Smilin’ on Cooperstown

Rod Carew will never forget the first time he met Kirby Puckett. It was May 8, 1984, in Anaheim Stadium. Puckett had singled in his first big league at-bat for the Minnesota Twins, one of four hits he got in his major league debut, and the veteran Carew was playing first base for the Angels.

“How you doing, Mr. Carew?” Puckett said when he got to the bag, a giant grin atop a body built like a bowling ball. “My dad said to say hi to you.”

Puckett kept hitting, from that May day in Anaheim to that May day in Florida in 1996, and he kept smiling, even when a career that included 2,304 hits, 207 home runs, 1,085 runs batted in and two World Series championships was cut short by a sudden loss of vision in his right eye.

And next weekend, Puckett and Carew will be reunited in Cooperstown, N.Y., where they’ll stand on more equal ground than they did 17 years ago in Anaheim. When they shake hands, it will be one Hall of Famer to another.

“I never thought of myself like that, because I never thought about going to the Hall of Fame,” said Puckett, the former outfielder who will be inducted a week from today with Dave Winfield.

“I just wanted to be a good hard-nosed ballplayer who played the game right, had the respect of my peers, maybe won a couple of championships and played in a couple of All-Star games. That’s it. In my estimation, that’s a complete player.”

Puckett, now 41, was that complete player in the eyes of Hall of Fame voters, even though many felt his career wasn’t complete. He was 36 when he woke up on March 29, toward the end of spring training in 1996, and could barely see out of his right eye. The diagnosis: glaucoma.

Puckett had laced two hits off Atlanta ace Greg Maddux in an exhibition game the day before. It was the last game he’d ever play.

“Watching him smile and care and have so much fun at the park, that’s what was so sad about the injury,” said Kent Hrbek, former Twin first baseman. “I chose to quit; he didn’t have a choice. That’s the sad thing about his career.”

Puckett, now the Twins’ executive vice president, has no doubt he could have played another four years and reached 3,000 hits, earning an automatic pass to Cooperstown.

But please, spare him the melancholy string music.

“It wasn’t painful to have my career end like that,” Puckett said in a recent interview with Minnesota writers. “Sometimes in life, things just happen, and you have to deal with it.”

Puckett dealt with it better than most. Even as his career was in limbo while doctors tried to correct his vision in 1996, Puckett lightened the mood in the Twins’ clubhouse by referring to himself as “One-Eyed Jack.”

“We’re all dying here, and he’s laughing and joking and trying to make everybody feel OK,” Twin Manager Tom Kelly said at the time. “The guy lost his eyesight, and he’s cheering us up.”

He still is.

“After everything that happened, he’s still the same Kirby Puckett,” said Angel batting instructor Mickey Hatcher, who played with Puckett from 1984-86. “He’s always laughing, always has a big grin on his face. He has the kind of personality that needs to stay in the game.”

That personality rubbed off on teammates, opposing players, coaches and media members and probably helped Puckett reach the Hall of Fame in the first year he was eligible.

There was speculation he would not receive first-ballot support because his premature retirement left some of his statistics short of Hall standards, but voters gave weight to his accessibility and the vigor and vitality with which he played the game.

“He always looked like he was at full throttle--he reminded me of a sparkplug, a guy who was just one big ball of energy,” said Angel outfielder Darin Erstad, a Twin fan while growing up in North Dakota. “Some guys have that vibe that other players and fans feed off. He did, and he still does.”

Puckett was pudgy at 5 feet 9 and 225 pounds, but he had surprising speed and leaping ability and packed a wallop in his bat.

A career .318 hitter, Puckett won six Gold Gloves, led the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and ‘91, played in 10 consecutive All-Star games (1986-95) and had more hits in his first 10 years than any player in the 20th century.

Not bad for a kid who grew up on Chicago’s South Side in the Robert Taylor Homes, a housing project where he practiced his swing from morning until dark, using a broomstick for a bat and wadded-up tinfoil for a baseball.

“I did pretty well for a little fat guy,” Puckett said. “Every year I got better and better, and that’s what you want to do.”

Puckett hit .311 with three homers and nine RBIs in 10 American League Championship Series games and .308 with two homers and seven RBIs in 14 World Series games, helping the Twins to seven-game victories over St. Louis in 1987 and Atlanta in 1991.

He staged one of the most memorable performances in World Series history on Oct. 26, 1991, lifting the Twins to a 4-3 victory over the Braves in Game 6.

Puckett hit a first-inning RBI triple, saved a run with a leaping catch of Ron Gant’s drive at the wall in the third, hit a tie-breaking sacrifice fly in the fifth and a dramatic game-winning homer in the 11th.

“I didn’t realize how high he could jump,” said Dan Gladden, a Twin radio broadcaster who was the team’s left fielder when Puckett robbed Gant. “I had the best view in the house, and I didn’t even have to buy a ticket.”

Erstad shakes his head in awe when he thinks back to that game.

“That’s the ultimate,” he said. “I’ll always remember that picture of Kirby on the cover of Sports Illustrated after they won that series. He was wearing a championship T-shirt and had a big smile on his face.”

Puckett was one of the premier players of his time, an intense competitor who “played every game like it was my last,” but that smile, that love for interacting with fans and players, will be his legacy.

Beginning next Sunday, that smile will live forever on a bronze bust in the Hall of Fame Gallery, where baseball’s best are enshrined and where Puckett began to digest the impact of this honor during a visit in May.

“That sent chills up my spine,” Puckett said. “I’ve had some great things happen in my life, but not many things sent chills up my spine. Seeing all those plaques and knowing my name is going to be immortalized forever and ever and ever . . . it’s really special.”

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HALL OF FAME

WEEKEND

Baseball and Pro Football will each be holding ceremonies next weekend for new inductees:

BASEBALL

Where: Cooperstown, N.Y.

When: Aug. 5

Inductees: Outfielders Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield, second baseman Bill Mazeroski, pitcher Hilton Smith.

Hall of Fame game: Aug. 6, Florida vs. Milwaukee

FOOTBALL

Where: Canton, Ohio

When: Saturday

Inductees: Offensive linemen Mike Munchak, Jackie Slater and Ron Yary; wide receiver Lynn Swann, defensive end Jack Youngblood, linebacker Nick Buoniconti, coach Marv Levy.

Hall of Fame game: Aug. 6, Miami vs. St. Louis