Kirby Without Tears

When, on the morning of July 12, Glaser informed Puckett that his glaucoma-impaired retina was damaged beyond fixing, three of the other four people in the room had tears in their eyes. The fourth—Puckett—said something to the effect of, “What the heck y’all crying about?” “It was amazing,” says Maas, who was there with Tonya Puckett and Shapiro. “Kirby was mentally prepared for it. He knew it could happen, and he was ready. He was looking out for everybody else, like he usually does.”

In the spring of 2000 Puckett says simply: “Life is about making adjustments.” He tells me, for instance, about regaining his depth perception, which is diminished when a person loses the sight of one eye and is not the same as, though it’s related to, perspective. “All of a sudden, man, I couldn’t play catch with my kids,” he says. “I’d stick out my glove and the ball would hit me in the chest. My kids would laugh, thinking I was fooling around, and I’d say, ‘Don’t worry, Daddy’ll get the hang of it.’ It was like starting all over again. I had to train the one eye to do the job of two, but, sure enough, it came back.” He says he learned to drive his beloved Chevy Suburban again too, though it took about six months to get it right. He admits, quite matter-of-factly, that he “might have hit some things” in the relearning process.

“I wasn’t thinking ‘Poor me.’ The word I used was ‘Wow!’ Now I knew what it was like for people who have to learn how to walk or talk all over again after an accident. Of course, my situation wasn’t that bad. And now I can do anything I want to. I can go swimming and play catch with my kids and drive my truck. You adjust. This is my fourth year now, and I’ve adjusted pretty well.”

People who know him call that a rare understatement on Puckett’s part. Dave Mona, the long-time Twin Cities PR executive, radio commentator, and sports maven about town, says, “I’ve met people who left the game suddenly and never got over it. Every conversation leads back to it. Kirby’s about as much at peace with the way things have turned out as anyone I’ve ever seen.” “I haven’t noticed any change,” says Maas, who, with Shapiro, has been part of Puckett’s small circle of intimates for fifteen years. “I’ve looked for it, but I haven’t seen it.”

Gene Larkin, the clutch-hitting journeyman who was a teammate for seven seasons, says he ran into Puckett at the Twins’ training camp earlier this year. Same old Puck, Larkin reports: “Always enthusiastic, always a smile on his face, always very encouraging to the younger players. In that sense, he hasn’t changed at all since I first met him in 1987.” Larkin, who retired from baseball in 1994 and now works as a financial planner in the Twin Cities, adds, however, that he’s speaking of Puckett on the ball field. “I don’t know Kirby-the-front-office-guy too well,” he says.