An Unsettling Feeling

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner – Remembering Kirby Puckett. By Jeremy Derfner

After hearing about Kirby Puckett’s death from a stroke earlier this week, I was struck by how torn I felt. He was a fun ballplayer to watch, but since his retirement we’d learned things about his life that made it hard not to end every praising statement with a great big “but.” Jeremy Derfner was a far bigger fan of Puckett than I ever was, and he doesn’t really nail the problem here, but his description of the 1991 World Series reminded me just how great it was (and how my regular poker game suspended for about an hour while we all sat on our host’s bed and watched transfixed as Jack Morris spun his magic that night) and how big a part of those years Puckett was. Well worth reading, in other words.