http://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article.jsp?content=20060306_130532_5372

He was only 45. This is a tragedy to Minnesota, The U.S.A., North America and The Baseball World.

R.I.P.

I'll see you when I get there man.

Good ballplayer, but he was an infamous wife beater. Hell, reportedly the cops came to his house during a disturbence call, when they saw him trying to kill his wife with a chainsaw. You think I can make stuff like that up?

Still, only in his 40s...tsk!

He would have been 46 later this month.

A product of the Robert Taylor Homes housing projects (the now-demolished high-rises along the Dan Ryan Expressway across from Comiskey Park, I mean, U.S. Cellular Field) in Chicago's near South Side, and Calumet High School, Puckett actually played a year of baseball at Bradley University in Peoria (SC's alma mater) before the death of his father led to academic difficulties. His coach at Bradley called Bob Symonds, a respected coach at Triton Junior College and put in a good word for Puckett and those seasons of organized junior college baseball led to Puckett being drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the early 1980's.

An item in today's Chicago Tribune notes that Puckett's age is incorrectly listed as 44 with his year of birth listed as 1961. According to the Tribune, the Twins used that information in all of their PR material about Puckett, he was aware of the error, but never corrected it! The Hall of Fame, through their research asserts that the 1960 year of birth is correct.

tony b.

I used to have a huge number of Kirby Puckett cards. Only a few more years, they'll be worth holding onto haha

Gone from us way too soon. RIP