Requiem for a Hero

There are certain dates in our lives that are just etched into our memories. Some of them are big because of what happened on a worldwide scale, like September 11th, 2001 for example. But the lion’s share of these dates really only mean something to just you. One of those dates for me is August 2, 1986. I was eleven years old and it was a Saturday morning.

Back then a basic Saturday morning consisted of making fun of my little sister for watching the Smurfs and then bugging my dad to take the boat out. If I failed at the later, I’d walked two houses down to a friend’s house to see if their dad was taking their boat out, and if he wasn’t we’d ride our bikes down to the Crystal Lake Beach and swim and eat Orange Push-Ups. But this Saturday was different. Kirby Puckett was signing autographs at Schinder’s in Cobblestone Court.

Puckett, of course, was in the middle of his break-out season. For two years he’d been an okay player. One who, well, it wasn’t a bad thing if you got him in a pack of baseball cards, but you’d still have been happier with a Kent Hrbek or Tom Brunansky. All that had changed though. That April, Puckett started hitting homeruns with reckless abandon. And you had to be careful these days. The older kids were now trying to swindle you out of your Kirby Puckett cards. But I digress.

I woke up that morning to a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and poured through the box score of the game from the night before. And what a game it was. I wish I could link the Retrosheet box score to show it to you. But you know the date and can look it up for yourself. Blyleven struck out 15 and two-hit the A’s. Gary Gaetti and Tom Brunansky both went yard. And yet Puckett was still the star of the game, hitting for the cycle. I poured through every word of the Strib right up that morning like it was Gospel. Each quote got me more and more excited about the chance to meet Puckett. Apparently lots of people had the same experience. When we arrived, the line was longer than Cobblestone Court.

Kirby was scheduled to sign autographs from 9 am to noon. And I’ll never forget how slow that line moved. It was 11:45 by the time I got to the front of it. And you could tell Kirby was tired. He signed my baseball card, and motioned to the next kid to come forward. As I was walking away though, I muttered something simple. “Great game, last night Kirby.” It earned me an extra second or two in his presence. Just long enough to get a handshake, a thank you and one of those vintage Puckett smiles as I walked away. As I walked out past a line that still had a couple hundred people who were about to go home disappointed, it was cemented in stone who my favorite baseball player was.

A couple of years ago this faith in Kirby was challenged when it was revealed that the skeletons in his closet were more like the corpses under John Gacy’s crawlspace. The hardest part to swallow wasn’t that the charges of sexual assault, or abuse, it was the allegation that Puckett’s warm smile had been nothing more than an act. In reflection, I thought about that day and wondered whether or not I’d been conned. And you know what, it doesn’t really matter. No matter what it was, it’s still a memory that makes me smile every time I look at the baseball he signed.

And in the end, that’s how Kirby will be remembered. No one remembers the surly Ted Williams who refused to even acknowledge the Boston faithful and feuded openly with the press any more. They remember Ted Williams as the war hero with the sweet swing. In 20 years, Barry Bonds will be be more synonymous with 700 homeruns than he will be with steroids. And thankfully, the image of Puckett that is going to go into history is one of him pumping his fist in the air as he rounds second base in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series. In fact, that's a moment in Twins' history that needs to be turned into a statue and placed in front of the Metrodome or wherever a new stadium is built so future generations of Twins' fans can ask about.

Sure, I’ve gotten more cynical in my old age. That’s just human nature. I know that while there’s a good chance Puckett will survive the stroke he had yesterday, he’ll likely never be the same Kirby again. I’ve also had enough male members of my family suffer major strokes to know that if Puckett lives more than 10 years after this, it will be something of a miracle.

Then again, I’m also thankful enough that I’m not cynical enough to think of the overweight, deeply flawed Puckett we’ve been used to seeing in the press the last couple of years upon hearing news of his stroke.

The first thing I thought of was August 2nd, 1986.