title in the World Series after batting .332 with 28 home runs and 99 RBI in the regular season.

During that championship year, Puckett had his best performance on August 30 in Milwaukee when he went 6-for-6 with two home runs, one off of Juan Nieves in the third and the other off of closer Dan Plesac in the ninth. Puckett had his statistically best season, hitting .356 with 24 home runs and 121 RBI, to finish third in the MVP balloting for a second straight season.

Late career - 1991-1995

In 1991, the Twins got back on the winning track and Puckett led the way by batting .319, eighth in the league. Puckett batted .429 with two home runs and six RBI in the playoffs to win MVP honors. Puckett gave the Twins an early lead by scoring Chuck Knoblauch with a triple, and helped to hold off an Atlanta rally in the third inning with a leaping catch off the plexiglas outfield wall that stole a sure double by Ron Gant (in later seasons, the plexiglas would be removed). The game went into extra innings, and in the first at-bat of the bottom of the 11th, Puckett hit a dramatic walk-off home run on 2-1 off Charlie Leibrandt to keep his team alive.This dramatic game has been widely remembered as the high point in Puckett's career. The images of Puckett rounding the bases, arms raised in triumph, are always included in video highlights of Puckett's career, often accompanied by CBS Sports commentator Jack Buck's words, "And we'll see you tomorrow night!" In the years to come, and especially after Puckett's death, Game 6 came to symbolize his entire career as an excellent ballplayer who always came through for the Twins when they needed it the most. The next night, Puckett's Twins won 1-0 in 10 innings for their second World Series title.

1992-1995

The Twins contended for one more season and then began to slip, but Puckett didn't follow suit. In 1994, Puckett, now playing in right field, won his first league RBI title by driving in 112 runs in just 108 games, and he was having another brilliant season in 1995 before having his jaw broken by a Dennis Martínez fastball on September 28.

Awards and accolades

Puckett appeared in 10 straight All-Star Games and was named the MVP of the 1993 All-Star Game in Baltimore.

Puckett had been admired throughout his career and for some years after.

Controversy

Puckett became the subject of controversy in the years before his death.

In the March 17, 2003, edition of Sports Illustrated, columnist Frank Deford penned a piece entitled The Rise and Fall of Kirby Puckett, that documented Puckett's many indiscretions and contrasted his private image with the much-revered public image he maintained prior to his arrest. A companion of many years to Puckett commented once that when Puckett couldn't play baseball anymore, "he started to become full of himself and very abusive." His weight ballooned to over 300 lbs and he was alleged to have begun to perform lewd acts in public, such as urinating in the parking lot of a shopping center, in plain view of other people.

Death

Wikinews has news related to: Hall of Fame baseball player Kirby Puckett dies of stroke

On the morning of March 5, 2006, Kirby Puckett suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Many, including 1991 teammates Shane Mack and Kent Hrbek, flew to Phoenix to be at his bedside during his final hours along with Kirby's ex-wife Tonya Puckett and two kids Kirby Jr. The official cause of death was recorded as "cerebral hemorrhage due to hypertension." Puckett died at the second-youngest age (behind Lou Gehrig) of any Hall of Famer inducted while living, and the youngest to die after being inducted in the modern era of the five-season waiting period.

A private memorial service was held in Twin Cities suburb of Wayzata on the afternoon of March 12 (declared "Kirby Puckett Day" in Minneapolis), followed by a public ceremomy held at the Metrodome attended by family, friends, ballplayers past and present, and approximately 15,000 fans (an anticipated capacity crowd dwindled through the day due to an incoming blizzard that night).

Kirby Puckett's going to be all right.

Trivia

Beginning in the 1985 season, Puckett would make the sign of the cross before every at-bat, it became one of his most recognizable gestures. During the 2006 season, the Twins wore a black 34 on their sleeve in honor of Puckett. Puckett was one of seven Twins to be part of both the 1987 and 1991 World Series teams. and A book of baseball games and drills, Kirby Puckett's Baseball Games (ISBN 0-7611-0155-1), published by Workman Publishing Company in 1996 Puckett is the first (and as of May 2006, only) player born in the 1960s to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Roberto Clemente was younger than Puckett (one year older than Gehrig) when he died in a plane crash, but he was not inducted until after his death. Puckett hit only two grand slams in his whole career, including high school, college, minor leagues, and major leagues. Twins catcher Joe Mauer won the American League Batting title (as well as the title for all of Major League Baseball), the first Twin since Puckett to do so. Mauer's batting average that season was .347 - a combination of Puckett's number, 34, and his, 7. 34 was also the number of state senators (out of a total of 66) who voted to approve the Twins' stadium bill in May. In late 2006, Puckett was voted as the Twins' Hometown Hero, a series of the same name that profiled each Major Leagues team best players, where the voting took place online.