Kirby Puckett was born on this day in 1960. Kirby Puckett played his entire career with the Minnesota Twins, he led them to two World Series championships. His career would end at the age of 35 when he lost sight in one of his eyes.

I loved watching Kirby Puckett play baseball. He didn’t look like a ballplayer. It’s strange how many great ballplayers don’t LOOK like ballplayers and how many players who have the great athletic build can’t play worth a damn. Puckett was short and pudgy.He was so great that even though his career was cut short he was afirst year eligible election into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Kirby was not only fun to watch but he sure looked like he enjoyed playing the game. He was having fun out there. And the word was that Kirby was also very friend friendly.

After the career ended things began going downhill for Puckett. His weight ballooned to over 3oo pounds his behavior became bizzare  he died at the age of 45 in 2006 a day after suffering a severe stroke. I don’t know what happened to Kirby Puckett. Was he mentally ill? Reading the story below written by the great Frank Deford in 2003- Puckett’s behavior was so bizarre you have to think something was wrong. There is probably a great book waiting to be written but I don’t know if I would want to read it. The whole Kirby Puckett thing changed how I look at ballplayers/celebrities. Kirby was celebrated as an all-around nice-guy during his career. Was that the case or did he just get great press? His troubles after his career doesn’t erase the fact that he was a great and exciting ballplayer. An incredibly sad story-it seems like after he got hit with that Dennis Martinez pitch in 1995-his life started to spiral out of control.

Below is a link to an outstanding story by one of America’s great writers- Frank Deford that appeared in Sports Illustrated in 2003.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1028246/index.htm