Point of Personal Privilege

In the scheme of things it is another person struggling with illness. However, on a personal note, as a kid who grew up in Minnesota, I wish Kirby Puckett the best.

Minnesotan's by their nature are a reticent lot, there's a lot of Lake Wobegon in us, priding ourselves on our modesty and tolerance (well, except for Prince & the Powerline boys representing your talent-to-hack spectrum). But at the same time inside most of us beats the soul of a person who is used to not finishing on the top. It is silly to measure oneself according to how your sports teams do. But you really don't fully appreciate that growing up. Most kids my age remembered the Vikings being a joke not because they were not good, but because "they always choked" in the big game.

So along came the Twins, led by a bowling ball of a kid from the projects of Chicago with a permanent smile on his face, and they won two World Titles. In 1991, that kid literally put the team on his back on carried them to the last title with one of the great single game performances in game six.

He made us feel better about ourselves and at the same time performed when as a young adult I could appreciate it for its actual significance (or lack thereof).

It's been a rocky decade for Puckett since his career ended. He wasn't the perfectly lovable kid from Chicago we all thought, and he made mistakes, a bad divorce, accusations of embarassing or outright bad conduct, all of which seemed to have resulted from an unfortunate early end to a career. But the image of the lovable Kirby Puckett remains permanently etched in our minds.