This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. I wish I was a poet. Then this would be just another sad sonnet, a piece to throw in the back of the scrapbook.
But this is more than that. This is a farewell to the memories of youth.
My slow-moving fingers trembling and eyes tearing, I can’t seem to say what I feel. I’m not ready to let go. I can’t let go.
It’s like part of my soul has been ripped away from me, thrown to the ground and run over by a Sumo wrestler in a Hummer.
But I will gather the pieces that remain, clean up a bit and move on. And so will the game. It just won’t be the same.
Kirby Puckett is gone — forever. And he took the best part of my youth with him.
I have his book, you know. Two copies. “I Love This Game,” written in 1993. I read it in a day. I have nearly every one of his baseball cards. Posters galore.
And some great memories.
As a kid, I was the biggest Kirby Puckett fan. I even named my dog after my boyhood idol. Sadly, after 84 dog years, the four-legged Kirby is almost gone, too. I just hope my mom doesn’t take that departure as badly as I’ve taken this.
I loved Kirby for his love of the game, his love of life. His chubby stature, his erratic, care-free swing. His charitable work with children.
His smile.
Now, there’s nothing to smile about. His secret life has been revealed.
Unlike Kirby’s book, it’s taken me a while to read this week’s Sports Illustrated, which details the former Minnesota Twins’ star’s “rise and fall” from legend to legal woes.
Reading the article was like voluntarily stabbing myself in the back, or pulling a half-dozen teeth. It hurt.
Not that I didn’t know what it said. I’d already heard about the allegations. It’s just finally hit me, I guess.
When nobody else gave Kirby and the Twins a chance in the 1991 World Series, I was there, Homer Hanky in hand. Where’s Kirby now, when I need him? Yankin’ his homer in a restaurant bathroom.
Kirby goes to court next week for an allegedly dragging a woman into a bathroom of a Minneapolis restaurant and assaulting her. He’s also on trial, in my courtroom, for breaking a heart.
If convicted of fifth-degree assault, he faces up to a year in jail; his posters are already serving a lifetime ban from my walls.
His lawyers claim the case is only going to trial because he’s Kirby Puckett, because he has money.
I hope that’s the case.
But Kirby’s nowhere to be found — he hasn’t said a word. Pessimistically, I think the allegations are true and that he’s always been a facade, a hoax. A game.
I wish I could rationalize Kirby’s problems. Maybe I should feel sorry for the guy who grew up the youngest of nine children in the “hell’s gate” neighborhood of urban Chicago.
Maybe I should feel sorry for him after that day in 1996, when his career, unfortunately, ended prematurely after he was diagnosed with glaucoma, leaving him nearly blind in his right eye. That would’ve left anyone bitter.
The kid in me wants to believe in Kirby. I want to believe his intentions, as a ballplayer, were genuine. Even now, after a divorce with his wife of 17 years, I want to believe he will get his life in order.
As hard as I try, I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve grown a little older, a little wiser from my experiences, and they will surely guide me down the road. The hope of something better outweighs the disappointments of the past.
Not that I regret ever worshipping the guy. My memories of Kirby — his 11th-inning home run and his amazing catch in the sixth game of the 1991 World Series — are great, but they’ve faded along with my youth.
Now, it’s time to move on.
Farewell, Kirby. I hope you find something better for your life.
I hope I do, too.
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