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It's curtains for Lefont Garden Hills Cinema

By STEVE MURRAY, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/23/2006

After more than two decades of bringing foreign and art-house films to Buckhead, exhibitor George Lefont is closing Lefont Garden Hills Cinema this weekend.

The British comedy "Keeping Mum" will continue to play through Sunday at the theater, which opened on Peachtree Road in 1946. "Then," Lefont says, "we're closed."

The future of the space is currently unclear, though there is a chance it could become a venue for live theater performances.

In August, Lefont sold his business at the historic, 1939 Plaza Theatre in Poncey-Highlands to Jonathan and Gayle Rej, who now program screenings there.

Lefont was synonymous with intown art cinema in the 1980s and '90s, running theaters that included the now-razed Silver Screen at Peachtree Battle and the Screening Room at Lindbergh Plaza. But with the shuttering of Garden Hills, he will now operate only one theater outside the Perimeter: the eight-screen Lefont Sandy Springs on Roswell Road.

Lefont made the decision to end programming at the 375-seat Garden Hills venue as his lease expired, citing the difficulty of competing with multiplex cinemas and frustrations with getting the films he wanted from studios.

"Single-screen theaters are difficult to maintain now, and not just financially," he says. "Release dates [for films] are controlled by the studios, so either you have too many movies or not enough."

In other words, if a desirable new movie is released by its studio on a specific date, and another film is booked to play at the single-screen theater, the studios will offer their new movie to another venue with free screens.

"It's a definite challenge to get the movies you want at the right time you want them," Lefont says.

It's not just an Atlanta problem, he says: "Single-screen theaters are going out of business in droves."

In recent years Lefont has had intown competition from the eight-screen Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

"Everything is affected by other competition," Lefont says. "They've certainly played a good deal of product that otherwise might have played at Garden Hills."

Lefont owns the seating in the Garden Hills and says he's in negotiations with the landlord about it.

"The seating is going to remain there," says Victor Romano of Victor Realty, which manages the strip of shops on Peachtree Road that contains Garden Hills. "We can't very well lease it as a theater without any seats."

But Romano hopes that the space will become home to a live theater company, rather than another film exhibitor, and says he is in talks with potential tenants.

There is a stage beneath the theater's film screen, though only 12 feet deep and 36 feet wide. A theater company would almost certainly have to remove some of the front rows of seats and expand the stage deeper into the auditorium.

"We also would be flexible for something other than a theater, but we will not want a restaurant," Romano added. "But you've got a theater building and floors that slant down, and a stage. To renovate that for another purpose other than a theater would probably be pretty expensive."

In addition to the Landmark Midtown, other intown theaters that will continue to show art, foreign and independent fare are the four-screen Regal Tara and the two-screen Plaza.

In his final days at Garden Hills, Lefont said he felt gratitude to its moviegoers.

"I want to thank the Atlanta community for the tremendous patronage we've had," he said. "I've had the theater for 21 years, so thanks very much."

© 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Great 1st Hand Descriptions of the Obscure and Archaic

The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time

By The Editors of PC World

IBM's first PC, announced on August 12, 1981, was far from the first personal computer -- but when it arrived, there was near-universal agreement that it was likely to be a landmark machine. It was. And 25 years later, it still ranks among the most significant computers ever.

Like the IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150, the greatest systems have always had ambitions to boldly go where no computer has gone before. Without these innovative machines, the PC revolution would have been a lot less... well, revolutionary. So we decided to celebrate the IBM PC's 25th birthday by identifying the 25 PCs that have mattered most -- from any manufacturer, and from any era.

No single characteristic makes a computer great. But we managed to boil down an array of winning qualities into four factors, all of which happen to begin with the letter I.

Innovation: Did the PC do anything that was genuinely new? Did it incorporate the latest technology? Impact: Was it widely imitated? Did it become part of the cultural zeitgeist? Industrial design: Was it a looker? Did it have clever features that made using it a pleasure? Intangibles: Was there anything else about it that set it apart from the same ol' same ol'?

Armed with this scale, we considered dozens of PCs -- which meant that we also had to consider the question "What is a PC, exactly?" Ultimately we decided that a PC is anything that's recognizably a desktop or portable computer in design -- or, alternatively, anything that runs an operating system originally created for desktops and laptops. After a lot of nostalgic debate, we selected our winners. Which systems we picked -- and didn't pick -- for our Top 25 may be controversial. If one of your favorites didn't make our roster, check out our list of 25 near-great PCs.

Just to drum up a little suspense, we'll reveal the Top 25 starting with number 25, and then work our way backward to the single greatest PC of all time. (You can also jump to the complete list of our Top 25 picks, or browse the list by decade.)

Ready?

Greatest PCs:

25. Non-Linear Systems Kaypro II (1982)

Non-Linear Systems' Kaypro II didn't break new ground when it appeared toward the end of 1982, but it was a classic case of the right product at the right time. Even more than the Osborne (which had pioneered the concept of the luggable microcomputer), it appealed to a growing group of nongeeks who were awakening to the productivity benefits of personal computers but couldn't afford (or didn't want to spend) several thousand dollars for an Apple or IBM PC along with the necessary software and peripherals (such as a printer).

Named for NLS founder (and digital voltmeter inventor) Andrew Kay, the Kaypro II -- and its series of successors over the ensuing years, including the 4 and the 2x -- was a moderately priced alternative. When first released, the Kaypro II cost $1795 and, like the Osborne, came with all the productivity software (word processor, spreadsheet) most people would need. Encased in grey and blue metal, the Kaypro was rugged and utilitarian in design: You could latch the keyboard over the 9-inch monochrome display (far roomier than the Osborne's stingy 5-incher) and carry it like a suitcase. But at 26 pounds, it was a heavy piece of luggage. The Kaypro line also represented the last gasp of the CP/M operating system: By the mid-1980s, MS-DOS was already becoming the lingua franca of non-Apple personal computing.

The Kaypro's affordability and out-of-the-box usability was very popular with journalists, including myself: In 1984 I took out a $1600 loan to buy a Kaypro 2x -- my first computer -- and by then the purchase price also got me a daisy-wheel printer. A year or so later, I became a TV critic for a newspaper, which bought me a Hayes Smartmodem that let me electronically transmit my reviews from home (the modem also enabled my introduction to online computing). I used that Kaypro and Hayes modem until 1992, when I took out another loan to buy my first IBM clone. I've never again used the same PC for eight years.

24. Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 (2006)

23. Apple eMate 300 (1997)

Over the past three decades, Apple Computer has released a bunch of great PCs that had a huge impact on the marketplace. Here's one that had almost no impact during its short life -- aside from its cameo in the film Batman & Robin as Batgirl's (Alicia Silverstone's) PC -- but we love it anyway.

The $799 eMate was idiosyncratic in virtually every way a computer can be idiosyncratic, starting with its target audience: schoolkids. It ran an operating system designed for PDAs (Apple's Newton OS). It didn't have a hard drive, but it did have pen input. It looked vaguely like a notebook, but its industrial design -- with a green, curvy case that looked like it had sprung from the mind of science-fiction illustrator H.R. Giger -- was utterly unique.

The eMate attracted a cult audience among business users. But Steve Jobs, who returned to Apple soon after its launch, wasn't a believer: Less than a year after the eMate shipped, he killed it, along with the rest of the Newton line. The cult continues, though -- you can even find hacks to overclock the eMate at Stephanie's Newton Web Site.

Almost a decade later, the eMate feels like an early pass at the kind of innovative, affordable educational PC that the world is still trying to create. Too bad it turned out to be a dead end.

22. Hewlett-Packard 100LX (1993)

21. Alienware Area-51 (1998)

20. Gateway 2000 Destination (1996)

19. Apple iMac, Second Generation (2002)

18. Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 300 (1993)

The innovative OmniBook 300 wasn't just one of the first subnotebooks -- it was one of the most innovative hardware designs ever, albeit one that didn't prove particularly influential. Weighing 2.9 pounds, the system stored Windows 3.1, Excel 4.0, Word 2.0, and MS-DOS 5.0 in ROM memory rather than on a hard drive; this allowed it to boot up instantly. User storage was solid-state too, on a 40MB PCMCIA Type III hard disk or a 10MB PCMCIA Type II flash-disk drive.

Productivity was a central theme for the OmniBook, which started at $1950. The unit came with LapLink Remote Access and HP's organizational tools (contacts, appointments, and a financial calculator, same as in the HP 100LX), and provided one-button access to all applications. It also had a unique integrated mouse that popped out of the laptop's right side on a thin piece of plastic; the design eliminated the need for an annoying mouse cable, but the mouse was small and awkward to move about.

Given the OmniBook's basic 386SXLV CPU, monochrome 9-inch VGA screen, and power-friendly ROM storage, it's not surprising HP gave the notebook a high battery-life rating -- up to 9 hours of power for the 10MB flash-disk version. (In a pinch, the unit could run on AA batteries -- unheard of for a computer with a full-size keyboard.) Although the solid-state approach to laptop storage didn't catch on at the time, it's back today in products like Samsung's new 16GB and 32GB flash-memory drives. Funny how things come full circle.

17. Toshiba T1000 (1987)

Toshiba's wildly popular T1000 brought DOS in a truly lap-friendly portable size. The T1000 measured 12 by 2 by 11 inches and weighed 6.4 pounds -- a veritable featherweight compared with suitcase-size luggables, and more than 3.5 pounds lighter than its nearest competitor, the Datavue Spark. It was also cheaper than most laptops of its time.

The T1000's durable clamshell design accommodated a full-size 82-key keyboard, a 720KB 3.5-inch floppy drive, 512KB of RAM, and an internal modem. The unit embedded MS-DOS 2.11 in ROM -- which eliminated the need to have two floppy drives, as some competing notebooks of that era had, but also made it impossible to use certain software (such as WordPerfect Executive, which required two disks to run).

To achieve its size and cost, the T1000 made some sacrifices in CPU and battery performance. Nonetheless, this model helped catapult Toshiba to the fore of mobile computing, and it paved the way for the next wave of laptops, including number 18 on our list, HP's OmniBook 300 (above). (You can read the T1000 quick-reference guide at this fan site.)

16. Tandy TRS-80 Model I (1977)

Tandy's TRS-80 Model I lacked the pizzazz of the Apple II, but it was the first computer to be truly marketed to the masses: Over 200,000 of the monochromatic little machines were sold by Radio Shack, an electronics retailer with thousands of locations in an age when almost nobody had ever heard of a computer store.

For $600, the first iteration of the TRS-80 gave you a measly 4KB of RAM and a rudimentary version of the BASIC language, and it stored programs on sluggish, flaky audiocassette tapes. As with other early PCs, the best way to get it to do something was to write a program from scratch. "There was an almost indescribable joy to be had the first time a program that you wrote yourself actually worked," remembers early owner Craig Landrum.

Over time the Model I gained more memory, disk drives, networking, and other enhancements; acquired a library of thousands of programs; and saw the debut of progeny such as the TRS-80 Model 100 portable (number 8 on our list). TRS-80 computers were the first to be the subject of magazines devoted entirely to one company's PCs; today, they're impressively documented at Ira Goldklang's TRS-80.com.

15. Shuttle SV24 Barebone System (2001)

14. Atari 800 (1979)

Two years after Atari unleashed its first video game console, later dubbed the Atari 2600, the company shipped its first home computers. In many ways the Atari 800 -- the more advanced of the two models Atari introduced in late 1979 -- redefined the expectations of what a home computer could do, especially in graphics and sound.

Part game machine, part productivity enhancer, the $999 Atari 800 was the first home computer to feature a custom video coprocessor in addition to its CPU, which was the same 8-bit 6502 used in the Apple II. This design enabled the Atari 800 to generate 128 colors (256 in later versions) on screen. The system could also display four programmable animated screen objects at once -- a boon for action games such as Star Raiders, the system's "killer app" -- and it had another custom chip that helped it produce superior sound (four voices, across 3.5 octaves). Two cartridge slots under the hood were available for games and other applications, and four joystick ports were included, too.

While Atari eventually replaced its 8-bit computers with the 16-bit ST line, designer Jay Miner, who led the team behind the Atari 800's video chips, went on to lead the group that developed the Commodore Amiga 1000's graphics system.

Like all kids my age, I wanted an Atari 2600 to play games. But my mom thought it would be a good idea to get something that could be educational, so my family decided on an Atari 800. Many a night of head-to-head Star Raiders, Missile Command, and Pac-Man tournaments ensued with my dad (all very educational, of course). But the Atari 800 wasn't entirely about the games; I also used mine to learn BASIC programming and compose my school papers. For years my memory retained AtariWriter's string of control codes--conceptually similar to HTML coding -- for such common tasks as making text italic or bold. Little did my mom know then where all of that would lead...

13. IBM Personal Computer/AT Model 5170 (1984)

Three years after IBM's first PC shipped, the PC/AT marked both a revolution and an evolution in personal computing. The revolution came in the form of powerful specs; the evolution came in the system's design refinements (no, we're not talking about its honking big beige box). It was another IBM hit, although it also turned out to be the last IBM model to serve as a standards bearer for the entire PC industry -- a year later, Compaq's Deskpro 386 ended IBM's stranglehold on PC innovation.

The $5295 PC/AT was the first system to use Intel's 80286 CPU (first a 6-MHz model and later an 8-MHz model). It also featured a 20MB (or greater) hard disk that was faster than, and had double the capacity of, the PC XT's original hard drive; supported both 8-bit and 16-bit expansion cards; used IBM PC-DOS 3.0, which supported high-density 1.2MB (5.25-inch) floppy disks; and even integrated a battery on the motherboard to power a real-time clock. Its keyboard, meanwhile, introduced the basic layout we still use today, including a number pad (with cursor keys and a key lock) and dedicated function keys. And the system could handle advanced graphics with its optional 16-color Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) or 256-color Professional Graphics Controller (PGC).

Like many PC model designations, AT stood for something -- and no, it had nothing to do with the Imperial AT-AT walkers featured in The Empire Strikes Back. The term was short for Advanced Technology.

12. MITS Altair 8800 (1975)

Computer historians are still squabbling over whether MITS's Altair was the first true personal computer. (Earlier candidates include the Kenbak-1 and Micral-N.) What's undeniable is that it was "the first machine to really capture the imagination of the geek sector in a big way," says Erik Klein of Vintage-Computer.com. "The fact that other companies quickly jumped onto the bandwagon was proof of its power and allure."

The Altair started life as a $397 build-it-yourself kit -- little more than a box, a board, an Intel 8080 CPU (which MITS bought at a discount because of cosmetic blemishes), and 256 bytes of RAM. At first you needed to program it by flipping switches, until Bill Gates and Paul Allen started a tiny company called Micro-soft (yes, with a hyphen) and came up with a version of the BASIC programming language that would work on the system.

Software from Bill Gates wasn't the only thing the Altair had in common with today's systems. Much of the infrastructure that would support later PCs -- from disk-drive manufacturers to software developers to computer stores -- sprung up to support it. There were even clones, such as the popular IMSAI 8080.

The Altair's time as the dominant computing platform was brief, and in 1978 it was discontinued altogether. But what a legacy it left.

11. Sony VAIO 505GX (1998)

10. Apple PowerBook 100 (1991)

If your first portable computer doesn't succeed, try, try again. That's the lesson of the PowerBook 100, Apple's splendid successor to the famously awful Mac Portable, a machine we named to our list of the 25 worst tech products of all time.

Along with the higher-end PowerBook 140 and 170, the $2500 100 sported two features that the rest of the industry quickly cribbed. First, the company pushed the keyboard back toward the screen hinge, freeing up space for a wrist-rest area that made typing more comfortable. And in the center of that wrist rest sat a nice, large trackball, the best mobile pointing device of its era. (At the time, folks who ran Windows on portable computers were still futzing with unwieldy clip-on trackballs.) Those were just two of the more striking innovations in a slick laptop design that, according to Jim Carlton's book Apple, took the company from last place to first in laptop sales.

The PowerBook 100 -- which was, by the way, manufactured by Sony -- was discontinued in 1992. But the PowerBook line went on and on, coming to an end just this year, when the final 12-inch PowerBook was replaced by the MacBook.

9. Columbia Data Products MPC 1600-1 (1982)

When IBM created its first PC, it used an Intel 8088 CPU, off-the-shelf parts, and Microsoft's DOS -- which meant that other manufacturers could build machines that were at least reasonably compatible with it. They did, and the very first to ship one was Columbia Data Systems.

The $2995 MPC, whose name was short for "Multi Personal Computer," had double the typical IBM PC's RAM, more expansion slots and ports, and two floppy drives rather than one. At the time, Columbia's Fred Conte told InfoWorld that he didn't see the system going head-to-head with Big Blue. "It is a multibillion dollar marketplace, and if we can pick up a small percentage -- say, 2 to 3 percent--it will be a luxury," he said.

Columbia's PC soon had lots of company. At the COMDEX show in November 1982, a flurry of what were then called "IBM look-alikes" were announced -- so many that the show also saw the announcement of the first magazine specifically "For Second-Generation IBM PCs and Compatibles." Its name? PC World.

By the mid-1980s, Columbia foundered, and though the company still exists, it hasn't built a PC in a long time. But by producing the clone that other clones cloned, the company helped to define the Intel-and-Microsoft platform that dominates to this day.

8. Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 (1983)

Though not quite the first notebook computer -- Epson's forgotten HX-20 preceded it -- Tandy's Model 100 was the first that caught on. (One thing that didn't catch on: Tandy's desire that the machine be known as a MEWS, for Micro Executive Work Station.)

In a day when most "portable computers" were 25-pound behemoths, the 3.4-pound Model 100 was indeed the size of a notebook, which meant it could go places that computers had never gone before. Yet it packed a 2-by-7.5-inch screen that could display 40 characters across and eight lines of text; a full-size keyboard that's still impressive today; built-in software such as a word processor and spreadsheet; and a 300-bps modem that let you connect to services such as CompuServe.

Variants of the Model 100 included 1984's Model 200, which introduced the clamshell case that almost every portable computer would eventually adopt. Well into the 1990s, some journalists were still toting these Radio Shack systems -- and sites such as Club 100 continue to help people use them.

7. Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)

The Commodore 64 may have been the best-selling computer of its time, but its follow-up, developed by a Silicon Valley startup that Commodore acquired, was a vastly better computer. Years ahead of its time, the Amiga was the world's first multimedia, multitasking personal computer (see an early commercial for it on YouTube).

The $1500 (sans monitor) Amiga came with the same Motorola 68000 CPU used in the Apple Macintosh. But the most innovative thing about its architecture was its three coprocessors -- they helped provide the Amiga's graphics and sound, which were stunning for the time. Its main video processor (dubbed Denise) helped Amigas accomplish feats like 3D animation, full-motion video, and fancy TV processing years before other computers. And the four-voice stereo sound chip (Paula) provided speech synthesis, produced more realistic audio than the Commodore 64's famous SID chip, and helped inspire Soundtracker, the first "tracker-style" music sequencing program.

The original Amiga was rechristened the Amiga 1000 when it was replaced by the Amiga 500 and 2000 in 1987; later Amiga-based products included the Amiga 4000T tower and the CD32, a gaming console. Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994, and the Amiga name and technologies bounced from owner to owner in subsequent years. Modern iterations of NewTek's Video Toaster and LightWave 3D software continue to be used for major TV and movie productions to this day.

In 1987 I had sort of lost interest in PCs -- until I got my first real job, which happened to be in an office next to a computer store called The Memory Location. I walked by its window and saw an Amiga 500 showing off everything it could do. And what it could do was astonishing, given that garden-variety IBM PCs often didn't do color at the time. I collected enough paychecks to buy an Amiga and stuck with the platform until the IBM world caught up -- which took years.

6. IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150 (1981)

Many key moments in PC history weren't identifiable as such when they happened. (Was there any reason to pay much attention when a couple of young guys named Steve decided to start a microcomputer company and name it after a type of fruit?) But when the company that was synonymous with computers announced its first PC on August 12, 1981, everyone knew it was a great milestone in the history of a very young industry.

Technology-wise, the most interesting thing about IBM's Personal Computer, Model 5150, was its CPU: Intel's 8088, a powerful 16-bit processor in an era when most popular models still used basic 8-bit CPUs. IBM offered the system with several operating systems, including the then-popular CP/M, something called P-System, and a new OS that IBM named PC-DOS but that most people would remember as MS-DOS for versions marketed by publisher Microsoft. (Legendarily, Microsoft's OS was based on QDOS, or "Quick and Dirty Operating System," which it picked up for a song from a small Seattle company.)

Within 18 months IBM's machine sat at the center of a booming PC ecology, with a bevy of hardware add-ons, third-party software, clones, books, and magazines. Some of IBM's later machines were hits and some were flops, but all of them, like the vast majority of computers on the planet today, were direct descendants of the IBM Personal Computer. (Read IBM's take on its own archives.)

5. IBM ThinkPad 700C (1992)

Unveiled at Comdex in 1992, IBM's ThinkPad 700C ushered in a new era for laptop computers: Now, the laptop could be both useful and stylish. The first ThinkPad's distinctive black case and its red TrackPoint pointing device in the middle of the keyboard were striking departures from other notebooks, which tended to be practically interchangeable, chunky, dull gray or beige boxes with trackballs that hung off to the side or sat like a lump below the keyboard.

One of three ThinkPad models at launch, along with the 300 and 500 (the numbering scheme was reportedly inspired by BMW's car lines) the $4350 ThinkPad 700C was IBM's top-of-the-line system. It came with an eye-catching 256-color, 10.4-inch TFT VGA color screen (large by 1992 standards), a removable 120MB hard drive, a 25-MHz 486SLC processor, and a comfortable touch-typist-friendly keyboard. Current ThinkPads -- now manufactured by Lenovo -- may be radically more powerful than the 700C, but they retain the black case, TrackPoint, and fine keyboard as major selling points. (See the ThinkPad's evolution at Lenovo's archive.)

PC World recognized the ThinkPad's significance right away: The product won a World Class award in 1993. In 2004 it became the first -- and to date, only--product inducted into the World Class Hall of Fame.

4. Apple Macintosh Plus (1986)

In 1984 Apple released the original Macintosh, which, while heavily influenced by the Xerox Star, was a breakthrough personal computer. But its 128KB of memory was so skimpy that the machine was virtually unusable. The company really hit the ball out of the park in 1986 with the Macintosh Plus (see the specs of this Apple model and others at Apple-History.com).

The $2599 Mac Plus had the same Motorola 68000 processor as the original Mac, but it came with a roomy 1MB of RAM and was upgradeable to 4MB of RAM. It supported the brand-new 800KB double-sided floppy-disk format, and was the first Mac with a SCSI port for fast data transfer to and from an external hard drive. Like earlier Macs, its cute beige all-in-one case housed a monochrome 512-by-342-pixel display and the 3.5-inch floppy drive. It also came with matching beige input devices: a sturdy keyboard with a numeric keypad connected by a coiled cord, and a boxy, rectangular mouse.

Apple sold the Mac Plus until 1990, making it the longest-selling Mac model ever. By then it had received cult notoriety via a cameo in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Today, working Mac Plus models sell on eBay for about $25. Nonworking models have found an entirely different afterlife: They've been reincarnated as fish tanks.

3. Xerox 8010 Information System (1981)

As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many computers owed so much to such a flop. The flop in question is Xerox's 8010 Information System (better known as the Star), the computer that commercialized many of the breakthroughs invented in the company's legendary PARC research labs and first seen in the Alto computer (which was never sold as a commercial product).

Announced in 1981 and shipped in 1982, the Star had a graphical user interface with what-you-see-is-what-you-get graphics and a desktop metaphor (which, as documented at the DigiBarn computing museum, still look impressive today). It used a mouse, a device that was so unfamiliar that Xerox's documentation also called it a "hand-held pointer." It had built-in ethernet networking, and could work with "a 12-ppm laser printer that was three-fourths the size of a washing machine," says Dave Curbow, who joined the Star team as a software engineer in 1983. "There were way too many firsts to enumerate."

It also had a hefty price tag -- $16,500 per unit--that was just the beginning, since the whole idea was that a business would outfit itself with multiple networked workstations, servers, and peripherals. "You couldn't buy one machine and do anything," Curbow explains.

Given that the notion of buying even a single small computer was so new at the time, it's not startling that Xerox had trouble selling companies on the Star. A couple of years later, Apple's far cheaper, Xerox-influenced $2495 Macintosh found more success. And over time, virtually every one of Xerox's out-there ideas became a core part of the everyday computing experience.

2. Compaq Deskpro 386 (1986)

For the first few years of the IBM PC-compatible era, the industry had one undisputed leader -- Big Blue itself. Then an odd thing happened: Intel introduced the powerful 80386 CPU, its first 32-bit processor, and it was Compaq, not IBM, that brought a 386 PC to market before anyone else.

The Deskpro 386's $6499 starting price wasn't as sky-high as it sounds today considering that decent configurations of IBM's AT cost at least $5000 and its high-end RT usually topped $16,000. With a 32-bit bus and 16-MHz clock speed, "on CPU performance alone the Deskpro 386 inhabits another league," PC World wrote at the time.

In 1986 it wasn't a given that a next-generation PC would run previous-generation software out of the box; the IBM RT, which used a RISC CPU, didn't. And so the fact that the Deskpro ran DOS, Windows, Lotus 1-2-3, and other major applications perfectly was as much of a selling point as the fact it did so with blazing speed.

The Deskpro 386 wasn't just one of the most powerful, most popular PCs of its time -- it was also compelling proof that the PC platform was far bigger than any one company.

Number 1. Apple II (1977)

The Apple II wasn't the first personal computer, or the most advanced one, or even the best-selling model of its age. But in many ways it was The Machine That Changed Everything. On all four of our criteria -- Innovation, Impact, Industrial Design, and Intangibles -- it was such a huge winner that it ended up as our Greatest PC of All Time.

The 8-bit system came with 4KB of memory, expandable to 48KB. It used a cassette rather than a disk for storage. It cost $1200, about twice the base price of its two biggest competitors, the Tandy TRS-80 Model I and the Commodore PET 2001. It couldn't even display lowercase letters (in the first several years of its existence, anyway). Yet it packed more pure innovation than any other early computer, and was the first PC that deserved to be called a consumer electronics device.

Born out of the Home Brew Computer Club by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs's tiny Apple Computer in 1977, the Apple II was the company's second PC, but it boasted more than its share of firsts: It was the first color PC (you could even use it with a television), the first to be easily expandable by users, the first to integrate BASIC programming, and the first to run the VisiCalc spreadsheet -- proving that these new boxes had a place in business.

Perhaps its greatest innovation was its design. Jobs wanted the machine to look at home on people's desktops, so he insisted that the Apple II have a sleek look, as opposed to the sheet-metal-and-exposed-wire appearance of most other early PCs. The machine's coolness factor -- an Apple trademark to this day -- was as important to its long-term success as Wozniak's inventive engineering was.

And we do mean long-term: From the original Apple II model that debuted at the first West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977 to the discontinuation of the final iteration of the IIe in December 1993 (outlasting the 16-bit IIGS model that was introduced years after it), more than 2 million Apple II-family PCs had been produced. The Apple II line, well documented at Steven Weyhrich's Apple II History site, kept the company going through the Apple Lisa debacle and other turbulent events of the 1980s. By the middle of that decade, though, Apple had turned its attention to that other world-beater, the Macintosh Plus (number 4 on our list). But it was the Apple II that put the personal in the nascent personal computer industry. The rest is history.

I didn't own the Apple II; I waited for one of its successors, the Apple IIe, a big, big step up from the very first Apple II. My Apple IIe came with a color screen, a floppy drive, and an 80-column display instead of the original's 40-column display. I have fond memories of using the Apple IIe to index and abstract tech articles, although I could fit only four records on each 5.25-inch floppy, which meant I had to carry stacks and stacks of floppies between home and office. I also remember having a love-hate relationship with the integrated keyboard: Its stiff keys made it a pain to use, sometimes literally.

Copyright © 2006 PC World Communications, Inc.

A Wonderfully Written Obit

Final out of Elden Auker's perfect game love story

By Wright Thompson, Senior Writer, ESPN.com

A great love story ends today.

For 73 years, Elden and Mildred Auker were married, inseparable. Their romance was the stuff of paperback novels and Meg Ryan movies. When he won a World Series game or struck out Babe Ruth, she cheered. When she got sick late in life, he rubbed her feet. As they grew old, they'd part with, "You know I've always loved you," just in case.

On Wednesday afternoon, in Vero Beach, Fla., their final goodbye arrives. Mildred is burying the man she met in 1932, the night before college graduation. Seven decades later, he could still describe it in perfect detail. It was the night two empty lives became full.

They were seniors at Kansas State then, the depression ravaging their region. The star athlete, a three-sport All-American, he'd been voted Joe College. A campus beauty -- you should see a picture of Mildred Purcell from back then -- she was voted Betty Coed. For their final dance, she took a date. Elden went stag.

At the dance, Auker eased up smooth and invited her to an after party. Mildred, who lived with her parents in Manhattan, Kan., trotted them out as an excuse. Her mom, she explained, wouldn't think it proper if one boy picked her up and a different one dropped her off.

Auker wouldn't be denied, as he detailed in his autobiography. He found a phone and dialed up Mildred's mom. Of course, Mrs. Purcell knew the name Elden Auker. Every man, woman and child in the state of Kansas knew that name. Plus, he and Mildred's brother were in the same fraternity. She knew him well enough to trust him. He figured he had a shot.

"Sorry to wake you … " he began.

He asked if, you know, maybe he could bring Mildred home after they went to grill some burgers and weenies. Mildred's mother said yes.

So Elden proudly walked back to Mildred, and told her the news.

"You what?!" she exclaimed. "Did you wake her up?"

Elden said yes.

The next year, they married, his daddy buying the ring. They spent three nights in Kansas City on their honeymoon. Afterward, he chased his baseball dreams. Later, he'd become somewhat famous as the last living man to strike out Babe Ruth. He and the Babe were golfing buddies. But to think he was merely a Trivial Pursuit answer is to cheapen his career. He retired with a 130-101 record. He threw 126 complete games. Men were tougher then.

He knew the giants. Ted Williams was a dear friend. In 1939, he playfully grabbed Lou Gehrig, and the slugger collapsed in his arms. No one knew he was sick then. Two years later, Gehrig was gone. One by one, all his friends died. Auker was the last living member of the 1935 Detroit Tigers World Series champions.

After baseball, he became CEO of a company. He met captains of industry, became friends with President Ford. In the eyes of his family, though, the greatest act of his life was the final one.

"She took care of him when he was in baseball," grandson Saarin Auker says, "and when he retired and she started to get feeble, he completely changed. He pretty much focused on the care and well-being of his wife."

Two years ago, they lost almost everything in Hurricane Ivan. It tore apart the house they'd loved on Sailfish Road in Vero Beach, Fla. It waterlogged much of his baseball memorabilia. His reaction told a story: Weeks after the storm, he hadn't even bothered to go through his stuff. He was too busy making sure Mildred was doing OK, making sure she was comfortable in the new place he'd found for them. He seemed in great health. The staff at their apartment complex marveled at this amazing man, and at the Aukers' amazing love.

He rubbed her head. Every night, she fell asleep in his lap. He'd talk to her, tell her to be brave.

"Grandma is a real tough lady," Saarin says. "She could pull the prickers off a rose bush. She was an old Kansas girl. She was a strong woman. She used to say, 'Gimme a pill and I'd take it now,' and granddad would say, 'You stop talking like that.' They really lived for each other."

Auker became a source of wisdom, to his family and beyond. He could be counted on for a lucid opinion on everything from baseball's current steroid scandal to marriage.

"Never go to bed without telling your wife you love her," 38-year-old Saarin remembers. "'Never go to bed angry.' He'd tell me, 'A man has never been shot while doing the dishes, so always do the dishes.' He had all these little sayings he'd always tell me. It's a selfish reason, but I wish he'd have stayed longer. I could have learned so much from him."

About two weeks ago, Auker took a bad turn. They checked him into the hospital. His heart was failing. He was shuttled between several facilities as they searched for answers. Even as the doctors planned and plotted, Auker seemed to understand that his time was short. He told his grandson, "I don't see myself leaving this place."

Still, he seemed to be getting better. Last Wednesday night, he watched a Tigers game. He rarely missed them. The Tigers won; he was so happy. Two days later, early on Friday morning, the family got the call. They'd better get there quick.

Elden Auker was dying.

Saarin stood by his bedside. His father, Jim, went to get Mildred. When they got back, Elden had passed. He was 95.

Jim and Mildred came down the hall. Saarin met them.

"She didn't know that he had passed," he says. "We didn't know if we wanted her to see him in that condition, on the final day, on the final morning. She saw him and was overwhelmed with grief and she used a few expletives and wanted to leave. She was like, 'I want to go home.'"

Now, almost eight decades after he asked her out at a dance, Betty Coed is burying her Joe College. Mildred Auker still has that ring his daddy bought, but she doesn't have Elden any more. She's burying him today, and then she'll go home.

"She sits in the spot that grandpa used to sit in," Saarin says. "It's gonna take some time."

Copyright 2006 ESPN.com

This will happen again

Attention all half-educated idiot reactionary parents: you are harming your children if you do not have them immunized.

Outbreak of Measles In 2005 Shows Risk Of Refusing Vaccines

By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY, The Wall Street Journal
August 3, 2006; Page D6

A federal study tied a measles outbreak in Indiana last year to parents who didn't immunize their home-schooled children because of their concerns about vaccine safety. The study, by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, illustrated the risks associated with persistent public suspicions that vaccines have dangerous side effects, including autism. The bulk of major scientific research has found these concerns to be groundless, though studies continue.

Despite the near-elimination of measles in the U.S., 34 cases occurred in Indiana in May 2005, in the largest U.S. outbreak in nine years. In the study, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, the authors -- who work for the CDC's National Center for Immunization -- said the outbreak originated with a 17-year-old girl who visited an orphanage in Romania on a church mission. Measles is common there. The day after she returned to the U.S., the girl attended a church gathering of 500 people, starting the outbreak.

Once a common childhood disease in the U.S, measles is characterized by an itchy rash and fever, and sometimes causes pneumonia, encephalitis and death. World-wide there are 30 million cases a year causing 454,000 deaths, the World Health Organization estimates.

According to the study, the church had no doctrinal opposition to vaccination. But the church's minister estimated that 10% of the members refused vaccination because of media reports that associated vaccines with autism. Measles vaccinations in the U.S. don't contain thimerasol, a form of mercury that has raised most of the vaccination concerns.

All but one of the patients who contracted measles were church members, and 82% were school-aged, 20 of whom were home-schooled. Most of the victims lived in four households.

Measles vaccinations cover typically 98% of schoolchildren by sixth grade. According to the government's most recent statistics, there were 27 cases among U.S. residents in 2004; 56 in 2003; 44 in 2002; 116 in 2001 and 86 cases in 2000.

In a commentary accompanying the study, Kim Mulholland, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said further outbreaks will occur in industrialized countries as long as parents "respond to spurious claims about the risks of vaccine by refusing to vaccinate their infants."

Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

That's What Happened to Brien Taylor

The Arm that Changed the Major League Draft

By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports

BEAUFORT, N.C. – As a gift to himself, Brien Taylor bought a black Mustang 5.0 when the New York Yankees gave him the largest signing bonus ever offered to an amateur. Taylor still drives that car, to work in the morning and by the ocean at night, around the sleepy backroads where he was born poor and the bourgeois streets downtown. He toyed with the engine and souped it up and now it's running at least 500 horses, and best of all, it's street legal, says his mama, proud of her son today as she was 15 years ago.

That's when Brien Taylor, a 19-year-old born with a left arm that launched baseballs like a Howitzer, changed modern baseball. Drafted No. 1 overall by the Yankees, Taylor, on the advice of his mama and his agent, kept refusing lowball offers and turning down more money than he could fathom. Taylor and his family lived in a trailer with one light bulb. He could buy a lot of light bulbs with what the Yankees were offering.

Pride intervened. Growing up impoverished, pride is currency. Pride is what got Taylor's bonus to $1.55 million and has since allowed hundreds of other obscene baseball bonuses, and pride is what slew Taylor's career, and pride is what brought him back here, back home, a year and a half ago.

Taylor moved to his parents' house, on Brien Taylor Lane, for the time being, at least. It's at the end of an unpaved road, past a clothesline where the afternoon wash dries, eight miles from the Piggly Wiggly. In the back yard, mosquitoes attack like kamikazes. There are three smashed-up cars, one with an open, rusted toolset on top – a job unfinished. Riding lawnmowers hide in the overgrown grass, and the wind chips more paint off an ATV, and the bottom of a boat that looks like it hasn't been used in years corrodes.

He's not here today, and he's not going to be, either.

"I'm sorry, says a woman answering Taylor's cell phone. "He's not interested in talking. He's having a family day today. Thanks."

Brien Taylor's mama named him after the lead character in "Brian's Song," which still, to this day, makes her cry. Maybe that is Brien Taylor's story, a sad one. Or maybe it's a cautionary one, of one decision and its consequences.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's a tale of fate and the way things always seem to end up like they should.

. . .

He was 6-foot-4 and not fat and not skinny. He looked like a man. He swaggered like one, too, when he was on that mound, all presence and intimidation and fear. Batters started the walk to the plate with a chrysalis in their stomach, and by the time they saw that fastball, it metamorphosed into a full-on butterfly. Lord, that fastball. They swear it tickled 85 when he was 12, and Willie "Ray" Taylor, his daddy and catcher, remembers the sting when it caught the mitt's heel. Like a thousand bees at once.

"I've been through 28 drafts," Scott Boras says, "and Brien Taylor, still to this day, is the best high school pitcher I've seen in my life."

Boras is the agent who got Alex Rodriguez a $252 million contract, and in Taylor, he saw a player just as transcendent. In his back yard, Taylor used to throw rocks that his mama, Bettie, swears would hit birds and kill them on the spot.

Word spread about the kid at East Carteret High, the school Bettie had integrated in 1965, and scouts started attending Taylor's games like a guilty man does church. They wanted to meet him. Just go past the Mount Tabor Baptist Church, Bettie told them, and turn right down the second dirt path. The street wasn't named Brien Taylor Lane then.

By the end of his senior season, though, Beaufort no longer was known as a weekend destination or a crabbing sanctuary. It was the hometown of Brien Taylor.

"There are certain pitchers who come along every so often and you don't know how to describe them," says Mike Fox, the head coach at the University of North Carolina. "Well, you can describe Brien pretty quickly: No one could touch him."

In his senior season, Taylor worked 88 innings, struck out 213 hitters and walked only 28. His fastball rested at 95 mph and often hit 98 and 99. Even if his curveball needed refining and his changeup didn't flutter like others', he still had that fastball, his meal ticket.

"He wasn't a good No. 1 draft pick," Boras says. "He was a great one."

. . .

Bettie Taylor's feet hurt. Diabetes stole her job, and now it constrains her travel. She spends most of the time at home with Brien's youngest daughter, Mia, a 3-year-old who's already learned to roll her eyes.

"I feel old," Bettie says. "It's like everything that happened took all my energy."

Fifteen years ago, Bettie was a star. Sports Illustrated wrote almost 5,000 words on her and Eric Lindros' mom, and "60 Minutes" devoted a segment to her. She popped up in The New York Times accusing the Yankees of racism, and she fought for her son from the moment the Yankees proffered their first insulting offer.

Now, $300,000 was more than Bettie and Ray had made in their lives. She picked the meat out of blue crabs and got paid by the pound, and he was a bricklayer. They never had too much, but they always had enough.

The offer was also $900,000 less in guaranteed money than Todd Van Poppel, the ballyhooed Texas right-hander, had signed for in the previous draft.

"They had the attitude that these poor black people from the South were stupid and didn't know any better," Bettie says. "And we were. But, let me tell you, we learn quick."

From June 3, the day the Yankees chose Taylor, Bettie drew the line of demarcation: Pay him Van Poppel money or he's going to college. The Yankees raised their offer to $650,000. She said no.

"When I went in, I told them what I wanted," Bettie says. "And I wasn't going to budge from that."

Along came Boras, who Bettie had read about. She knew he wrangled the Van Poppel deal, and she was going to need help. Major League Baseball had sent in a representative to kindly ask the Taylors to accept the Yankees' offer. The scene resembled a mafia sitdown, and Bettie wouldn't have been surprised if a dead fish showed up on her windshield.

Single-handedly she was changing how baseball did business, empowering the players who, for so long, had been stunted by a rigid bonus structure.

"She's a mother who loved her son," Boras says. "And when I first saw her, I said, Mrs. Taylor, as a lawyer and an adviser, the only guarantee I can give you is the first contract your son signs.' "

August dawned, and Taylor enrolled at Louisburg College, a junior college near Raleigh, N.C. He was playing chicken, and he seemed content with crashing. The Yankees, hours before Taylor started school, offered him $1.55 million to be paid over two seasons. Taylor rushed back to sign the contract before the Yankees could think twice.

Bettie thinks about that day and laughs. Ray was getting cold feet. Brien really didn't know much better. It was her, alone, a pioneer just like in 1965.

"It was not about the money for me," Bettie says. "I told them what I expected, and it was a matter of respect and equality and pride."

. . .

In a North Carolina trailer park on Dec. 18, 1993, a blur of shoves and a tangle of arms ended Brien Taylor's career. He was sticking up for his older brother, Brenden, who had been beaten up by a local heavy named Ron Wilson. When Taylor went to Wilson's trailer, he tussled with Jamie Morris, Wilson's friend, and, when falling to the ground, dislocated his left shoulder and tore his labrum.

"I can remember [surgeon] Frank Jobe sitting me down," Boras says. "He said, This is one of the worst shoulder injuries I've ever seen,' and I believed it. The way he tore it was unnatural."

Taylor's first two seasons were magnificent. At Class A Fort Lauderdale, he struck out 187 in 161 innings and posted a 2.57 ERA. The next year, as a 21-year-old at Double-A Albany-Colonie, Taylor went 13-7 with a 3.48 ERA and struck out almost a hitter an inning. Baseball America had named him the game's best prospect, and Taylor could do no wrong on a baseball field.

Back in Beaufort it was different. The Taylors had always lived on their swath of land, just like Bettie's family, the Murrells, had lived on theirs, just like most families in the North River section of Beaufort did. Ever since Taylor signed with the Yankees, Bettie felt the stares from people, the vibes that emanated. When Taylor was injured, she sensed they were laughing.

Surgery did no good. Taylor returned missing 8 mph off his fastball, and he still couldn't get his curve over the plate. He never made it past Class A again. The Yankees cut him in 1998. Seattle signed him, then released him. Cleveland gave him a shot in 2000, and he gave up 14 baserunners and eight earned runs in 2 2/3 innings.

Taylor left baseball a beaten man. He moved to Raleigh and worked as beer distributor. He was near his first daughter, from a previous relationship, and lived with the four daughters from his relationship at the time.

"When it was over," Bettie says, "it was over."

"That's right," Ray says. "He's had some tough times and some happy times. And some more tough times."

. . .

Ray Taylor sits on the couch and fans his face. The Disney Channel is on, and he's too tired to change it. Masonry is hard. It's still about 80 degrees outside at dusk; in the afternoon, when the sun beats down, it feels damn near 100 and the bricks are like huge coals to the touch. Ray tugs at his T-shirt, riddled with holes. When he puts his hand on his thigh, a cloud of mortar dust puffs from his jeans.

He went to work with his son this morning. Brien's been laying bricks with his daddy for a while now. He used to do it when he was a teenager and wanted something fancy, like a new pair of Nikes, that his parents couldn't afford. Taylor moved back to Beaufort when his relationship ended, and he needed some honest work to help pay for his daughters.

"I've been doing it 40 years now," Ray says, "so I like it. For a man like him, it ain't a lot of excitement."

A pair of old fans spin off their axes, clackity-clacking in the background; Ray soaks in their current. He's 58 years old, his hair still black, his voice deep and warbling and unmistakably Southern.

"Do you play the lottery?" he asks.

He reaches into his pocket.

"I got a ticket today," he says. "Powerball. Big money. Don't buy them very often. I mean, what are the chances of winning the lottery?"

. . .

If this is a story of fate instead of sadness or caution, it is because Brien Taylor lays bricks just like his daddy, just like he would have had he blown out his shoulder as a sophomore or junior in high school and been Brien Taylor, nondescript kid and trade apprentice, and not a pawn in baseball's huge game where everything is success or failure, boom or bust and there's no in between.

Fate means Friday nights usually reserved for playing pool at the Royal James Cafe on Beaufort's waterfront instead of pitching for New York in Baltimore or Boston or at Yankee Stadium.

"He'll be home at 3 a.m.," says Jada, Taylor's 6-year-old daughter.

"How do you know that?" Bettie asks.

"Because we stay up when he's playing pool," Jada says, "and he gets home at 3 a.m."

Another daughter, Brittany, 8, nods.

Turns out Taylor, now 34, has other plans for the night. He doesn't show up at the pool hall, and he doesn't pick up his phone. Baseball, much as his bonus money, is in the past, and he wants to leave it there even if history refuses to.

"He seems to like it back here," Bettie says. "Well, I don't know. I mean, I can't say for sure. What I do know is, this is who he is."

A boy and a man, a son and a father, a baseball player and a bricklayer, pulling the black Mustang down a dirt road that's named after him.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc.

Oh, God No

State eyes double deck for top-end I-285

Atlanta Business Chronicle
by Ryan Mahoney, Staff Writer

State road planners are considering double-decking Interstate 285 on the heavily traveled north side of Atlanta between I-75 and I-85.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is working to develop a 25-year expansion plan for the 10-lane perimeter highway, which it hopes to have completed by the end of 2006.

One possibility is adding four truck-only toll lanes in the middle of the heavily traveled northern stretch of I-285, with four high-occupancy-vehicle or high-occupancy-toll lanes over them.

As many as 250,000 vehicles a day jam the 13-mile northern section of I-285 between I-75 and I-85, making congestion relief there one of GDOT's top priorities.

To that end, the department has been looking at building high-occupancy-vehicle lanes, truck-only toll lanes and bus rapid transit lanes on part or all of I-285 since 2004. The road was last widened in 1996.

In the last few months, though, planners also began investigating the possibility of building raised lanes above the center of the roadway on the north side.

GDOT will take "a long hard look" at the concept, said Chief Engineer David Studstill.

Building elevated lanes would minimize both the high cost and the time required to buy right of way, as well as reduce the displacement of residents and businesses along the route. The cost of acquiring land often equals -- and can far exceed -- construction costs in urban highway projects.

Other cities with double-decked roads built or under consideration include Austin, Houston and San Antonio, Texas; Birmingham, Ala.; Los Angeles; New York; Seattle; St. Louis; Tampa, Fla., and densely populated areas in Europe and Japan.

Right-of-way acquisition aside, the actual construction price tag for such elevated highways is typically three to four times that of those built on the surface. It is unclear whether overhead lanes would be cheaper on I-285; both right-of-way prices and costs for asphalt, concrete and steel are soaring.

Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan Inc., the firm which is studying the concept for GDOT, has not performed a cost comparison. But Bill Jordan, a project manager at PBS&J, said the idea has merit.

"You'd have to add eight lanes on the ground otherwise," said Jordan. "This reduces the right-of-way by half."

History and funding

The idea of double-decking Atlanta interstates is not new. In the 1980s, GDOT toyed with double-decking the four-mile core of the Downtown Connector before it was rebuilt, but abandoned the concept because of concerns about cost. It began exploring the possibility again in the late 1990s.

The late developer Kim King, who built office buildings along the Downtown Connector in Midtown, also looked at double-decking part of the Connector between Fifth and 10th streets, Jordan said.

Going up would be the only way to add real capacity to the oft-bottlenecked Connector, GDOT engineer Studstill said. Expanding outward would require tearing down multimillion-dollar skyscrapers and paying accordingly for the right to do so; the same is true to a lesser extent on I-285. Digging down is not an option, he said, citing Boston's Big Dig, which ended up costing more than $1 billion per mile.

Studstill said any second deck on the Downtown Connector would probably have to soar as high as Spaghetti Junction to clear the Connector's existing bridges and interchanges -- rebuilding all of them to tie in would break the bank -- and would likely function as an express route for through traffic. But a second deck on I-285 could let the drivers in high-occupancy lanes on or off at multiple points, Jordan said.

The state is also examining how to pay for the overhaul of I-285's top end, whatever form it takes.

Federal dollars should be available under the Atlanta Regional Commission's 25-year funding plan, said Jane Hayse, the ARC's transportation planning chief. She noted that the ARC in 2003 studied building either two high-occupancy-vehicle lanes or two bus rapid transit lanes above the section of I-285 in question.

Some of the money may come from the private sector, though only if investors believe the tolled lanes will generate enough to repay them.

On a related note, the companies behind Georgia's first public-private highway deal (including PBS&J), the $2 billion expansion of I-75 to 23 lanes in Cobb County, are looking at building elevated lanes in at least one section to avoid destroying office buildings on that corridor.

How it might look

If elevated lanes are built on I-285, they would probably bear some resemblance to three new toll lanes being built above the median of an existing four-lane expressway from downtown Tampa to its eastern suburbs.

Unlike the I-285 idea, the lanes in Tampa are reversible, carrying traffic into the city in the morning and out at night along a six-mile stretch without exits or entrances. The road was budgeted at $370 million but collapsed while under construction in 2004, due to what the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority said was a flawed foundation design, forcing $120 million in repairs.

It is expected to open in August, but expressway interim executive director Ralph Mervine said a portion that opened in November is already cutting 10 minutes or more off average commuting times, and will be cheaper for the city in the long term over adding more lanes on the ground.

Atlanta's clogged interstates are perfect for double-decking, said Linda Figg, president of Figg Engineering Group in Tallahassee, Fla., which designed the elevated lanes in Tampa (but not the foundation) and San Antonio, and is studying the prospects for Birmingham.

"It creates an express lane scenario for whatever kind of traffic you put on it," Figg said.

Elevating lanes means there are fewer to cross in order to reach the fast lane or to exit, and ensures drivers using them will not be affected by accidents below.

On the other hand, putting them in place means traffic will suffer more disruption during construction than with surface lanes, and their appearance can be unsightly, said Michael Meyer, a Georgia Tech transportation expert.

Mike Kenn, president of lobbying group Georgians for Better Transportation, said he is glad the state is considering double-decking part of I-285.

"I believe that's the appropriate direction they need to go."

© American City Business Journals Inc.

He Cooked the Best Ribs Ever

Tom Wright, founded Tom's Place restaurant

[Published on February 28, 2006]

Tom Wright loved barbecue.

Born in Georgia, he dedicated his life to sharing this love of Southern-style ribs with the world, or at least Palm Beach County, through his legendary restaurant, Tom's Place.

But his dedication may have helped cut his life short, his family said. Hours spent over a poorly ventilated barbecue pit in the restaurant's early days gave Mr. Wright, who did not smoke cigarettes, emphysema, daughter Cassandra Wright said. He died Friday at Boca Raton Community Hospital of complications from that disease and overall failing health.

Still, nothing would have lured her father away from that pit, she said.

"He liked cooking," Cassandra Wright said. "He would go to work sick and you wouldn't know it. He was so stubborn. His goal was he'd get three cooks on the line, and he'd get on the line by himself and produce more than those three cooks would."

He would still be here, sick as he was, if his wife, Helen, hadn't died. It happened two years ago, while Mr. Wright was recovering from a stroke. They were married 47 years. Even while living in the Dunbar Village public-housing complex in West Palm Beach, Helen Wright was known for a keen fashion sense honed at her job dressing the rich at a Worth Avenue boutique.

She had been in poor health. The children couldn't tell their father until months later, when his recovery had progressed enough that he was able to understand.

"When he found out, he had a broken heart," Cassandra Wright said. "He gave up."

The restaurant, opened in Boca Raton in 1977, had closed shortly before Mr. Wright's stroke and his wife's death. Cassandra and her five brothers and sisters decided to reopen it in West Palm Beach last year. They wanted to carry on the dream that had given their family so much.

The restaurant business took the Wright family from the housing projects to a comfortable suburban home. For dinner, the family ate restaurant-quality prime rib and shrimp scampi. Mr. and Mrs. Wright gave each of their children a car for their 16th birthdays.

"It might have been a used car, but it was a car," Cassandra Wright said. "We were the fortunate kids on the block."

Mr. Wright loved cars almost as much as he loved cooking. When he wasn't manning the restaurant, his friends could find him out at Moroso Motorsports Park racing his Camaro. They called him "Quick Draw."

Mr. Wright was a pastor who considered the world his church. He cooked for the homeless, helped down-on-their-luck restaurant patrons with electric bills, and gave money to churches. The phone at the restaurant has been ringing off the hook as news of his death spread.

"He's a well-known man," Cassandra Wright said. "I'm so honored to have a parent like that."

In addition to his daughter Cassandra, Mr. Wright is survived by children, George, Kimberly, Kenny and Tom Wright, and Belinda Johnson.

Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Royal Palm Funeral Home, 5601 Greenwood Ave., West Palm Beach. The funeral is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Redemptive Life Fellowship Church, 2101 N. Australian Ave., West Palm Beach.

The restaurant, 1225 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd., will close Saturday out of respect for its founder. Mr. Wright's family hasn't designated a charity; instead urging that mourners honor their father's memory by eating ribs.

"Keep the dream alive," Cassandra Wright said.

Copyright © 2005, The Palm Beach Post.

I WAS 19 AND WATCHED IN MY APT. IN GAINESVILLE, FL

Oct. 27, 1991: Kirrr-bee does it!

Kirby Puckett's home run in the 11th inning gave the Twins a 4-3 victory over Atlanta in Game 6, setting off a raucous 10-minute ovation that didn't quiet until a postgame interview was shown on the Metrodome scoreboard.

By Howard Sinker, Star Tribune

There will be one more baseball game in 1991. For that, you can thank Kirby Puckett. Was there ever any doubt?

Was there?

Can't hear you, Minnesota.

Not because you weren't loud. It's because our eardrums have been burned into toast.

For that, you can thank Kirby Puckett.

Puckett slammed a home run in the 11th inning Saturday night to give the Twins a 4-3 victory over Atlanta in Game 6, setting off a raucous 10-minute ovation that didn't quiet until a postgame interview was shown on the Metrodome scoreboard.

In front of 55,155 folks who paid to get in, including about 1,500 who were rooting for the visitors, the Twins made sure the 88th World Series would play through one more full weekend. For that, you can thank...

Oh, heck, never mind.

Today is it. Mad Jack Morris for the hometown nine, John Smoltz for the visitors. Biggest game of all.

Morris saw Puckett's ball sail beyond the wall in left and knew that his turn on center stage was next. Is he ready? "Words from the late, great Marvin Gaye come to mind," Morris said. " `Let's get it on.' "

During last night's game, the assembled were a bit less festive, a bit more focused on the game - at least until the very end. It was a bit less civil, a bit more warlike. They booed Kid Edina, catcher Greg Olson of the Braves, who'd been accorded a cheerful welcome at last weekend's games.

There was an air of urgency under Thunderdome. That the Twins had won six straight World Series games there without losing any, in 1987 and 1991, didn't count as much as the need for timely hitting, good pitching and solid defense.

Puckett: three hits, three runs batted in, two runs, one magnificent catch. He didn't take the mound, though. Or sell programs.

"This is the game I'll never forget," he said. "It's pretty awesome."

Down three games to two, straight shots of optimism had been replaced by a mix that included a healthy portion of hope.

The same potion was in vogue four years ago when the Twins brought St. Louis back to town with the Cardinals needing just one more victory.

Did they get it? You don't need to be reminded.

This was Game 6, the sequel, with Puckett in the role of Kent Hrbek, whose grand slam slammed St. Louis in 1987.

In Atlanta, fans responded to the tension of Game 3, the four-hour thriller, by sitting on the edge of their chairs in eerie near-silence for most of the final few innings - until their team finished off a 12-inning victory.

Here, the tension turned up the volume. During batting practice, early-arriving fans cheered when Hrbek and Mike Pagliarulo parked consecutive home runs. And they cheered when the duo, both left-handed batters, bounced hard grounders into foul territory in right field - where the Braves were loosening up.

No signs here like the one in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium - "Hrbek is a jrk." Here, one read: "Hrbek is our hro."

"It's home," Hrbek said. "H-O-M-E."

At home, instead of Hrbek, the big boos were for Mark Lemke, the Atlanta second baseman whose hitting was a big reason for his team's midweek success.

The fans were putting their hopes on the right arm of Scott Erickson, a candidate for the least-respected 20-game winner in the history of baseball. They were willing to give Erickson the benefit of any doubts, though, as the second-year pitcher took the mound. He was manager Tom Kelly's guy; he was their guy.

As Erickson worked through the first, allowing a single and a walk, every strike drew a roar; the two-strike situations got those anticipatory standing ovations normally saved for the ninth inning. Third baseman Scott Leius gave reason to gasp when he fumbled speedy Lonnie Smith's grounder to open the game, and reason to scream when he got the ball to first just before Smith arrived.

The Twins were home, with Tone Loc and Technotronic pumping up the crowd instead of the way it was in Atlanta - with the ersatz Indian mantra that has maddened Minnesota in recent days.

The wild thing was, it seemed to work right away. The other second baseman, Chuck Knoblauch, lined a single to right and scored when Puckett followed with a triple.

Hey, something had to be different. Shane Mack got a hit, after going without in his first 15 times up in the Series. A piece of the bat sailed toward third base, the ball sailed into left field, the Twins led 2-0.

Atlanta's bats weren't quiet, but the Twins aided Erickson with sizzling defense, jumps and glovework that seemed to be lifted from highlight reels.

Air Leius leaped high to snare Brian Hunter's line drive to start the second. Air Puckett leaped against the glass in left-center to take away a double or triple from Ron Gant with a masterful catch in the third. A liner by David Justice went into Hrbek's glove to end the third instead of going to the right-field corner for a run-scoring double.

Erickson played that game of dodge (the bullet) ball until the fifth, when Terry Pendleton, the National League batting champion, knocked a homer to center that tied the score at 2.

Atlanta's choppers, most of whom were sitting in the upper deck above first base, did their best to draw attention to themselves. It was one of the few times when their carrying-on could be heard amidst the sea of white hankies.

If anyone had doubts about the intensity on the field - and foolish doubts they would have been - Gant must have erased them in the seventh. He celebrated the most modest of successes - barely beating a double-play relay at first - by raising his fist and pumping it wildly. He had everything but a hanky in upraised hand.

The rush was justified, though, because his speed allowed Lemke to score for a 3-3 tie. Had he been a bit slower, he would have been the third out and those extra innings probably wouldn't have been played.

The extra innings, though, allowed the Twins to come together, a hugging mob at home plate that lurched with joy in the direction of Atlanta's dugout.

Once more? For that, you can thank Kirby Puckett.

© 1991 Star Tribune.

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.

Another Obit.

Kirby Puckett, 45, Hall of Fame Outfielder, Dies

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN, The New York Times

Kirby Puckett, the Hall of Fame outfielder for the Minnesota Twins, acclaimed for his sunny personality and his passion for baseball, died yesterday at a hospital in Phoenix. He was 45.

The cause was complications from a stroke he had Sunday at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., the Twins said. Puckett had neurosurgery at Scottsdale Osborne Hospital on Sunday, then was transferred to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, where he died. Mike Herman, a spokesman for the Twins, said medical records showed that Puckett was a year older than his listed age in record books.

At 5 feet 9 inches and around 220 pounds, Puckett hardly bore the frame of a major league star. But he became one of baseball's premier hitters and a superb center fielder, starring for the Twins from 1984 to 1995.

He appeared in 10 consecutive All-Star Games, beginning with his third season in 1986. He led the Twins to World Series championships in 1987 and 1991, and he had a .318 career batting average with 2,304 hits and 207 home runs. He won the American League batting title in 1989 with a .339 average and batted over .300 in 8 of his 12 seasons. He led the American League or was tied for the most hits in a season four times, he was the runs-batted-in leader in 1994, and he won a Gold Glove award for his fielding six times.

For all those statistical achievements, Puckett was hailed as much for the sheer joy he communicated at a time when soaring salaries distanced many players from their fans.

"I played every game like it was my last," Puckett said when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001, his first year of eligibility. "I think I'm one of the few guys who can say I left my blood, sweat and tears on the field."

Puckett was also known for his work in community projects. He played host to a billiards tournament benefiting pediatric heart research, worked with antidrug programs and bought tickets to Twins games for poor children.

He had a routinely outstanding season in 1995, batting .314. But on March 28, 1996, when he awakened at the Twins' spring camp in Fort Myers, Fla., a black dot appeared in the central part of his right retina and he could not see when looking straight ahead. He was found to have a central retina vein occlusion in that eye and glaucoma in both eyes.

He never played again, announcing his retirement the next July after the third in a series of operations on his right eye revealed irreversible retina damage.

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, a sellout crowd of 51,011 — the largest at the Twins' stadium since their 1993 season opener — bade Puckett farewell before a game with the California Angels.

Puckett was named an executive vice president of the Twins soon after he retired. But he left that post in November 2002 after a stunning turn of fortune for a man considered one of the most popular sports figures in Minnesota history.

On Dec. 21, 2001, Puckett's wife, Tonya, filed a report with the police in Edina, Minn., saying that in a telephone conversation earlier that month, Puckett had threatened to kill her. She also recounted what she said was his history of domestic violence. Puckett denied being a threat and no criminal charges were filed, but soon afterward the couple announced plans to divorce.

In October 2002, Puckett was charged with false imprisonment, criminal sexual conduct and assault after a woman accused him of forcing her into a men's room at a restaurant in Eden Prairie, Minn., and groping her. He was found not guilty at a jury trial the next April, but he remained out of baseball.

Kirby Puckett was born in Chicago on March 14, 1960. He grew up in a housing project on the South Side, the youngest of nine children. His father was a postal worker and the family lived in a three-room apartment.

"I didn't get into trouble because I stayed away from those elements," he once told Ira Berkow of The New York Times. "I had my sights set on playing ball. If you ever wanted to find Kirby Puckett, you knew where to go — around the corner, where I'd be there with my ball and bat and hitting and throwing against a wall."

Puckett was drafted by the Twins in 1982 after playing for Bradley University and Triton College in Illinois. He helped take the Twins to the 1987 World Series championship, a seven-game victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. He was named the most valuable player in the 1991 American League Championship Series against Toronto , then hit an 11th-inning home run in Game 6 of the World Series against the Braves, keeping the Twins alive. They went on to beat Atlanta for the championship.

Puckett is survived by a son, Kirby Jr., and a daughter, Catherine.

"In many ways, he's the signature element of our franchise," the Twins' president, Dave St. Peter, told The Star Tribune of Minneapolis after Puckett had the stroke.

St. Peter recalled "that infectious smile and the way he played the game."

"I tell people that the way I define Kirby Puckett's popularity is by the thousands and thousands of dogs and cats named after him throughout the Upper Midwest," he said. "Kirby and I always laughed about that."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Just Can't Say Good Bye

Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett dies after massive stroke

By Hal Bodley, USA TODAY

Kirby Puckett, once described as everything that is good about baseball, died Monday a day after suffering a massive stroke at his Scottsdale, Ariz., home.

Arguably the most popular sports figure in Minnesota history, the affable Puckett succumbed at the St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center where he was moved Sunday night after undergoing extensive surgery to stop bleeding and remove pressure from his brain at Scottsdale health care Osborn.

Puckett was given last rites and died in the afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Kimberly Lodge told the Associated Press.

Puckett, who would have turned 46 next Tuesday, propelled the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991 before his career was cut short by glaucoma in 1996.

Puckett, a player with a perpetual smile, ended his 12-year career with a .318 batting average, six Gold Gloves for his play in center field, a batting title in 1989 (.339) and 10 trips to the All-Star Game. He was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 2001, his first year of eligibility.

Commissioner Bud Selig, who called Puckett "a Hall of Famer in every sense of the term," added in a statement: "Kirby was taken from us much too soon — and too quickly."

Carl Pohlad, owner of the Twins for whom Puckett played his entire career, said "this is a sad day for the Minnesota Twins, Major League Baseball and baseball fans everywhere."

Players union chief Don Fehr said "Kirby played the game with such passion and enthusiasm that he was beloved by players and fans throughout all of baseball. An icon in Minnesota, Kirby's contributions to the game and all who love it will stand as a lasting tribute to his life."

Puckett, affectionately called "Puck," by friends and teammates, came out of the tough Chicago ghetto, but always said: "No matter what you achieve, you need to know where you've been."

Puckett's signature performance came in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series against Atlanta. After telling anyone who would listen before the game that he would lead the Twins to victory that night at the Metrodome, he made a leaping catch against the fence and then hit a game-ending homer in the 11th inning to force a seventh game.

The next night, Minnesota's Jack Morris went all 10 innings to outlast John Smoltz and pitch the Twins to a 1-0 win for their second championship in five years.

"If we had to lose and if one person basically was the reason — you never want to lose — but you didn't mind it being Kirby Puckett. When he made the catch and when he hit the home run you could tell the whole thing had turned," Smoltz told the AP Monday night.

"His name just seemed to be synonymous with being a superstar," the Braves' pitcher said. "It's not supposed to happen like this."

Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk echoed Smoltz's sentiment.

"There was no player I enjoyed playing against more than Kirby. He brought such joy to the game. He elevated the play of everyone around him," Fisk said in a statement to the Hall.

Puckett was drafted by the Twins in 1982 and became their regular center fielder two years later. At 5-foot-8, he weighed about 210 pounds when he played, but in recent years his weight ballooned to an excess of 300 pounds.

"The last few times I saw him, he kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger," said former Twins All-Star Tony Oliva, a mentor to Puckett. "We were worried about him."

"It's a tough thing to see a guy go through something like that and come to this extent," former teammate Kent Hrbek told the AP Monday night.

"That's what really hurt him bad, when he was forced out of the game," he said. "I don't know if he ever recovered from it."

Asked what he would remember the most from their playing days, Hrbek quickly answered, "Just his smile, his laughter and his love for the game."

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.

Puckett was a guest coach at Twins spring training camp in 1996, but hadn't worked for the team since 2002. He kept a low profile since being cleared of assault charges in 2003, when he was accused of groping a woman at a suburban Twin Cities restaurant.

Puckett, who was engaged to Jodi Olson and planned a June 24 wedding, had two children with his ex-wife Tonya.

Funeral services are incomplete.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Copyright © 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

And Still Mourning

Hall of Famer Puckett was game to play ball

By Ian O'Connor, USA TODAY

He played every game as if an ice cream sundae were the reward for hustling and having fun. Kirby Puckett was a Little Leaguer all grown up, chasing after fly balls as if he could almost taste that cherry on top.

Between the lines, Puckett was the Tom Hanks character in Big.

He was not defined by his bat, his glove or the two World Series championships delivered to the Minnesota Twins. Puckett was best captured by the unmitigated joy he showed in playing a boy's game like few men ever could.

They should show footage of Puckett to every minor league kid in a spring training camp. Show him crashing into the Metrodome wall, running his roly-poly self around the bases and flashing that infectious smile that became the can-do face of happy hinterland ball.

The minor leaguers run into daily examples of why professional baseball is a cold and nasty business. A few clips of Puckett will remind them why they used to tie up new grade-school mitts - balls planted firmly in pockets - and slide them under their mattresses in the hope of breaking them in.

The films don't lie - this was a ballplayer who only needed a uniform, a few bucks in his wallet and a full tank of gas in his truck.

This truth has been scarred beyond recognition in the 10 years since glaucoma shut him down without warning, just stole his career as suddenly as Puckett would steal a home run ball from the other side of the fence.

He woke up one day to discover that he was done, his right eye flickering out like a candle in the dark of night. Puckett would've made Lou Gehrig proud. He talked about how lucky he was, how nobody should feel sorry for someone once told he was too short to play in the bigs. Puckett was the 5-8 son of the Chicago projects who grew into an all-America giant.

"I wanted to play baseball ever since I was 5 years old," he said in his Hall of Fame induction speech. "And I want you to remember the guiding principles of my life: You can be what you want to be. If you believe in yourself ... anything, and I'm telling you anything, is possible."

Anything was possible except the unraveling of Puckett's charmed Upper Midwest world. The stories and allegations would merge into a depressing portrait of an alleged fraud, and soon the only thing larger than life about Puckett was his ever-growing waistline.

His wife would claim Puckett pressed a cocked gun against her skull as she held their infant daughter, and that Puckett tried to strangle her with an electrical cord, and that he once locked her in the basement and plowed through a door with a power saw. A longtime mistress would come forward with allegations of threats and abuse.

Another woman would accuse Puckett of dragging her into the men's room of a restaurant and fondling her breasts, and the mug shot taken by the Hennepin County sheriff's office would reveal a bloated mess of an icon, his right eye shut, his smile wiped clean from his face.

Puckett would be cleared of all charges, but his reputation ended up in a million little pieces. He retreated from the public stage, from the charities he founded and the community relationships he built.

If the superstar athlete betrayed the adoring masses, he wouldn't be the first or last. The media is always too quick to canonize a ballplayer for being available at his locker, for returning a phone call, for extending the simple courtesy of recalling a chronicler's first name.

Truth is, we don't know the people we cover. We only know what they allow us to know, at least until a police report or deposition opens a window they can't keep locked.

Puckett turned out to be a far more complicated figure than the teddy bear he encouraged us to embrace. And Monday night, after the Twins asked fans everywhere to keep him in their thoughts and prayers, Puckett was pronounced dead at 45. He lost the fight for his life after suffering a stroke in his Arizona home.

He doesn't have to fight for his baseball legacy, no matter what personal demons got the best of him in retirement. Puckett appeared in 10 All-Star Games, won six Gold Gloves and hit .318 for his career, the highest batting average for a right-handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio.

But beyond the numbers and his Game 6 heroics in the '91 World Series, Puckett will be remembered for the sunlight he brought to a domed park. In an age when sourpuss multimillionaires act put upon in pursuit of a foul ball, Puckett merrily raced for his ice cream sundae, always giving Twins fans their cherry on top.

_____

Ian O'Connor also writes for The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

Copyright © 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

More Mourning

Minnesota, Baseball Mourning for Puckett

By DAVE CAMPBELL, AP Sports Writer

In the middle of a steadily growing memorial to Kirby Puckett, outside the Metrodome and right alongside a street named for the beloved Hall of Famer, one cardboard sign stood out.

"There IS crying in baseball," the message was written, in red ink, bannered over a couple of old Puckett baseball cards taped to the corners.

All around the game, people who were close to the roly-poly outfielder who led the Minnesota Twins to two World Series titles — and even those who only watched him on TV — were saddened Tuesday by Puckett's death.

"This morning, when I got up and took a shower and watched the news, tears started coming out," said Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, one of many contemporaries who spoke memorably about the man whose energy, enthusiasm and exceptional skills captivated baseball fans — both diehard and casual — throughout a 12-year career that was cut short by glaucoma in 1996.

Puckett died at 45 in a Phoenix hospital Monday afternoon, a day after having a stroke in his home.

"This is a great loss for baseball," said former Baltimore Orioles great Cal Ripken, who with Puckett was one of the few stars of their generation who never switched teams.

"Puck was one of my favorite people to compete against on the field and to be around off the field. I will always remember how Kirby played the game with joy and how he brought a smile to your face just by saying hello," Ripken said.

A public memorial service is planned for 7 p.m. Sunday at the Metrodome, the Twins announced. The gates will open at 6 p.m., and there will be no charge with seating by general admission.

A private visitation and memorial service is slated for Sunday afternoon in the Twin Cities. The Twins were planning to attend Puckett's funeral.

"We'll take our time and go there, pay our respects, and then come on back down to spring training," general manager Terry Ryan said, before Minnesota played the New York Yankees in Tampa, Fla.

The Twin Cities' other pro teams also took time to honor Puckett on Tuesday night. The NBA's Timberwolves and NHL's Wild had moments of silence before their games. Timberwolves star Kevin Garnett had K.P. 34 (Puckett's jersey number) written on his shoes.

March is for games that don't matter, mere tuneups for the regular season, but Puckett's teammates and opponents always remarked on how he never loafed — even in meaningless exhibitions.

"He was a tremendous ambassador for the team. I think Dave Winfield said the right thing: He was the only player in the history of baseball everybody loved," said Guillen, who used to kiddingly call his son, Oney, "Little Puck" because he was a bit chubby.

Perhaps the most poignant marker of Puckett's impact on people was outside the Metrodome, thousands of miles from those sunny spring training sites, where dozens of fans shuffled around during the noon hour on a dreary, chilly day.

There were bouquets. There were orange Wheaties boxes, commemorating the Twins' championships. There were bobblehead dolls. There were caps. And plenty of personalized messages.

"I've been watching Kirby since I was young," said 25-year-old Tim Jarvis, who brought a flower pot to set on the sidewalk. "He's the kind of guy when your dad says, 'You want to learn how to hit a baseball, that's the guy to watch.'"

An Ohio native who came to St. Paul to attend school, Jarvis recalled Puckett as one of the reasons why he was excited to move. Even though his playing days were long gone.

"That's awesome. I get to go watch baseball in the house that Kirby played in," Jarvis said.

When famous people die, it seems everyone has a story to tell of a personal encounter. With Puckett, it seems everyone is actually telling the truth.

The Yankees' Randy Johnson recalled how Puckett helped his mother put her luggage in the overhead compartment once on a plane. Don Mattingly pointed out that Puckett was the one who gave him his nickname, "Donnie Baseball." Former Twin and current Red Sox player David Ortiz wrote "Puckett 34 R.I.P" on his cap for the Dominican Republic's game against Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.

Steve Finley, now with the San Francisco Giants, remembered when Puckett told Ripken hello while the Orioles stretched before a 1989 game at the Dome — and then started chatting with Finley, a rookie he had never before met.

"He had a way of making everyone feel important," Finley said.

___

AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum from Tampa, Fla., AP Sports Writer Howard Ulman from Fort Myers, Fla., AP Sports Writer Andrew Seligman from Tucson, Ariz., and AP Sports Writer David Ginsburg from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.