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Byline: Aron Kahn
Mar. 10--Kirby Puckett could dwell larger than life in a new Twins stadium, if one ever gets built. A team official said Thursday the hall of famer would be memorialized in a major way in a new ballpark.
"We haven't ruled anything in or out," said Jerry Bell, president of Twins Sports Inc., the company that owns the team. Among the possibilities: naming the ballpark after Puckett, creating a gathering place called Puckett Plaza and building a monument to him in center field, where he roamed as one of the best players in the game. A center-field memorial would be reminiscent of Yankee Stadium in New York, where outfield monuments memorialize the great names in team history. "I love those Yankee Stadium monuments," said Bell, the Twins' ballpark point man. "My wife and I were out there last summer and walked around those monuments." Naming the ballpark for Puckett would be trickier, but possible. Under the Twins-Hennepin County plan for a ballpark in the Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis -- which might be voted on during the current state legislative session -- the Twins would get all revenue from the stadium, including income from naming rights. So while "Puckett Field," for example, might be fitting for the ballpark, it also might foreclose the possibility of earning income from a ...