Puck was a man of huge appetites. I don’t mean the ones that made him prone to stroke, but the ones that made him figuratively larger than life.
I knew Kirby, not well, but some. I helped report a little about the Twins when I was at City Pages. I played in his pool tournament several years and proudly endured his jibes when I missed an easy shot. There were a bunch of us who had money who paid $500 to play in that tournament. Yeah, we felt good about donating to children’s heart research, but we mostly felt good to be with Kirby, because he always made you feel like a friend.
He did that with everyone, whether you paid or not. Over on MNSpeak is the remembrance of my son of his first meet with Kirby. He was only 4 years old and we were at one of the last spring training games in Orlando. It was after the game and Kirby and Tony Oliva were spending some extra time giving hitting instruction to a kid who had no chance of making the big league team, but those two guys were still working with him when they could have been at the club house buffet.
As they were winding up, my wife yelled, “Hey, Kirby, wanna meet your biggest fan?” I thought she meant me, but Kirby walked right over to Matt and talked to him for several minutes. He signed his autograph book, as did Tony, and as he was getting ready to leave, he said, “Matt, wanna have good luck?” Matt nodded. “Here, rub my head,” he said, and leaned over the low fence so the short child could touch his newly shaved head. “I let all the ballplayers do that so we win,” he said, initiating a four-year-old then and there into the secret society of real ballplayers.
I last ran into Kirby a couple of years ago in a parking lot on First Avenue. He was waiting outside a limo, dressed in a suit, his right eye gone, but the smile still bright. It was after his troubles with Tonya and the woman in the restroom. He was somehow smaller than he had been.
I went up to him and reintroduced myself and my wife, and he just turned it on. “How you doin’, Tom? You and Kris just have a nice dinner? I did, too. Just waitin’ for my friends now.”
All I could think to say was, “Kirby, we love you. Hang in there.” We both teared up as we walked on to our car.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t hang in there. In the end, his demon appetites for all that life offers, both good and bad, got him.
But when he’s your friend, as he was to anyone who met him, you have to overlook some things and consider the whole. He was, in the whole, a good man.
Tom Bartel
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