Kirby Puckett
Kirby Puckett was a celebrated American baseball player, born on March 14, 1960, in Chicago, Illinois. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood as the youngest of nine children, he developed a passion for baseball at a young age, often playing with makeshift equipment. Puckett attended Calumet High School and went on to play at Triton College, where he caught the attention of Major League scouts. He was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 1982 and made a remarkable debut in 1984, quickly establishing himself as a key player.
Puckett was known for his exceptional batting skills and defensive prowess, earning several accolades, including four Gold Glove Awards. He played a pivotal role in leading the Twins to two World Series titles, notably delivering memorable performances in critical games. Beyond his on-field success, Puckett was the first MLB player to earn a three-million-dollar salary, showcasing his prominence in the sport. However, his career was cut short due to health issues, specifically glaucoma, which eventually forced him to retire in 1996. After his playing days, he remained involved in baseball and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001. Puckett passed away on March 6, 2006, leaving a legacy as one of the greatest players of his era, beloved for his character and contributions to the game.
Kirby Puckett
Baseball Player
- Born: March 14, 1960
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Died: March 6, 2006
- Place of death: Phoenix, Arizona
Sport: Baseball
Early Life
Kirby Puckett was born March 14, 1960, in a poor, South Side Chicago, Illinois, neighborhood, the youngest of nine children. Although all the families in the neighborhood were poor, the Pucketts were a little better off than most. Kirby’s father, William, worked for the post office and had a second job at night. William had been a semiprofessional baseball player many years earlier and, despite his struggle to support his family, did his best to give Kirby baseballs and gloves when he needed them. Kirby spent most of his time playing baseball. He played from morning to night in the street. Then, when he was home, he batted balled-up socks and wads of aluminum foil around his house with an old broomstick. Kirby did not play baseball on grass until he was twelve.
The Road to Excellence
When Kirby was twelve, his family moved across town to a better neighborhood, and Kirby attended Calumet High School, where he played baseball. In high school, Kirby was skinny and short. He was a good ballplayer, but, by the time he graduated, he had received only a few small scholarship offers.
Kirby took a job on the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company, earning five hundred dollars a month. Soon, however, he was laid off, and he took another job at the Census Bureau. Kirby played baseball at night on a semiprofessional team called the Chicago Pirates.
Around this time, Kirby went to a tryout camp for the Kansas City Royals. There he was spotted by a scout for Bradley University and he was eventually offered a scholarship. Kirby set off for Bradley, in Peoria, Illinois, almost 200 miles from Chicago. He had been there for three weeks when his father died. Kirby told his mother he wanted to quit school and come home, but she convinced him to stay. He performed well on the field that year but struggled with grades. The following year he transferred to Triton College, in River Grove, Illinois, closer to home.
One evening in 1981, a Minnesota Twins scout went to a college baseball game to watch his son play. His son’s team happened to be playing Kirby’s Triton College team. Kirby, conspicuous because of his shaved head, hit a home run and a double, scored two runs, and threw out a runner at home plate. Most of all, the scout noticed Kirby’s enthusiasm and energy on a hot, miserable night. Kirby became the Twins’ first pick in the 1982 draft, although he held out to finish one more year at Triton.
The Emerging Champion
By this time Kirby had grown, if not taller, at least wider. He was 5 feet 8 inches but weighed more than 200 pounds. The Twins sent Kirby to play on its minor-league farm team in Elizabethton, Tennessee. He spent two full seasons as a standout in the minor leagues. He began his third professional season with a Twins farm team in Toledo, Ohio, but early in that season, Kirby achieved his lifelong dream and was called up to the major leagues.
Kirby was in Maine with the Toledo team when the Twins called his manager. The Twins wanted Kirby in the big leagues. Kirby flew to California, where the Twins were playing, with ten dollars, leaving all his clothes behind in Toledo. When Kirby reached the airport in California, no one was there to meet him. He flagged a taxi and told the driver to go to Anaheim Stadium. The drive cost sixty dollars, and he had to run inside and find someone with the Twins to pay for it. He arrived too late to play that day.
The next day, May 8, 1984, Kirby became one of only a handful of players in history to get four hits in his first big-league game. He batted .400 through his first eleven games with the Twins and hit in twenty of his first twenty-four games, including a thirteen-game hitting streak. At the end of his first season, he had batted .296 and led the American League (AL) in outfield assists, throwing out sixteen runners during the season.
Continuing the Story
Kirby’s batting only got better. Although he hit well his first two seasons, he had no home runs in 1984 and only four in 1985. Then, in 1986, he smacked 31 homers and batted .328. He worked throughout the preseason to develop more power, staying after practice with his batting coach every day.
The next year, his average rose to .332 and he became known for jumping high above the wall in center field to catch would-be home runs. In 1987, he grabbed eight balls that way. Amazingly, Kirby walked only thirty-two times in 624 at-bats in 1987. Kirby was aggressive; he swung at any pitch he could reach and made line-drive base hits on pitches thrown over his head.
In 1987, Kirby helped the Twins to a World Series victory. In 1989, he won the AL batting title by hitting .339. Following the 1989 season, Kirby became the first Major League Baseball player to earn three million dollars a year, although shortly thereafter Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics also signed a contract for that amount.
In the 1991 American League Championship Series (ALCS), baseball’s first three-million-dollar man produced a torrent of hits, including one double, 2 home runs, and five RBI in fourteen at-bats, as the Twins defeated the Toronto Blue Jays to capture the pennant. For his stellar, “clutch” performance, Kirby received the ALCS most valuable player award. The best, however, was yet to come.
The Twins met the Atlanta Braves, the National League champions, in an emotional World Series that lasted the full seven games. Kirby was unstoppable in game six, a 4-3 victory for Minnesota. In the first inning, he smashed a triple that drove in one run, then scored the second run on a single by teammate Shane Mack. Kirby, a four-time AL Gold Glove winner, also made a spectacular catch near the top of the center-field wall in the third inning, robbing Atlanta of a crucial run. Kirby’s sacrifice fly in the fifth inning drove in the third run. Finally, his climactic eleventh-inning home run into the left-field seats broke a 3-3 deadlock, ending the game. The following night, at the Metrodome, Minnesota clinched its second World Series Championship in five years by winning game seven, a 1-0 shutout by Twins pitcher Jack Morris, the series most valuable player.
Over the next four seasons, Kirby continued to excel at the plate, earning 210 hits and finishing the season with a .329 batting average in 1992. Prior to the 1996 season, however, Kirby experienced blurred vision in his right eye that was later diagnosed as an early form of glaucoma. He underwent laser surgery twice to correct the problem, but he eventually lost sight completely in his right eye and was forced to retire. Kirby remained involved with baseball as a radio announcer and as executive vice president for the Minnesota Twins in 2000, as well as an outspoken advocate of glaucoma research. In 2001, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. On March 5, 2006, he suffered a stroke; he died the following day.
Summary
Fans in Minnesota loved Kirby Puckett for his attitude. His determination and love of baseball made him successful. Despite his multimillion-dollar salary, he was not extravagant. He offered to buy his mother a house, but she refused, and he helped out a poor youth who worked at the Twins’ spring training camp in Florida. Kirby was one of the best baseball players of his era and helped lead his team to two World Series Championships.
Bibliography
Carlson, Chuck. Puck! Kirby Puckett: Baseball’s Last Warrior. Lenexa, Kans.: Addax, 1998.
Hoffbeck, Steven R. Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005.
Puckett, Kirby. I Love This Game! New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Puckett, Kirby, Greg Brown, and Tim Houle. Be the Best You Can Be. Minneapolis: Waldman House Press, 1993.
Urdahl, Dean. Touching Bases with Our Memories: The Players Who Made the Minnesota Twins, 1961 to 2001. St. Cloud, Minn.: North Star Press of St. Cloud, 2001.