I Love This Game!: My Life and Baseball

by Kirby Puckett

The smiling, perpetually upbeat Minnesota Twins center fielder recounts his life on and off the field, including an in-depth discussion of a career that includes two World Series rings, five Gold Glove awards, and many other accolades. Reprint.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Biography, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

Reviews

[Joe Bliven · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you grew up in Minnesota in the 90s this guy was larger than life. This book is a really cool summary of his childhood, his career, and his personal life all the way through his second World Series winning season with the Twins. It has great accounts of his contract negotiations and the team relationships/dynamics of the Twins in the Puckett era. He also talks about his personal life but in order to really get the full picture of his personal life and character you should probably read The Rise and Fall of Kirby Puckett by George Dohrmann from Sports Illustrated. He may not have been an idol for kids to look up to but he was a damn good player. His life on the field can surely never make up for his conduct off the field but it's still really amazing to read about his lightning in a bottle career with the Twins.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a chapter level, this isn't very coherent. The topic changes frequently, often with little in the way of a transition. So if you're looking for a baseball book with clear structure and logic, this isn't it. But, if you approach this book as if someone just put a tape recorder in front of Puckett and told him to start talking, then it becomes a lot less frustrating and it's much easier to go along for the ride. All in all: not great; not terrible.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no question that Kirby Puckett was one of the best baseball players of his generation and deserves his post in the Hall of Fame. Even though his career was cut short due to blindness in one eye, so his numbers will at first glance appear to be weak. This book is an autobiography written while he was still in his prime, before all of the subsequent difficulties emerged.
The story is about his life in and out of baseball, mostly in. It is written with some level of humility, but not overly so. He recounts many incidents in his baseball life, including his close relationships with others in baseball. Puckett was one of the few modern players that spent his entire career with one team, the Minnesota Twins. Therefore, he had a great deal of time to build up the reciprocal loyalty between a player and the team fan base.
If you are a fan of baseball in general and the Minnesota Twins in particular, you will enjoy this book. It is generally about baseball only, there is none of the dirty laundry and over-the-top self-serving rhetoric that is so common in the modern books written about sports figures.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

On one hand, this was fun to read as a nostalgic revisit of a beloved figure from my childhood. On the other hand he’s a celebrity athlete and terrible writer. I enjoyed some of the clubhouse stories about other players I remember watching during my youth, and just general baseball stuff. I didn’t love the stream of consciousness, all-over-the-place storytelling. Since it was written while he was still playing and before his early, unexpected retirement it was kind of interesting to read knowing how it all played out. But I’d have been interested in a memoir about that period of his vision problems and retirement, too. Thinking about his eventual fall from grace (domestic abuse allegations, etc.) while reading about his wholesome family was kind of cringey but I had to remind myself this was written in 1993 at the height of his fame and success. Overall I’m glad I read it, but I probably could have been a 2-hour documentary.

[Luke Koran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authored by one of the most popular Minnesota Twins of all time, Kirby Puckett detailed his professional career up until 1993 quite well in “I Love this Game! My Life and Baseball.” Kirby’s voice and personality is evident throughout, as well as a surprising openness on his contract negotiations. The only way this book could have been better may be in a second edition - ideally published after his untimely retirement but before his public divorce and fall from grace. Kirby’s playing career, jovial personality, and contributions on two World Series championships will always carry great weight in Minnesota, but the last five years of his life and premature death leaves his legacy as unfulfilled in this reader’s mind.

[Peter Simons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirby is my all-time favorite athlete. He was such a huge part of my childhood as were the 87 and 91 world series championships. He was always a happy, smiling and hardworking player. Very easy to love and root for. This book was written in 1993, Then next chapter of his story would be very interesting to read. How he went blind and lost his baseball career, how he was not a good husband and other negative allegations that came out. It's hard to mesh all that together. But he and the Twins gave me a lot of thrills in my childhood. The book was ok, it rambled a lot and didn't seem very focused. But it was cool to get insight into a lot of things I watched on TV.

[Andrew Kuether · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book from a free library so no big loss but this book was not a thrill to read. I did get to learn a little about his life as a player and before and you also get a sense of his personality.

[Angela Olson Brust · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a good book, but jumping around quite a bit.

[Brock Gobin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not quite done reading this book, but so far i am thinking it is very good. I am about half way through the book and it is starting to get very interesting. The book is like a biography on Kirby Pucketts life. I think it is nice to learn about him because i was very young when he was playing ball and never really got to watch much of him. I think anyone who likes baseball or the Minnesota Twins should read this book. So far in this book they have talked about his life as a baseball player, when he was playing little league ball in his neighborhood, all the way to when he was playing in the World Series. It talks about all the different colleges he attended for baseball and why he decided to go to each place. This book really stands out to me because it is non- fiction and i like how it talks about just his life. I think that makes it more interesting than a normal book trying to make his life into a story.



10/7/10

Kirby Puckett is on of the greatest ball players to ever play baseball. It is very interesting to read right now because it talks about the Twins winning a world series when he played and right now the Minnesota Twins are playing in the playoffs. This book is a very good over-view of Kirby's life. I am about 70 pages away from being done with this book and i think that it is one of the best books i have read so far. i probably think it is one of the best books ever because i really like reading about baseball.

10/20/10

I finally finished reading this book and i thought it was very good. I would say this is one of the best books that i have ever read and i like it so much because i like baseball so much. Kirby Puckett is one of my favorite baseball players of all time, so it was cool to read a book about him. I recommend anyone who enjoys playing baseball to read this book because i think they would like it. This book was non fiction and i really like reading non fiction books.

[Joey Vanboxel · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far i like this book. I like it because its a true story so i can learn facts from reading it. I also like that its a sports story that isnt just based on numbers and stats, its about his life as a person and player.

The book is still good. It's starting to get more exciting not that he is finally getting into the pro's.

I'm just finishing up with this book. It was a good book. I liked it because it talked about his family and friends just as much as it talked about baseball.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirby Puckett... the greatest player of baseball of all time.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kirby's natural talent was baseball not writing. The book was all over the place. It jumped from thought to thought and was very hard to follow.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirby was my idol growing up. I told my parents I wanted to "get really tan and be a baseball player just like him!"

[Mike Kriesel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gotta love Kirby. R.I.P