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WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: In their playing days, Kirby Puckett weighed almost as much as Dave Winfield, but if they stood in silhouette, there'd be no mistaking them. At a muscular 6 and 1/2 feet, Winfield cut a strapping figure, while Puckett, with his shaved head atop a 5 foot 8 inch frame, was rather round. Both were tremendous baseball players who could hit, catch, throw, and run with the best of them.

Winfield was a star athlete at Saint Paul Central High School and the University of Minnesota before spending a 22-year big League career with half a dozen teams. Puckett made the majors with the 1984 Twins and never left Minnesota. After 12 seasons, Glaucoma blocked the vision in his right eye, cutting short his playing career and pushing him into a desk job as the team's executive vice president. In 1993 and '94, Winfield and Puckett were teammates under Twins Manager Tom Kelly, who says both players belong in the Hall of Fame.

TOM KELLY: We think that they're both going to get in the first shot here, and we're looking forward to that. I think it's going to be a great day for baseball in general, and a great day for Minnesota Twins baseball.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: An Association of baseball sportswriters selects Hall of Fame entrants. Puckett says since it's out of his hands, he doesn't think too much about whether or not he'll be enshrined. But he calls Winfield a shoo in and says Minnesotans should be proud.

KIRBY PUCKETT: He came out of this area, and finally came home to play with his home team and got his 3,000th hit in a Twins uniform. So, I mean, from that aspect, I think, you can understand from a Minnesotan standpoint how much he's meant to this community.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Winfield is among only seven players in baseball history to collect more than 3,000 hits and more than 400 home runs. Those are the type of statistics voters tend to consider in weighing Hall of Fame qualifications. Voters will probably not consider the off field contributions Winfield and Puckett made through their charitable work.

Both men were winners of baseball's Roberto Clemente Award for Public Service. Among assorted charities, Winfield is best known for working with underprivileged teenagers, Puckett for his fundraising for health care causes. Kelly says those sorts of contributions cannot be measured.

TOM KELLY: We wish there was some kind of stat for it. There was. We wish there was a stat for camaraderie. We wish there was a stat for the fact that they made people around them better.

But there's not. There's just not a stat for the excitement that they brought to the ballpark each and every day. And these are the things that are special about these kind of people, that people that end up in the Hall of Fame.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: The Minneapolis Star Tribune selected Puckett as Minnesota's athlete of the century. He has been immensely popular among fans, children in particular.

KIRBY PUCKETT: Probably because they're taller than I am.

[LAUGHTER]

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: His Teddy bear figure likely did contribute to his likability as a player, so did an exuberant personality that broadcast the joy he found in playing the game. Some pro athletes say they'd prefer not to be cast as role models, but Puckett doesn't shirk the responsibility of having kids look up to him.

KIRBY PUCKETT: All I tell them is, you guys can do whatever you want. You can be whatever it is you want to be in life, but nothing comes without a price. If you want something, you have to give something to get something in life. People aren't just going to just give you everything no matter who you are, no matter how famous you are. People don't care about that.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Puckett says he feels no bitterness about having his playing career ended prematurely by eye disease. He says it was a development beyond his control. His truncated career, though, prevented him from putting up big career numbers like Winfield, and that may prompt reluctance among some voters to include Puckett in the game's most elite group of stars. But Kelly thinks its only effect would be on the timing of Puckett's enshrinement in Cooperstown.

TOM KELLY: There are some of the die hard voters that are going to look at that and are going to make them wait a year or two. I think he's going to make it on the first crack. I don't know what else personifies a Hall of Fame player than what Kirby Puckett brought to the Minnesota Twins.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: The Twins plan to hold an afternoon press conference if Puckett is elected to the Hall. I'm William Willcoxen, Minnesota Public Radio.