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Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 11 posts ] 
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 Post subject: R.I.P.
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:35 pm 
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Location: The Empire State
This is sad, even if reports suggested all was not sweetness and light in Puckett's domestic life.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:59 pm 
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Yes. Though I was rooting for the other side (I was living in Atlanta at the time), his greatness in the 1991 World Series left a lasting impression on me.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:16 pm 
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Note that the NYT is stating with certainty that Puckett was 45, not 44 as the AP is reporting.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:58 pm 
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Location: Conn. -- hence the name
AP now says that "Puckett's birthdate was frequently listed as March 14, 1961, but recent research by the Hall of Fame indicated he was born a year earlier."


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:03 am 
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SeaRaven wrote:
Note that the NYT is stating with certainty that Puckett was 45, not 44 as the AP is reporting.


Yeah, SeaRaven, don't know what's up with the date of birth discrepancy. News outlets seen here in NYC are varying from 1960 to 1961, sometimes (as in the case of ESPNNews) using both birth years in the same newscast. It would be comical if ESPN weren't supposed to be a professional newsgathering organization. Um, it *is* that, isn't it?

Baseball-Reference.com lists his birth date as March 14, 1961, making him 44. Maybe that's where the confusion lies--editors and such unable to discern that March 6 is in fact eight days before March 14. If so, we've got a lot of numerically challenged editors.

The Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th Edition, copyright 1990, cites his birth date as March 14, 1961.

The Hall of Fame, though, lists Puckett's birth date as March 13, 1960. Hmm. Somewhere he gained a year and a day.

And a graphic at mlb.com's home page identifies Puckett's birth date as March 14, 1960.

The Baseball Almanac says Puckett was born "Tuesday, March 14, 1961." For the record, Timeanddate.com concurs that March 14, 1961, was indeed a Tuesday.

CNNSI.com's player bio page lists his birth date as March 14, 1961, contradicting its own news stories on the death, which report Puckett being 45.

Sheesh. I wonder what everyone's news organization's policy would be when a discrepancy like this comes up. Seems as if most sources favor the March 14, 1961, birth date.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:39 am 
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Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2002 12:01 am
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Location: Twin Cities
This is what we're reporting:

Quote:
He was born in ’60, not ’61
Kirby Puckett died Monday at age 45, not 44.
The Star Tribune learned the truth of Puckett’s actual age from Sean Harlin, the team’s former media relations manager who now runs the club’s video department.
The birthdate of March 14, 1961, that appeared in biographies distributed by the Twins during his playing days is a year off, but he never was concerned about correcting the original mistake. That birthday appears on many Puckett biographies.
A LexisNexis search confirmed the truth: Puck was born in March 1960, which made him 45 at the time of his death.
La Velle E. Neal III


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 1:15 am 
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I want to know what ESPN and the St. Paul Pioneer Press are thinking in running the transcript of the 911 call after Puckett's stroke. That transcript contains no important information at all and strikes me as an outright invasion of grief.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:51 am 
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There are probably other 911 calls involving Puckett that might be more relevant.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:52 pm 
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From Jayson Stark's column today:

There's no telling, of course, where those numbers were headed if this man had just been able to see out of both eyes for the rest of his life. But Puckett would never want us to reflect on that, just as he never let us feel sorry that a disease as merciless as glaucoma had ever descended on him.

You know, taking nothing away from Puckett's great stats, I don't know how much greater they would have been if he hadn't retired. He was 35 at the end of 1995, his last season, and didn't have the type of body that suggested he could have gone on indefinitely without suffering injuries. He was about 700 hits shy of 3,000; at about 150 hits a year, he would have needed another four or five years to get there. He hit 207 homers; he probably would have got to 300 if he had hung on those five extra years.

I think the glaucoma engendered a sympathy Hall of Fame vote for Puckett, but if he had played another four or five years, he would have had a Hall-worthy career. I just don't think his stats would have been otherworldly, as some in the media seem to think today.

In an interesting aside, Baseball-Reference.com changed its listing of Puckett's birth date to March 14, 1960, and added his date of death since last night.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 1:25 pm 
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I really don't see any news in that transcript, unless you count the fact that he was taking Lipitor. The only unanswered question: Who is the woman? I figure for privacy reasons, we'll never know.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:50 pm 
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Location: New Jersey
Connfused wrote:
The only unanswered question: Who is the woman? I figure for privacy reasons, we'll never know.


The irony that proves my point. Only by further invading privacy could this invasion of privacy be made newsworthy. It's too much, and yet too little.


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