RIP Kirby Puckett - his fame was baseball, his shame was how Minnesota treated him

I've changed this from my original post as my eyes were opened.

You know, over the last several days the news media has been abound with the stories of what a great man KP was. I never met him, I watched from afar as the media reported his charity work, his baseball style, his home life.

I thrilled watching the news at night seeing him catch that uncatchable ball wayyyyy out in the field. I really empathied when he developed gloucoma and nodded with approval as he brought a awareness of this disease to the public. I'll admit snickering a bit when I heard about his divorce as the media outed him for having a violent and unfaithful relationship with his wife. I'll even admit to having a bit of "Ayups" when charges of sexual harassment were filed against him. After all, this was a black man who was brought up in the projects that made something of himself - but like the stereotype that is protrayed, he had brought the projects with him.

What I didn't know, nor I'm sure many others didn't was that the charges against him were dropped. He was aquitted. And now I ask myself - where was the media when this happened? His life and reputation was in ruins by their rabid reporting of all of the bad things. His life remained in ruins when they didn't follow-up and let folks know of the aquital. So he left the state of Minnesota to start over in AZ. They reported it so well that how many even knew that KP had left the state?

This would qualify as a perfect example of media ineptness. I'm sure there are other words that could be used, but this one suits just now. There was no thought to the consequences they would bring to this man - this innocent man btw - when they rushed to report the story. It was on the news, in the papers, written up in editorials. Sharks would describe how the media acted.

KP, I wish to apologize for buying into the hype when things were bad for you and the media was having a field day with your life. I guess there was one thing that our former governor was right about - the media are Jackels.

Rest in Peace.