Why this card is awesome: Because this iconic card captures the essence of the late, great Kirby Puckett. He was stocky at a time when most baseball players were pretty slim, but he was absolutely a fantastic athlete.
Cool stat: Puck's most career homers came off Frank Tanana, Doyle Alexander, and Bobby Witt. Like most players, he had trouble against HOF pitchers, except Don Sutton and Tom Seaver, both of whom he faced towards the end of their careers.
Deceased players and managers: 4
Hard to believe Puckett's been gone for nearly two years.
Hall of Fame count: 14
14 comments:
A great Chicago born player. Wish he was on the White Sox instead of the Twins. Maybe the late 80's Sox teams would have been better.
Maybe? MAYBE?
OK, definitely! I'm sure they would have not been in seventh place by 1989. That's how bad they were. There isn't even a seventh place anymore.
I love how in 1988, Puckett was already an established star in the league, but Topps finds the need to put a minor league blurb on the card from 6 years earlier.
For those interested, we also unearthed some Puckett cards where id wearing #32 instead of #34.
http://twinscards.com/blog/?p=194
Probably marked up to a photo session gone wrong, but still interesting.
If anybody here is a Twins fan and you're not reading Twinscards.com, you're missing out. Blake also wrote an incredibly gracious review of the 88 Topps Cards blog.
Puckett was awesome. Still scratching my head as to why he is listed as a catcher on Topps All-time All-Rookie ballot. Did he EVER play catcher?
According to thebaseballcube.com, Puckett never played a game at catcher in the majors OR the minors.
BTW, thewritersjourney, I'm holding that Delino DeShields 1988 OPC rookie card for you--head over to Giveaway #5 to claim it.
one of the 3 best pure hitters of the 80's and part of the 90's: Puckett, Gwynn & Boggs
My favorite Puckett card is one that I found on the TwinsCards site - 1996 Upper Deck which shows Kirby in the lone game in which he played in the infield. Too cool. One of my favorite players from when I first started to follow baseball.
Mike (or Blake) can we get a link to that Puckett card?
I just got the link from Blake:
http://twinscards.com/viewcardsdetail.php?cardnum=5347
Here's the link to the card
http://twinscards.com/viewcardsdetail.php?cardnum=5347
But, in fact, that was not the only game in which Puckett played SS, 2B or 3B. According to B-R.com, Puckett played 4 games at 2B, 4 games at 3B and 3 games at SS.
His only fielding chance came at 2B with an assist.
In a game against the Angels on September 10, 1995, Puckett came in from CF to 2B in the 9th inning. During the 9th, he also moved to SS and then 3B. In the 10th, he moved back to 2B and recorded an assist when he fielded a ground ball off the bat of Garret Anderson.
Here's a link to the game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL199509100.shtml
Here is the full list of games where Puckett appeared at any position other than OF:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/NsRA
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