MPR’s sports commentator Jay Weiner reflects on the early days of Kirby Puckett after the announcement that St. Paul native Dave Winfield and the Minnesota Twins legend Puckett were elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Hall in their first year of eligibility.
Weiner was there when Puckett began his career with the Twins and shares his thoughts about the player.
SPEAKER: May, 1984, Anaheim, California. The Twins locker room, and you are there as a short guy named Kirby Puckett is about to change Minnesota sports history. Like today, the Twins baseball team was positively awful. I was the beat reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Anything fresh and hopeful was headline fodder.
Thankfully, here came Puck. The tale of Puckett's landing 17 years ago is worth telling again on the morning after he was elected to the Hall of Fame. It's a sports story from another era. Indeed, Puckett might be the last link to our generation's good old days.
The night of May 7, 1984, Puckett, then only 185 pounds, was due to lead off for the Twins against the Angels. But it was already 6:00. The rookie was late. Called up from AAA Toledo earlier in the day, Puckett's flight was delayed for four hours.
6:10 PM, an hour before game time, and here comes the short outfielder, dashing nervously into the clubhouse. "I got to get some money, man," Puckett said breathlessly, searching for Twins traveling Secretary Mike Robertson. "I've got to pay the cab."
"No problem," Robertson replied. "How much money?" "$83," Puckett said. He was stunned by the cost of a ride from the Los Angeles airport.
And frankly, this minor leaguer was broke. His teammates giggled. His manager, Billy Gardner, who called him "Punkett" for a few weeks, shook his head and gave him the night off.
The career of a working-class kid from Chicago was appropriately underway. The rest would become marvelous memories, which is why Tuesday's Hall of Fame announcement was so bittersweet. Sad to say, Puckett is a distant memory now, along with the Twins World Series victories.
For countless reasons, the game of baseball has lost its luster in these parts. Its economics have stripped Minnesota fans of hope. The Twins franchise is moribund. Sure, Puckett's election to Cooperstown evokes the best of times, but will they ever be good again?
As Puckett spoke yesterday about his love of baseball, I wondered if we weren't witnessing perhaps the final, genuine moment in Twins history, maybe even Minnesota pro sports history. Will we ever have another sports star who likes us as much as we like him, who decides to remain in Minnesota rather than bolt for a larger contract elsewhere?
Dave Winfield's election to the Hall of Fame provides an uncomfortable contrast. Winfield was a transient, a player for hire for six teams, the first Hall of Famer to truly symbolize the era of the free agent. Puckett stood for something better. He stood for stability. He was embraceable. Once he was gone, it was as if the Twins slipped away, too.
Randy Moss-- will the Vikings receiver be a historic Minnesota figure or merely a firefly? Probably the latter. Kevin Garnett-- can we relate to a sometimes trash talking, 7 foot tall man with $125 million in his bank account before he's 25?
But Puckett, he earned what he got. So the spirit that once rushed innocently through the Twins clubhouse door is now an old timer, enshrined, as they say. As we celebrate his honor, we long for him and his kind still.
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