Puckett’s Big Plays Ensure a Fitting Finish

Kirby Puckett hadn’t just played the greatest game of his life. He had just played the greatest hits of World Series history.

Mays in ‘54, Maz in ‘60, Gibson in ‘88--Puckett’s 11-inning virtuoso evoked all the indelible images from the most classic falls of all, soaring with his leaping catch against the Metrodome plexiglass in the third inning and climaxing with his Series-tying line drive over virtually the same spot.

By himself Saturday night, Puckett was responsible for:

1) The biggest defensive play of this World Series.

2) The biggest offensive play of this World Series.

3) Deciding the most dramatic, most exciting game of the World Series, which is going a ways after the Mark Lemke thrill-a-thons in Atlanta.

4) Sending this World Series to a seventh game, the only conceivable conclusion worthy of this World Series.

So when Puckett finally took a load off his heroic feet and sat in the interview room to discuss his heroic feats, the opening question brought with it torrents of laughter.

“General comments, please?”

And in seven days, God created the heavens and the earth, man and woman, all living things . . . and if only there’d been a press conference.

“General comments, please?”

Give Puckett a fly ball driven over his head to the center-field fence, and he knows what to do with it. Give him a hanging Charlie Leibrandt changeup in the bottom of the 11th, and he knows what to do with it. But who could do anything with a question like that?

“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s been so draining,” Puckett replied, digging in the best he could. “All these one-run games . . . I think I’ll be sick all winter.”

Twenty-four more hours, and then the body can break down. Puckett would like to say that his reflexes and his nervous system and his digestive tract will be able to hold up for nine more innings, but he might need them for 10 or 11 or 12, considering what this Series has thrown at the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves so far.

Four games games decided by one run.

Three games decided on the last at-bat.

Two games decided after the 10th inning.

“I feel like I’ve just gone 15 rounds with Evander Holyfield,” Puckett said.

So did the 55,155 eye witnesses glued to the edges of their blue plastic Metrodome seats. For the first time all season, the overachieving Twins had it easier than their fans. All the Twins had to do was play Saturday night.

Their fans had to watch.

For a while, it was titillating. The Twins scored two runs in the first inning--Puckett tripled in the first, of course, and scored the second on a single by Shane Mack. But the Twins missed a chance to avalanche young Atlanta starter Steve Avery when Kent Hrbek grounded to first base with runners on first and third.

In the fourth inning, the Twins teased again. Mack, risen from a zero-for-15 World Series dead zone, doubled off the Hefty bag in right field and moved to third when Braves left fielder Brian Hunter lost Hrbek’s one-out pop fly in the roof. But there Mack stayed, with Junior Ortiz striking out on three pitches and Greg Gagne tapping out to shortstop.

In fact, Minnesota’s 2-0 lead was the dictionary definition of precarious.

Second inning: A certain extra-base liner by Hunter is interrupted by Scott (Leapin’) Leius, the Twins’ rookie third baseman, who used the Astroturf like a trampoline and snagged the baseball with a skyhook.

Third inning: A certain extra-base liner by Terry Pendleton slices into the left-field corner. “Foul by half of a baseball,” Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox lamented. David Justice sends a deep drive, down the right-field line, that ricochets off the facing off the upper deck. “Foul by six inches,” Cox again reported. In between, Ron Gant hits a Scott Erickson pitch nearly 400 feet, sending Puckett airborne and against the fence, his knees dangling above Tony Oliva’s retired No. 6.

Out by six inches.

Fourth inning: No more fooling around. With Lonnie Smith on base, Pendleton hits one 418 feet--where no one, not even Puckett, not even with a stepladder, can chase it down. Game is tied for the first time, 2-2.

At least until Puckett’s next at-bat. Succeeding where Hrbek, Ortiz and Gagne failed before him, Puckett gets the run home from third in the fifth inning, sending Brave center fielder Gant almost to the warning track for a sacrifice fly.

Seventh inning: The bases are loaded with one out and Twin Manager Tom Kelly changes pitchers, Mark Guthrie for Erickson. Guthrie does his job--potential double-play grounder to Gagne--but second baseman and pivotman Chuck Knoblauch can’t complete the relay. Batter Gant is safe at first, runner Lemke is safe at home, and the game is tied again, 3-3.

Tenth inning: Leadoff single by Pendleton. Line drive to left field by Gant. Well-hit, poorly directed. Gagne is positioned right in front of the ball, and as soon as he catches it, he runs to second base to place the tag on Pendleton for an unassisted double play.

Eleventh inning: Line drive down the right-field line, should be extra bases. But Sid Bream’s running (bad knees) and Mack’s throwing (good arm), and the play results in a single. Keith Mitchell pinch-runs and attempts a pinch-steal. In a pinch, Twin catcher Brian Harper fires a perfect throw, fires it so strongly that the force knocks the helmet and mask from his face, and Mitchell is out. What are the odds on that? Try 18%--the percentage of base-stealers Harper was able to throw out during the regular season.

All of this played into Puckett’s hands, which were wrapped around a bat handle at the right time, with the right pitcher on the mound. Puckett knew Leibrandt from Leibrandt’s days with Kansas City--knew he could hit him, too--and waited for the right pitch, which came on a 2-1 count.

Puckett said he was just “trying to get the ball up in the air.” By the time it landed, the Twins were back on solid ground, their footing steady, tied at three games apiece with their ace, Jack Morris, scheduled to pitch the finale.

One more obvious question from the gallery.

“Is this a classic World Series?”

“I don’t know,” said a befuddled Tom Kelly. “I don’t know how you measure it. People tell me it’s been great. The TV people are happy.”

Kelly turned to an American League publicist standing next to his podium.

“Are you happy?”

If you like baseball, truly classic baseball, there is no way in this World Series not to be.