The Death of Kirby Puckett

Yesterday I saw that baseball great Kirby Puckett had suffered a major stroke, and was undergoing emergency surgery. Last night I saw that Puckett had died.

Seeing this news reminds me of my childhood. From the age of six until about the age of seven of nine, I collected baseball cards. I still have all of them, packed away in boxes and a collector's album, and every Kirby Puckett card I have is in the album. He was a round man, not the lanky, tall figure you'd expect for a professional baseball player. Even so, he was an outstanding ball player. There are two things that I'll always remember about Kirby Puckett.

First, and most recent, was from a Chris Rock monologue:

"Black people are ten percent of the ****ing population. There's black people in New York, DC, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, like, ten places. Ten places. There ain't no black people in Minnesota! The only black people you'll find in Minnesota are Prince and Kirby Puckett."

The second is a story I remember from when I was a kid. I got Sports Illustrated for Kids for several years, and I remember reading an article about Puckett. Apparently there was a sports caster or something (not Dan Rydell or Casey McCall, I'm pretty sure) who said that if his wife had a son, they'd name the kid after Puckett. Well, they named it something else, and Puckett called the guy out, so they changed the kid's name to Kirby as they had originally intended.

Puckett was in his mid-forties, and his career had been cut short a few years ago by glaucoma. He's apparently ballooned in weight as well. It's a very unfortunate end for a very talented athlete.