Let' Hear from the Coach

Kelly's sorrow bound up with a profound gratitude

Patrick Reusse, Star Tribune

FORT MYERS, FLA. -- Tom Kelly was working with the Twins' Florida Instructional League team in the fall of 1982. Kirby Puckett had been a No. 1 draft choice -- in January, not June -- that year, and Kelly was told that he would be impressed.

"He was short and had that stocky build... didn't really look like a ballplayer," Kelly said. "That doesn't matter, as we know, but in the instructional league, you have 30 or more kids on the roster and you try to give everyone a chance.

"We would play him one day, and he would do OK, and then we would play someone else the next day. He was quiet as could be. Never said boo for the first couple of weeks.

"There was this pitcher -- tall, a white kid -- and he was the player that a number of guys decided to pick on. It was getting worse each time, and then one day, Kirby jumped up and went over and got in the face of those guys and said: 'That's enough of this. I don't want to hear it again.'

"He was a little guy, but they knew they were going to have to fight him if they said anything. They all shut up.

"I saw that from across the clubhouse. It was something to make you take notice. I remember thinking, 'This kid might be different,' in a good way. And, as I recall, after that incident, he just took off, went from playing well to playing great."

Kelly said the instructional league was not the only time he saw a quiet Puckett. Kelly was the third base coach when Puck arrived in the big leagues on May 8, 1984.

"He didn't say much of anything," Kelly said. "He must have figured that rookies are supposed to be seen and not heard. It wasn't until the second year when his personality started to come out."

Kelly looked toward one of the Twins' minor league fields and said:

"How lucky was I as a manager? My best player was the first guy in the clubhouse every day in spring training. My best player was the first guy to go down to the field at the Dome and go to work, to get ready for a game.

"I would talk to other managers and they would say, 'This guy is a pain in my rear end' -- and, I mean, big guys on their teams.

"I'd hear that and ask my coaches, 'What are they talking about? I don't have those issues.' I guess, when your best player gets there early, puts in extra work and busts his tail to first on every groundball ... the other players are going to follow him."

This was noontime Tuesday. Kelly was sitting at a table in front of the minor league office at the Lee County Sports Complex. Over the previous 18 hours, he had done a dozen interviews on the death of Puckett, his Hall of Fame center fielder, and now he was asked to sit for another.

"Several [media] people have said to me, 'Did you ever talk to Kirby about his weight?' " Kelly said. "The more I hear that, the more [irritated] I get. I see a man once every six months, and we have a 5-minute conversation, and I'm going to talk to him about his weight? Puck wasn't stupid. He knew what he was dealing with.

"Years ago, we had a young man in the clubhouse named Bobby who was in trouble with his weight. Puck and Herbie [Kent Hrbek] and a few of us, we talked to him all the time, and I think that might have made it worse.

"Finally, Puck read about this program at the University of Minnesota to deal with a situation like that, and he did more than talk. He paid for Bobby to go through that program. Bobby tried. Didn't work."

Kelly paused, then said: "Puck knew. I don't know what he tried, if he tried, but he knew."

News of Puckett's stroke reached the Twins clubhouse before noon Sunday. Since then, nearly all talk in this baseball complex has centered on Kirby, including numerous conversations between Kelly and Rick Stelmaszek, entering his 26th season as Twins bullpen coach.

Kelly and Stelly. They were together in that instructional league 24 years ago, when Puckett told the bullies to knock it off, and nobody challenged him in return.

"I said to Stelly, 'If Puck doesn't come around, where are we?' " Kelly said. "Do we have the success we had right away without him? And without that success, do I manage for 15 years? Does Stelly coach for 30 years in the big leagues?

"Maybe we could've won without that .330, .340, and 25, 30 home runs every year, but I don't have a big enough ego to tell you I think we would have.

"Twins baseball was down for quite a while, for a decade or more, and Kirby Puckett was the main reason it came back.

"I said to Stelly, 'Do you think we would've had the lives we wound up having if Puck hadn't come along?' Without him, maybe we all get blown out after three years and wind up where? Working in a high school?

"I've had it pretty good since Kirby Puckett came along. I owe that man a lot of gratitude."

© 2006 Star Tribune.