Mark Fidrych

As I was driving home from work today, I was listening to the radio and heard the news of the passing of the Phillies Hall of Fame announcer, Harry Kalas. I am familiar with his voice and do understand and appreciate his historical significance but not being a Phillies fan, I really have no emotional connection to Mr. Kalas.

As I entered the house, Computer Boy was watching ESPN and they referred to the two deaths in major league baseball today and I thought "Who now?". When they announced the death of Mark Fidrych at the age of 54 due to an apparent accident on his farm, my heart sunk. It is hard to explain how beloved Mark Fidrych was in Detroit some 30 years ago and still somewhat today. My wife was in the kitchen and heard the report and came in the room and said "What?!" as in "you gotta be kidding" kind of "what?!". My wife is not a sports fan but she is a lifelong Detroiter so she knows about Mark Fidrych.

I remember the summer of 1976 distinctly. Not because of the Bicentennial but because of Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. I, of course, was a huge Tiger fan and watched every game on television though this was usually limited to a Saturday or Sunday afternoon game. One Saturday or Sunday, the Tigers were on television and playing the Cleveland Indians. The Tigers were starting a rookie pitcher I had never heard of. I still remember watching the game. This rookie pitcher with the long curly hair was of course Mark Fidrych; a quite hyperactive fellow who had a habit of hopping around the mound, talking to the baseball, grooming the mound on his hands and knees and throwing back baseballs to the umpire that had too many "hits" in them. I had never seen anything like this. Nobody had. I remember that he no-hit the Indians for 7 innings that day. The combination of this near no-hitter and eventual complete game win along with his antics on the mound had me hooked. Mark Fidrych was then and there my favorite player on the Tigers. After the game, I recall walking to my friend, Alan's house and asking him if he saw the game and he said that he hadn't. I tried to explain, probably not very well, what had just happened but it just did not register with Alan. I remember thinking that this was ok because if nobody else saw this then Fidrych could be MY favorite player and only mine. I remember thinking this at age 14.

Well, after a few more starts, the cat was out of the bag and Fidrych was no longer just mine as EVERYBODY became turned on to The Bird. The summer of 1976 in Detroit was the summer of Mark Fidrych. Forget the Bicentennial. That would come along again in 200 years. We had The Bird.

The Bird is all that the kids talked about in school. He was a God. Girls literally stalked him and chased him across town. I knew of this because the mania was all-consuming in the area but also because I had a Detroit News paper route. My routine was to load my papers in a large bag and drape the bag around my shoulders and then walk to the next subdivision where my customers were and deliver the papers to their doorsteps. The route was a couple mile circular walk which took me about an hour and a half to complete. While walking my route, I would read the paper from front to back starting with the sports section. What a sight this must have been to passing motorists who would have had to avoid me as I would not see them with my face buried in the paper. Anyway, being a daily reader of the sports section, I devoured every known fact about The Bird and if there was such a thing as a Mark Fidrych historian, that would have been me.

Tickets for games that Fidrych was pitching were obviously very hard to come by as he consistently pitched to sellout crowds at Tiger Stadium. My parents did somehow manage to get us tickets to a game against the Brewers that Fidrych was pitching. I do remember that it was cold and that Fidrych got hit hard and he did not last very long before being pulled. I remember being a little surprised but still happy to have seen The Bird. I just checked Retrosheet and see that it was September 3rd and he gave up 9 runs (7 earned) in 3 2/3 innings. I also see that it was his worst outing that year. That is ok. I saw Fidrych.

Over the years, Mark Fidrych would return periodically to Detroit for charity events or card shows. By all accounts he was very nice, very humble with no regrets as to how his career fizzled out rather quickly due to injuries. Sometimes afterwards, someone or another would say to me "Hey, did you see that Fidrych was in town?" and I would say something like "Yeah, I saw him on the news and he looks great."

I always thought that I should go check out the Bird at one of these events but I just never got around to it. Oh man, I should have.

Goodbye my friend, Mark Fidrych.