The other Kirby: Puckett has history of abuse, say former wife, mistress
[Puckett] woke up one bright spring morning in 1996 and thought he'd slept funny on one eye, only it was glaucoma, and so never again could the Puck stand in against horsehides flung 90 to 95 mph. Just like that, no warning, he had to hang it up. Then he wasn't a ballplayer anymore, let alone a whale of one. Then he was just back to being fat little Kirby Puckett. Of course, this meant being able to spend more time with his mistress of many years, who nobody seems to have known existed, because Kirby was, of course, an ideal family man -- even though, truth be told, he wasn't even an ideal scoundrel, because he also had cheated on his mistress of many years with a passel of other sad and lonely women. And you thought the fans were duped. She was so shocked at his perfidy, the mistress of many years, that she began to seek comfort in commiseration with the wife.
Anyway, the mistress of many years says that when Puckett couldn't play baseball anymore, "he started to become full of himself and very abusive." He began to perform lewd acts in public, such as going to a fancy shopping center, parking there, then opening his car door and stepping out and peeing in plain view of other people (Twins fans presumably included). ...- Frank Deford
Kirby Puckett had it all: talent, money, the adoration and devotion of the entire state of Minnesota- except the Kirby that we thought we knew was never the real Kirby. The glue of his baseball greatness kept things together, but once that went away, the fabric of his life began to fray, leaving him without purpose or direction. Once baseball went away, we began to see the tortured Kirby Puckett that had been hidden in plain sight all along, and it wasn't a pretty picture.
