Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Everybody's heard about the Bird.....



It is reported this morning that Mark "The Bird" Fidrych has passed away, the victim of an accident on his farm.

For those of you that don't know, The Bird was a hero of the terrible Detroit Tiger baseball season of 1976. He was everything that the team, and the city needed; he threw hard, won ball games, and was a complete lunatic, for the times.

He would talk to the baseball.
He would do his own mound maintenance.
He would stalk the infield, working himself and his teammates up.
He would shake every teammates' hand at the end.

He went 19-9 in '76, pitched 23 or so complete games (remember complete games?), pitched the first three in the All-Star game, won the Rookie of the Year award, and was the toast of the town in Detroit. They had T-Shirts, bumper stickers, you name it.

The Tigers finished 5th that year.

But every time The Bird pitched, the old stadium at Michigan and Trumbull was FULL.

My father took us to see a Monday night game that year; the Tigers playing the Yankees. It was during that time when ABC ran the Monday Night Baseball, and this was the headliner game. Now, keep in mind that the Tigers finished 24 games behind the Yankees that year....

Beat them 5-1. The game lasted less than two hours.

He took two curtain calls. The crowd wouldn't leave.

He didn't pitch much after that season; he hurt his wing and was never the same. He retired in 1980, attempted a comeback with Boston, and finally returned to his farm somewhere west of Boston.

I read the story this morning. And the sounds heard on a June night in '76 by a fourteen year old boy echoed in his 40-plus year old ears, and the old ET heartlight was burning bright.

The Bird-Bird-Bird-Bird-Bird-Bird's the Word.

1 comment:

Kizz said...

On a related note, thanks for going to Tiger Stadium with me before the Tigers moved.