[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 30 (Thursday, March 9, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S1956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   HONORING THE LIFE OF KIRBY PUCKETT

  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, it is with great sadness that I rise to 
honor the life of Kirby Puckett, whose exuberant love of the game made 
him one of the best-loved players in baseball history. For many 
baseball fans, young and old alike, Kirby Puckett was the reason they 
picked up a baseball bat and kicked up their foot as the pitch 
approached. Kirby Puckett is Minnesota baseball.
  Amazingly, Kirby was not the strongest, fastest, tallest, or most 
gifted baseball player ever. All you had to do was watch Kirby swing at 
a pitch three feet outside of the strike zone to understand that he did 
not succeed because of his mechanics. It was his gravity-defying leaps 
in center field, his hustling out an infield single, and his ability to 
hit the pitch three feet outside the strike zone that made him one of 
the greatest baseball players to grace the game. This honor was quickly 
rewarded in 2001, when at the age of 37 he was inducted into the Hall 
of Fame and became the third youngest living inductee, behind Sandy 
Koufax and Lou Gehrig.
  Kirby Puckett's history-making career with the Twins began May 8, 
1984. In his first game he became one of nine players in the history of 
baseball to collect four hits in their first game. For the next twelve 
seasons Kirby Puckett and his now retired No. 34 carried the Minnesota 
Twins out from obscurity to two World Series Titles in 1987 and 1991. 
He made ten straight all-star appearances from 1986 until 1995, and won 
six gold gloves over his career. Perhaps the defining moment in Kirby 
Puckett's legendary career came during Game Six of the 1991 World 
Series. Puckett hit a walk off home run in the eleventh inning, 
becoming the ninth player in history to hit a walk off home run in a 
World Series game. As Kirby rounded second base and pumped his fist 
into the air, he transcended the game itself and took his seat among 
the greatest players to swing the bat.
  Tragically, Kirby was forced to retire from baseball on July 12, 
1996, due to complications with glaucoma. In his retirement Puckett 
continued the charitable work he began as a player, raising money for 
glaucoma prevention and children's charities, perhaps most famously 
through his sponsoring of celebrity billiards tournaments to benefit 
the Children's Heart Fund. He won both the Branch Rickey Award, 1993, 
and the Roberto Clemente Man of the Year Award, 1996, for his community 
service.
  Kirby's accomplishments were not predestined. Kirby willed his 
success from sheer attitude and hard work. He was born March 14, 1961, 
in Chicago, IL. Kirby grew up in Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green 
Housing Projects, ``the place where hope died.'' Despite the daily 
barrage of drugs and gangs that surrounded him, Kirby went on to become 
an All-American at Calumet High School. While playing in a college 
baseball league in Illinois, Puckett caught the eye of some pro scouts, 
although he surely caught the ears of the scouts as well with his 
colorful clubhouse humor. Soon thereafter in 1982, Kirby Puckett was a 
first round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins.
  As I said before, Kirby Puckett was not gifted with the greatest 
baseball talent. He did not physically dominate the game, but he did 
dominate it mentally. Ever since Kirby, little league coaches have 
always had to tell their kids that they could only swing like Kirby if 
they made the major leagues. The problem is that in order to make the 
Majors, those same coaches had to tell the kids they had to work and 
play as hard as Kirby did and have fun doing it. That is his legacy to 
baseball; he put the fun into baseball. It is now all of our 
responsibility to carry on that legacy.
  If Kirby were alive he would want all of us to honor him with his 
trademark sign-of-the cross and promise to make the most out of life as 
he did. As Kirby remarked with his typical modesty after his baseball 
career ended prematurely:

       Kirby Puckett's going to be all right. Don't worry about 
     me. I'll show up, and I'll have a smile on my face. The only 
     thing I won't have is this uniform on. But you guys can have 
     the memories of what I did when I did have it on.

  Kirby, we know you are all right in heaven right now, but we are not 
all right. We loved you as a player, but most of all we loved how you 
always had a smile on your face. You made us believe in ourselves. On 
behalf of Minnesota and baseball fans everywhere, thank you for the 
memories. You will not be forgotten.

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