Uncharitable Reaction

Think of all the tributes to Kirby Puckett you've read and heard this week. Puckett wasn't a perfect man, but it's plain to see that he touched many lives.

Now here's how the Tribune's Phil Rogers remembers the man:

Other than Triton [College] coach Bob Symonds, [Puckett] didn't remain close to any people in Chicago, including old friends like [childhood friend Michael] Armstrong. He was honored with Major League Baseball's Roberto Clemente Award and named to something called the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame, but his largesse was almost exclusively limited to Minnesota's Twin Cities (although he did help build a field at Triton College)...

"I got toughened," Puckett said of life in the [Chicago] projects, where Catherine [his mother] kept a close eye on him. "That's a very big part of who I am... [But] if I had stayed there, I would not have realized my dream."

Yet Puckett did not try to make things better for those who followed him, putting his resources elsewhere. That's no crime. But it is a shame.

It's also a shame that Rogers has to belittle the man before he's even been put in the ground. As John Lennon famously asked, Phil, how do you sleep?