On a sunny morning along South State Street, Tommy Gates returned to check out the scene at his old home, the Robert Taylor Homes. He was sitting on a bench next to a dusty playground, with swing sets and slides that were the same as when he was a boy. He broke into a smile when somebody mentioned Kirby Puckett.
“He used to play strikeout on that electric box,” the 50-year-old Gates said, pointing to a gray box perhaps 10 yards away. “He and a guy named Armstrong. Every morning in the summer . . . every morning. I stayed on the 15th floor. Every morning I’d hear that ball coming off the electric box, playing strikeout.”
Gates pointed to a woman named Brenda Armstrong, who was unloading a cart that contained a cooler of shaved ice and bottles filled with fruit flavors.
“The snowball lady can tell you about Kirby Puckett,” Gates said. “She grew up right next door to him.”
Indeed she did. There’s a fenced-in dirt lot where the building at 4444 S. State used to be. The Chicago Housing Authority completed demolition of the high-rise in July. But it was home to the Pucketts and the Armstrongs in the 1960s. The Pucketts lived in No. 1409, the Armstrongs in 1410.
“Every morning at 5 o’clock I’d go play ball with him,” said Michael Armstrong, who works as a cook at Water Tower Place. “The walls were kind of thin. He always hit on the wall, and I knew it was him. He’d hit on the wall and I’d go downstairs and play baseball. We played for hours and hours.”
For Puckett, all those early mornings were the start of something great. Along with Dave Winfield, Bill Mazeroski and Negro leaguer Hilton Smith, the Minnesota Twins legend will be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y.
When Puckett was elected on the first ballot by 10-year members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he became the first Chicago-area player picked for the Hall by the BBWAA since Lou Boudreau in 1970. Puckett is the first native Chicagoan elected.
Largely because of Puckett’s indifference, the achievement is not being widely celebrated in his hometown. There is to be a proclamation from City Hall, but no celebration at Comiskey Park or Wrigley Field is scheduled. He was not honored by his old school, Calumet High, or by the CHA.
It’s almost as if Puckett has spent his entire 41 years in Minnesota. “When he moved, he moved,” said Calumet Athletic Director Johnny Butler, who coached Puckett.
There was a grass-roots ceremony under the scorching sun Wednesday across State Street from the vacant lot where Puckett’s old building stood. It was organized by Ziff Sistrunk, whose School of Film has organized a trip to the induction ceremony in Cooperstown for about a dozen Little Leaguers from Robert Taylor and other city housing projects.
“We’re going to recognize an accomplishment,” Sistrunk said. “They might not know over in Cuba, in Czechoslovakia, but the gods will know Kirby Puckett was honored.”
Sistrunk hoped for a celebration that would include high school bands, a speech from Mayor Daley, a proclamation from the Chicago Park District retiring Puckett’s No. 34 and an appearance by a member of Puckett’s family. He settled for some peewee cheerleaders, maybe three dozen children and a version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” with the words customized for Puckett’s induction.
Sistrunk had publicized his “Kirby Puckett Day” ceremony with fliers and homemade banners. But only a handful of Taylor Homes residents crossed State Street to attend, and most of them lost interest as Sistrunk stalled, waiting for television crews that never arrived.
“The problem with this is that none of the kids around here know who Kirby Puckett is,” said Larry Minter, a former minor-league outfielder in the Cleveland Indians organization who does social work with the Chicago Police Department. “They never watched Kirby Puckett play baseball, and they’ve never seen him or been able to touch him. He’s an urban legend, that’s what he is.”
Few of baseball’s Hall of Famers overcame longer odds than Puckett, who helped the Twins win two World Series before his career was ended prematurely because of glaucoma in his right eye. He was a tiny kid who grew to only 5 feet 9 inches. He was the youngest of nine children. His father worked two jobs, including a long career with the U.S. Postal Service, but endured the social ills of the Taylor Homes until 1972, when Kirby was 12.
Kids like Jermaine Wells, Charles Walker and Adam Brown relate to Puckett’s life story. But they didn’t know it until Sistrunk got them copies of “Be the Best You Can Be,” a Puckett biography written for children.
“He puts his heart into everything he does,” said Brown, a bright-eyed 13-year-old who is making the trip to Cooperstown. “He wanted to play baseball and he put his heart into it. He became the best player even though he was the smallest.”
Brown wrote a letter to Puckett last month telling him about Sistrunk’s efforts to get the kids from the Chicago Tavares Hurlers to Cooperstown. There was no response from Puckett.
Calumet’s Butler and other community leaders have experienced the same lack of response from Puckett through the years. Butler was unsuccessful in his efforts to get Puckett to attend a dinner launching the Calumet Hall of Fame. The CHA, according to spokesman Derrick Hill, couldn’t even get an 8-by-10 photograph of Puckett to hang in its offices.
“We got no response whatsoever,” Hill said of requests made through the Twins, for whom Puckett works as an executive vice president.
Puckett is surprised his lack of a presence is an issue with some people in Chicago.
“What do they want me to do?” he said. “I don’t live in Chicago. I didn’t play in Chicago. I speak very highly about making it out of the projects when I talk with people. I tell them if I can do what I did, if I can make it where I’m going to this weekend, then they can do it too. I can be an inspiration to everybody.”
Puckett, who earned about $45 million in salary during his career, has been recognized for his record of community service and giving. He received the Roberto Clemente Man of the Year Award in 1996 and was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame in 2000.
His efforts are centered in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where he has made his home since marrying Tonya Hudson in 1986. He cites the University of Minnesota, where he funds a minority scholarship program, and an annual billiards tournament that raises more than $3 million per year for the Children’s Heart Link.
“I am helping people,” Puckett said. “It’s not like I’m not doing something.”
Puckett donated money to help build a field at Triton College in River Grove, where he played in 1981-82 after transferring from Bradley University. He has invited longtime Triton coach Bob Symonds to be his guest at this weekend’s induction. But he has done little else to keep his legacy alive in Chicago.
Minter, who was raised near the Taylor Homes, was drafted by Cleveland in 1990 after playing for Harlan High. He arrived for the informal Puckett ceremony with photos showing the ragged conditions of playing fields for the teams he coaches. He had pictures of badly worn gloves and tattered balls. One photo displayed two teenagers showing off their new spikes.
“I went into my own pocket to buy shoes for these guys,” Minter said. “Now I have 60 other kids asking, `Where are my shoes?”‘
Minter wonders why Puckett never has made an effort to help kids in Chicago’s public housing projects. He said he respects Puckett greatly as a ballplayer but not as a role model.
“We have a saying that the presence is the essence,” Minter said. “We’re about trying to build up hope, not despair. We have kids who literally walk over dead bodies on the way to games. . . . We need help, that’s for sure. But we don’t want anybody who’s ashamed of where they came from.”
In part because of Major League Baseball’s R.B.I. program–Rebuilding Baseball in the Inner City–and the charitable arms of the White Sox and Cubs, kids from the Taylor Homes and other CHA communities can play organized baseball in the summer. Puckett never had a uniform, or even a team to play for, until his family moved to an apartment at 79th and Wolcott.
All he had were rubber balls, bats, brick walls and electric boxes. He and Michael Armstrong would draw big rectangles on any flat surface they could find to represent the strike zone, then try to throw pitches past each other. Armstrong figures he struck out his old friend more than Roger Clemens ever did.
Catherine Puckett was protective of all her children, especially the baby. Her rule was that once the streetlights came on, the kids came in. If Kirby was going outside at night, it was only on the balcony.
Puckett says he didn’t have many close friends. Armstrong remembers older, bigger boys picking on him.
“Everybody used to bother Kirby all the time,” Armstrong said. “They’d get his baseball glove, his baseball bat, and they wouldn’t give it back. I had to go get it back for him. He didn’t have many friends there.”
Not everybody was happy about the constant thump-thump-thump of a baseball against a wall or an electric box.
“We got run off by janitors all the time,” Puckett said. “There was nowhere else to play. I’d say, `This is all I can do, this is all I have.’ Nobody seemed to care.”
Puckett believes he owes his success to the move away from Robert Taylor.
“I was 12, but [it was like] I was 15,” Puckett said. “I knew so much, I’d learned so much. I made it out of there. I got into my fights, my share of things. I got toughened. That’s a very big part of who I am today. . . . If I had stayed there, I would not have realized my dream.”
Almost 30 years have passed since Puckett left 4444 S. State.
“Another child shouldn’t have the same problems that Kirby Puckett did,” said Rev. Bamani Obadele, a former minor-league umpire who does youth work at the Taylor Homes. “People say he has done a lot of great things in Minnesota. This is where his roots are. There’s a sense of responsibility I feel he should have. But God bless him.”
Since Puckett was forced into retirement in 1996, not much has brought him to Chicago except funerals. His parents had died previously, and in recent years he has now buried two brothers here, Donnie and Spencer. He says both were heavy drinkers who died from cirrhosis of the liver.
Puckett knows firsthand about despair. He has not found a solution, however.
“Luckily, I understand that you’re never going to make everybody happy, no matter what you do,” he said. “You can give a billion dollars and there will still be somebody who wants you to do more. My mom and dad taught me, you do what you can for your loved ones, take care of your business, and everything will be fine. You can’t take care of everybody’s problems.”
When they were kids, Puckett and Michael Armstrong were inseparable. But they’ve grown into lives miles apart, literally and figuratively.
Armstrong isn’t sure if he has seen Puckett since he moved to 79th Street. He went to Comiskey Park once to watch him play for the Twins but didn’t want to bother him.
When Puckett goes into the Hall of Fame, Armstrong will feel nothing but pride for his old friend. He’ll remember their games of strikeout and how quickly Puckett noticed when he misplaced one of his 500 baseball cards. He’ll ignore friends when they say Puckett turned his back on him.
“I’d love to see him, hug him and tell him I’m proud of him,” Armstrong said. “Some people feel he owes them something. He doesn’t owe anybody anything. He worked hard to get where he is. As far as doing something for the neighborhood, that’s his choice.”
As an early morning melts away at the Taylor Homes, the man who used to watch little Kirby from his 15th-floor window nods his head in agreement.
“Sometimes you have to do what you have to do,” Gates said. “I guess people understand. The elements around here . . . it’s just not a good area. He knows this area, remembers it. I understand. I’m quite sure everybody understands. I don’t think they’ll be mad at him. You have to do what you have to do.”
In Brenda Armstrong’s case, that is selling fruit-flavored snowballs for 25 cents to anybody who can spare the change.
“I think it’s all right,” she said. “I love him dearly . . . dearly. Just don’t forget us.”
The Illinois connection
Kirby Puckett becomes the 10th major-league player born in Illinois elected to the Hall of Fame. He is the first product of the Chicago area to make the Hall since Lou Boudreau, and he joins Boudreau as only the second Chicago-area product to receive the necessary 75 percent support from voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. The Hall’s Committee on Veterans named Ray Schalk and Fred Lindstrom. A look at Hall of Fame players born in Illinois:
%% NAME POS. BIRTHPLACE CAREER INDUCTED
Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity P Rock Island 1899-1908 1946-x
Ray Schalk C Harvey 1912-29 1955-x
Jim Bottomley 1B Oglesby 1922-37 1974-x
Fred Lindstrom 3B-OF Chicago 1924-36 1976-x
Red Ruffing P Granville 1924-47 1967
Lou Boudreau SS-MGR Harvey 1938-52 1970
Red Schoendienst 2B-MGR Germantown 1945-63 1989-x
Robin Roberts P Springfield 1948-66 1976
Robin Yount SS-CF Danville 1974-93 1999
Kirby Puckett CF Chicago 1984-95 2001
x-selected by the Hall’s Committee on Veterans
%%
