As a round-bodied, slap-hitting rookie, Kirby Puckett kept his eyes open and his mouth shut.
“The unwritten rule was for a rookie it was better to be seen and not heard and I stuck to that,” Puckett said yesterday via conference call with reporters. “I’ll tell you how great a guy Dave Winfield is. My first time in New York, I made a good catch in center field and Mr. Winfield, I called everybody Mister then, Mr. Winfield wanted to talk to me. He said, ‘Kid, tonight after the game I want you to hurry up and get dressed. I’m taking you out to dinner.’ I thought he was kidding.”
He was not.
“He took me out to a restaurant,” Puckett said. “We not only talked about baseball, we talked about life. He talked about learning to play hurt, learning how to play with adversity.”
A friendship was born, and visually, at least, it was an odd coupling. Winfield, at a muscular 6-foot-6, 245 pounds, had the perfect athlete’s body. Puckett, at 5-9 and 223, had a deceptive round look to him. Winfield was a five-tool wonder, Puckett an underdog.
Yesterday, they learned together that they had been elected to the Hall of Fame. The two first-ballot outfielders were the only ones to receive the necessary 75 percent of votes.
“Nobody was happier for Dave than I was,” Puckett said of learning the news.
Puckett and Winfield teamed for two years with the Twins and Puckett scored a run on Winfield’s 3,000th hit.
Winfield was drafted professionally in football, basketball and baseball. He had it all, even a baseball birthday. He was born the day Bobby Thomson won the pennant for the Giants with the Shot Heard ‘Round the World.
Puckett, on the other hand, was cut from his high school basketball team and forbidden from playing football. He was a one-sport star and as a child, he often had to play his sport of choice by himself, tossing a ball against a tenement wall.
One of nine children, Puckett said there was a “rule in the Puckett house” against playing football. Still, he said, “I tried out for the football team and made it on the first day.
“My mom said take those pads right back, turn them back in to the coach and say, ‘No, thanks,'” Puckett said. “‘Tell him your mom doesn’t want you to play.’ I couldn’t tell the coach my mom wouldn’t let me play because I was embarrassed. So I told him my dad wouldn’t let me play.”
Puckett went on to have more hits (2,040) in the first 10 years of a career than any 20th Century player. His career was cut short by glaucoma, but his 10 All-Star Games and seven Top 10 finishes in American League MVP voting, as well as a .318 lifetime average, were enough honors for him to be named on 82 percent of the ballots. Winfield was named on 84 percent.
Predictably, Winfield, who played for six teams, did not reveal which cap he would wear to the Hall of Fame. The Yankees, for whom he played the most games, are the favorites.
If Winfield wears a Yankees cap, it will be a sign of healing in the once abysmal Winfield-George Steinbrenner relationship torn apart by the Howie Spira scandal.
Steinbrenner also angered Winfield by calling him “Mr. May” due to Winfield’s 1-for-22 World Series performance in 1981.
The wounds haven’t completely healed, but Winfield was encouraged to hear Steinbrenner plans to have a day for him at the Stadium this season. Steinbrenner said he will do so regardless of what cap Winfield wears at his induction ceremony in August.
“There was a lot of acrimony back and forth,” Winfield said. “Things were said that were not meant; things were said that were apologized for later. It was truly difficult. I loved New York, the people and the city. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“We’ve overcome so many of those things. Some of the things he said carry a life of their own. They really don’t reflect the kind of player I was or the kind of person I was. I hope people remember me by the things I did in the community, the leadership I exhibited, the things I did not only on the field but in the community.”
What Winfield did on the field – 3,110 hits, 465 home runs, 1,833 RBIs – earned him a plaque in Cooperstown. He and Puckett became the 35th and 36th players elected in their first year of eligibility. Don Mattingly, another first-year candidate, fell way short and was listed on only 28 percent of the ballots.
Gary Carter finished third with his best showing (65 percent), and was followed by Jim Rice (58 percent), Bruce Sutter (48 percent) and Goose Gossage (44 percent).
Ozzie Smith, Andre Dawson and Alan Trammell are the most prominent names in next year’s rookie class.
CHARTS: Dave Winfield’s Career Stats and Kirby Puckett’s Career Stats