Puckett's statue unveiled

Twins greats honor No. 34

April 12, 2010 at 4:59PM

Shortly before noon, past Twins luminaries unveiled a large bronze statue of the late Kirby Puckett, located at Gate 34, numbered in honor of the number the Hall of Famer wore as a Twin. Jerry Bell, president of Twins Sports, Inc., recalled that when Kirby was called up to the big-league team, skeptics wondered, "WHO are we bringing up? Who we brought up became the face of the franchise … we miss Kirby today." Longtime Twins announcer John Gordon called Puckett "a player who embodied Minnesota Twins baseball. It was truly a gift to have watched Kirby Puckett play baseball." Kent Hrbek, Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva hugged and slapped each others' backs when they arrived. "There he is – you made it," Hrbek said to Killebrew. "Hey, Rod, good to see you." Oliva did a fist bump with a tiared Little Miss Baseball, eight-year-old Shovana Rydeen. "How you doing, princess?" he asked her. Shovana said she attained the pageant title by "answering a lot of hard questions about baseball."

about the writer

about the writer

bobo vonste

More from No Section

See More
FILE -- A rent deposit slot at an apartment complex in Tucker, Ga., on July 21, 2020. As an eviction crisis has seemed increasingly likely this summer, everyone in the housing market has made the same plea to Washington: Send money — lots of it — that would keep renters in their homes and landlords afloat. (Melissa Golden/The New York Times) ORG XMIT: XNYT58
Melissa Golden/The New York Times

It’s too soon to tell how much the immigration crackdown is to blame.