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RIP awesome baseball player.
R.I.P.
Just passed away from the stroke he sufferred. What a good amn.
It was a pleasure to watch a true man whio loved the sport and brought class to it.
We will all miss you...
RIP awesome baseball player.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...03-06-20-17-46
Mar 6, 8:17 PM EST
Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett Dies
By DAVE CAMPBELL
AP Sports Writer
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Kirby Puckett died Monday, a day after the Hall of Fame outfielder had a stroke at his Arizona home, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 44.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
True Hall of Famer....
Twins legend Puckett dead at 44
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Associated Press
Posted: 3 minutes ago
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Kirby Puckett died Monday, a day after the Hall of Fame outfielder had a stroke at his Arizona home, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 44.
Puckett died at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Kimberly Lodge said. He had been in intensive care since having surgery at another hospital following his stroke Sunday morning.
Kirby Puckett was six-time Gold Glove center fielder and 10-time All-Star. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001. (Henny Ray Abrams / Getty Images)
Puckett carried the Twins to World Series les in 1987 and 1991 before his career was cut short by glaucoma. His family, friends and former teammates gathered at the hospital throughout Monday.
The hospital said Puckett was given last rites and died in the afternoon.
"On behalf of Major League Baseball, I am terribly saddened by the sudden passing of Kirby Puckett," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said. "He was a Hall of Famer in every sense of the term.
"He played his entire career with the Twins and was an icon in Minnesota. But he was revered throughout the country and will be remembered wherever the game is played. Kirby was taken from us much too soon - and too quickly," he said.
The buoyant, barrel-shaped Puckett broke into the majors in 1984 and had a career batting average of .318. Glaucoma forced the six-time Gold Glove center fielder and 10-time All-Star to retire when he went blind in his right eye.
"This is a sad day for the Minnesota Twins, Major League Baseball and baseball fans everywhere," Twins owner Carl Pohlad said.
This is horrible.
Only 44 yrs old...tragic.
That is sad
Man, first his career and now his life cut too short... God Speed Kirby.
I still remember Kirby and Hrbie (Kent Hrbek) leading the charge for the surprising 1987 Twins who were just unbeatable at home during those playoffs (and pretty much thereafter in the playoffs). I also recall Bob Costas welching (in part) on a bet he made to name his son Kirby if Puckett won a particular batting le in the mid-80's, before Kirby became a household name.
Kirby had his share of problems off the field, but he brought such joy to so many baseball fans with his exploits on the field. That Game 6 of the 1991 World Series, in which Kirby played such a huge role, might be one of the best games ever if it hadn't been eclipsed immediately by Game 7 of that series.
Terribly sad news; may he rest in peace.
That 87 series was one of the most enjoyable. How could you not root for a guy like Puckett?
RIP Brother.
A six-year-old timvp watched every inning of the 1987 world series. Great series and Kirby Puckett was no doubt the guy to root for. Great player. 1991 might be the best world series ever.
The thing I'll always remember about Kirby is how he never blamed Dennis Martinez for ending his career. Martinez hit him in the face in the end of the 1995 season. Kirby never played again ... but he never blamed Martinez and never became a drama queen about his situation. He thanked the game he loved and left with his head held high.
RIP to one of the best guys out there
Godspeed Mr. Puckett
We'll miss you Kirby. Totally agree with the timvp assessment.
wow, im shocked. it was so unexpected. we'll miss you kirby.
Kirby had a rough time in retirement. His health went downhill quickly, and his personal life became a wreck. Too sad.
I suppose we'll never know if the damage done by Martinez, which caused Kirby to go blind in one eye, also had something to do with the stroke that killed him.
Great baseball player, bad person.
Good people do bad things, it does not inherently make them BAD, but thanks for chiming in...
I think it's disgusting how slanted the reporting on Kirby Puckett's death is. You can't read two paragraphs before reading about his "fall from glory".
I'm sure he wasn't the perfect human, but look at the accusers. His ex-wife came out with stories in the divorce trial in which she received a record setting settlement. The other person who came out with stories bashing Puckett was his "mistress". Why they even talk to this ho is beyond me.
Puckett was also found not guilty at his criminal trial. The way it's being reported, you would never know that.
Kirby wasn't a saint but the hatchet job that the media is on is sad.
Yeah, horrible guy.Puckett made a point of speaking directly to Dennis Martinez. Martinez had brutally (and unintentionally) beaned Puckett with a fastball to the face in his final at bat and as a result had been subject to the scorn of many fans. "I just want to say I love you," Puckett told him. "He didn't do it on purpose. I was hanging out over the plate cheating."
I think most of the reporting has focused on his baseball exploits, but when the extolling of Kirby Puckett has extended to "he was the greatest guy ever," and "he was a great man," there is a tendency to rein that in and explain that maybe he wasn't all of those things; that he was a human being like the rest of us and that he made some mistakes (some mistakes that others would consider to be pretty serious).
Ultimately, what we know is this: Kirby Puckett was a great baseball player with a great story. He provided baseball fans with a lifetime's worth of entertainment while he played the game.
In his death, those are the things that we (as complete strangers to Puckett except in that professional setting) should spend today talking about. We know little or nothing of what he was or what he did off the field. It is erroneous to call him a bad guy, but it's equally erroneous to call him a wonderful human being. He was a damned fine ball player who was also a human being who died too young. End of story.
I don't think that's what happened. When he had his stroke, half of the AP article talked about his fall from glory. There was nothing in there about how wonderful of a guy he was. It's been a straight up hatchet job since the beginnig.
There aren't too many wonderful human beings out there, especially when they spend their life in the limelight. But rarely does the media highlight all the bad parts of a person's life when the person is in emergency surgery fighting for his life.
That's the reporting I've seen since his death, at least. The fall from glory would seem to be the contrary of statements that he was a wonderful guy.
I'm not advocating that Kirby Puckett be castigated for his bad acts, but the story would not be complete without the reporting concerning the revelations about his private life that have come to light since his retirement. A story that just talked about how wonderful Kirby Puckett was as a ball player would ignore a lot of factual reporting concerning the other aspects of his life.
If the reports concerning his stroke, surgery, and later his death were going to present as fact the stories concerning his being a great guy, they had to equally present the stories concerning his being a bad guy, too. If editorial writers choose to ignore one or the other, so be it. But factual reporting, it seems to me, doesn't allow ignorance of either.
I'm not saying writers should ignore anything. I just think that it's wrong that the main theme is "Kirby Puckett's fall from grace leads to his death" instead of "Baseball great Kirby Puckett dies too soon".
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