Ode to Kirby Puckett on a Snowy, Sunday Eve

[photo caption] Kirby Puckett, 1960-2006. Centerfielder, Cosmic All-Stars. (Photo courtesy Minneapolis Star-Tribune)


Tuffy watched a bit of the Kirby Puckett Memorial Extravaganza tonight coming live to you from the Metrodome. Check your local listings.

Tuffy had a couple of thoughts:
--Tuffy doesn't want to be at his own memorial service. Just let me die in peace, throw me in the ground, then put the blurb in the paper. In lieu of flowers, just put random bicycle gear on my grave.
--Do ex-major leaguers age faster than the rest of us, or does it just look like that?
--Whatever Tom Kelly was doing by getting all of his old players to line up behind him got Tuffy to go outside and walk his dog.
--You do know that Kirby's children were adopted, right?
--If you want a nice, but rational, view of Puckett's legacy, take a look at Patrick Reusse's column in Sunday's Strib.
--And this is the final thought: Being that Tuffy was a youngster when Puckett was an active player, Kirby was a big part of Tuffy's childhood. Thus, when Puckett died, a little piece of my childhood died too. Sure, they memories Tuffy has of his childhood were already memories, but now there's an added layer of abstraction -- another character from those memories no longer occupies this world. And that world will go on, but it is one more notable mile marker on the life that is Tuffy's...a life, too, that will someday end.