Word: puckette
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Taking lessons in stoicism from Rookie Manager Tom Kelly, Minnesota was inclined to regard it not as a crash but as a correction. From the July All- Star Game to the October playoffs, Gary Gaetti, Kent Hrbek and Kirby Puckett brought all their muscle to bear, and still the Twins won just nine away games. For that matter, the last time the franchise managed a World Series victory on the road, the Washington Senators won it and Walter Johnson pitched it. Naturally, the people of St. Louis cannot imagine a more genial place than Busch Stadium, though their perspective...
...what to do? It would be unthinkable to abandon October's greatest source of pleasure (I rank leaves and Halloween as close seconds and thirds), but equally impossible to enjoy without rooting. Well, don't rush me; Kirby Puckett proves that a man can have an ordinary looking physique, much like mine, and still play ball with the best--a fine antidote to the hypertrophy required for basketball or football (not to mention sumo wrestling...
...Kelly, the major leagues' youngest manager at 37, inherited a ! considerable legacy from the Twins' old owner, Calvin Griffith: a powerful first baseman, Kent Hrbek; a complete third baseman, Gary Gaetti; a reliable left-handed pitcher, Frank Viola; and a little, round outfielder, Kirby Puckett. Through the ingenuity of young General Manager Andy MacPhail, 34 -- two storied baseball names, Griffith and MacPhail -- scrappy Outfielder Dan Gladden was added, along with a pair of heavy-duty relievers, Juan Berenguer from San Francisco and Jeff Reardon from Montreal. Greg Gagne has been a joyous shortstop, and Rightfielder Tom Brunansky a force...
...discombobulating to strangers as Fenway's great Wall, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome has seen 56 Twins victories this championship season, their first in 17 years. "There are tricky little things about it," reports Gaetti, one of three Twins with 30 homers (and Outfielder Kirby Puckett has 28). "Balls bounce funny in certain spots. They get lost in the ceiling and die in the rightfield corner. For us, it's almost worth a run or two a game...
...with coke and racism. But within a week the sky cleared and everyone simply started over, the thing baseball does best of all. Bo Jackson of Kansas City and Eric Davis of Cincinnati began applying for Willie Mays' and Roberto Clemente's old jobs. That odd-shaped Minnesotan Kirby Puckett resumed clubbing homers the unlikely way he did last year. With his Ted Williams stroke, the Mets' Darryl Strawberry worked at dissociating himself from scandal...