Defenestration Station

Kirby Puckett died from a stroke yesterday, at the age of 45. He, along with my friend AJ, was the person most directly responsible for my being a baseball fan today.

I don't believe baseball is a metaphor for life or anything like that. I do think it is the best sport around, at least for me -- the pace is such that it lets you appreciate fully the drama of sports. And the depth of analysis and statistics add another dimension to it. And the history gives it something extra that no other sport, at least in the U. S., can come close to having.

Kirby Puckett was the best player on the 1991 Minnesota Twins team that inexplicably won the world series that year, a world series that I watched in the middle of the night from my barracks in Ansbach, Germany with AJ and Sgt. Rotenberry, both of whom were from Minneapolis. And that series, which is recognized as one of the best world series ever, sucked me into the sport.

Puckett came on hard times after that, having his career ended early by glaucoma, then having some legal problems and apparently gaining a lot of weight, which contributed to his stroke. But I choose to remember the fast-talking, hustling player who was at his peak when I watched those games in the darkened barracks rooms in Ansbach with my friends almost 15 years ago.