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I always liked Kirby and thought of him as one of the few players in the game who truly loved baseball and realized what it meant to play it.

Best wishes, Kirby.

[ March 06, 2006, 10:30 PM: Message edited by: MIB ]

He's listed in critical condition according to ESPN this morning. He is one of my all time favorite baseball players and athletes and I hope he will recover as quickly and well as possible!

He always killed the Sox, but he was such a classy guy, I always secretly pulled for him to do well....prayers go out to him and his family.

From today's Phila. Daily News:

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, a friend and fan of Kirby Puckett, was visibly shaken by the news that the Twins' Hall of Famer suffered a stroke yesterday. Manuel, a former coach of Puckett's, has compared Puckett to Pete Rose, only more pleasant.

"He had all that energy but... he had that smile," Manuel said. "Everything he did, he did right and hard."

Last year, the last time the pair spoke, Puckett - whose glaucoma blinded him in his right eye - told Manuel, "Grinder, I can still hit .280 with one eye."

He was generous to Manuel, too, when Manuel was managing in the minors; he sent Manuel a gallon of Seagram's V.O. whiskey every month, Manuel said, until Manuel's declining health ended the generosity. Puckett sent Manuel a card that said: "No Mo V.O."

Kirby Puckett died late today, a day after suffering a stroke.

~Adam

Twins' press release on Kirby Puckett's life and death.

The news of Kirby Puckett's death was important enough to be reported by the broadcasters of at least two different hockey telecasts -- I saw it on the Flyers-Canadiens game on OLN and the Senators-Lightning game from Rogers Sportsnet in Canada.

Sad day for Twins fans. But we'll always have those great memories of the 1987 and 1991 World Series. RIP Kirby!

Kirby's baseball career and life ended far too shortly.

He was what was right about baseball, and what doesn't exist today... the player who plays his entire career for one team.

It really saddens me to learn of Kirby Puckett's death, at 45! That is just too young. I remember how upset I was when the Twins defeated the Cardinals in 1987, but Puckett was a player from the opposing team that I always admired. How tragic that glaucoma nipped his career in the bud so prematurely, and now that a stroke has killed him.

Both his career and life were too short, truncated by tragedies, the former taking away part of his vision, the latter taking his life.

With so much time left to live and enjoy life, he has departed us. My prayers go out for not only Kirby, but also his family and friends, who have suffered an untimely and immeasurable loss.

Wow, judging by the lengthy ESPNews eulogies this morning, his post-career history of violence against women sure got swept under the rug, But then he was the kind of "jolly" black celebrity that white Republicans love. Barry Bonds better get to work on curing some diseases if he wants better obits than Jeff Dahmer.

Even though I'll never forgive him for beating my Braves in that friggin' World Series in '91, I always liked his spunk, his retirement troubles excluded. Condolences to his family.

Puckett truly seemed to lead a bifurcated life: the smiling, spunky, charming baseball player on the field and an abusive monster off the field. I remeber the sense of shock the 'Sports Illustrated' about his "secret life" engendered in many sportsfans and sportstalk jocks. I found it interesting that, even today, a number of years after the revelations about his abuse of women, numerous sportstalk hosts seemed to say that aspect of Puckett's life "wasn't part of of the man we knew."

One would think that after all these years, people would learn we don't ever truly "know" athletes, actors, or other public personalities; we just see the image they and their advisors work hard to craft.

~Adam

History?

The key word here, Barry, Steroid, Human Growth Hormone, Lover, is "accused".

Find me a guilty verdict.

Oh wait, you'll be hiding this week as more facts about your boy Barry come out this week.

Don't try to pull a great person into the same story as your boy, cheater, Comrade Cuba.

Ah, a great person. For being a (marginal) Hall of Fame player, or hitting and harassing women?

The context in which "Cuba" comes out in ad hominem attacks on me is very telling. Also boring as hell, even from right-wing dunces.

Unlike Bonds, who got immunity on everything that he's accused of and still seems to have perjured himself, Puckett had a trial on charges a woman brought against him, and he was acquitted.