Being the baseball fan that I am, I could not allow Kirby Puckett's passing to go unnoticed.

I never followed the Twins very closely. Unless they are playing my Mariners or trading with the Mariners, they are largely irrelevant. But I lived for 12 years in the state of Wisconsin, where 4 of my 5 children were born, and where the spectre of the Twins easily overshadows the dismal Brewers (a likely motivation for Selig's ill-fated attempts of a few years ago to wipe the Twins from the map), and Kirby was almost as large a presence on our side of the Mississippi as he was on the far side.

Kirby was one of those people who didn't look like he should be playing baseball. He was stocky and personable, and looked like he had lifted more Krispy Kremes than he had weights. But when he got on a baseball diamond he was all business. He worked hard to be a great player and ended his career with a batting average most major leaguers would be ecstatic to touch for a single season. When he retired early because of glaucoma, I was crushed. It's always hard to see a good warrior go down, especially when it's to their own physical limitations.

ESPN duly noted that Kirby's image was somewhat tarnished in his life after baseball. But what they call "tarnished", I call "human". The separation from the game he loved so much and to which he gave so much had to be devastating for Kirby, and I'm sure that came out in his personal life. It didn't make Kirby any less a hero to me.

Kirby was enshrined in the Hall of fame some five years ago, a gesture which, although I consider mostly meaningless due to conspicuous absences of great players (Shoeless Joe, Charlie Hustle, and Roger Maris, to name a few) will ensure that he is never forgotten, even as the fans who remember him well move on or pass on from this coil.

Goodbye, Kirby. When you cross the Pearly gates, make sure to watch for that Walter Johnson fastball. I hear it's a doozy.