Sport has always been a terrific vehicle for art -- whether a LeRoy Neiman painting, a Paul Simon song, a Bernard Malamud novel, a Robert DeNiro movie or a Gregory Corso poem.

And so the latest sport-as-art entry is a stage production opening in St. Paul next week that looks at the life of Twins tragic-hero Kirby Puckett. Beloved by all during his playing career and shockingly repugnant to many after it, Puckett's life was fraught with contradictions. When he played, he was a teddy bear slugger of the two-time world champion Twins. In retirement, though, his behavior revealed a boorish side and the ugly details of a marriage gone sour exposed an occasionally violent nature.

The play, Kirby, by playwright Syl Jones, touches on this duality and as I have read about this stage rendering of the late Hall of Famer's life, it occurs that it may speak to a more universal reality -- the contrast between that person we want the world to see and that person who we know down deep we really are.

Here are two takes on the play. One straightforward and another that's more irreverent.

Photo credit: Kathy Willens/AP