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Mark Fidrych - another baseball "legend"?
This is the best story I have read in the Bill James book yet. It made me crack up on the bus and start laughing out loud, to the point that several people looked at me funny. So while I have a few minutes while my development desktop reboots, I will share it with you guys.
That Explains It
A generation of baseball fans now is too young to remember Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, which is a real shame. Fidrych only lasted for one year, but he was more fun than a barrel of butterflies and a bucket of mud.
Fidrych was a skinny, hyper-active kid with wild hair and nervous eyes who strode around the pitcher's mound as if he were on a mission of earth-shaking importance. As soon as he got the ball back from the catcher he would begin to talk to it, perching the ball on his fingertips like Yorick's skull, explaining to the baseball what its assignment was. It's hard to describe, but he was hypnotic. That was just one of his mannerisms. There was an intensity about him which gave the impression that, when you cared this much about winning baseball games, of course you would talk to the baseball. Huge, huge crowds turned out every time he pitched. The Tigers, who had barely drawn over a million fans all season in 1975, drew 605,677 just to Fidrych's "home" starts in 1976 (another 300,000 on the road).
On June 28, 1976, Fidrych was facing the Yankees on national TV. When Fidrych began talking to the baseball, Graig Nettles stepped out of the box and began a conversation with his bat. "Now don't you listen to that ball," said Nettles to the bat. "When it comes in here you hit it right up in that upper deck up there," and Nettles pointed to the upper deck.
Nettles popped out. "Goddamn," he said. "I just realized I was using a Japanese bat. Doesn't understand English."
So anyway, it appears that Mark Fidrych had that one amazing rookie season and went 19-9 and all, and then tore his knee cartilage in spring training 1977, and then totally ripped his rotator cuff trying to compensate in the next few years. That makes me sad. I would have loved to see him play. He just sounds like such a colorful character. I love reading stories like this.
Links:
One Strange Bird: Mark Fidrych
Hall of Mediocrity: Mark Fidrych
In 1976, Bird Was the Word
That Explains It
A generation of baseball fans now is too young to remember Mark "the Bird" Fidrych, which is a real shame. Fidrych only lasted for one year, but he was more fun than a barrel of butterflies and a bucket of mud.
Fidrych was a skinny, hyper-active kid with wild hair and nervous eyes who strode around the pitcher's mound as if he were on a mission of earth-shaking importance. As soon as he got the ball back from the catcher he would begin to talk to it, perching the ball on his fingertips like Yorick's skull, explaining to the baseball what its assignment was. It's hard to describe, but he was hypnotic. That was just one of his mannerisms. There was an intensity about him which gave the impression that, when you cared this much about winning baseball games, of course you would talk to the baseball. Huge, huge crowds turned out every time he pitched. The Tigers, who had barely drawn over a million fans all season in 1975, drew 605,677 just to Fidrych's "home" starts in 1976 (another 300,000 on the road).
On June 28, 1976, Fidrych was facing the Yankees on national TV. When Fidrych began talking to the baseball, Graig Nettles stepped out of the box and began a conversation with his bat. "Now don't you listen to that ball," said Nettles to the bat. "When it comes in here you hit it right up in that upper deck up there," and Nettles pointed to the upper deck.
Nettles popped out. "Goddamn," he said. "I just realized I was using a Japanese bat. Doesn't understand English."
So anyway, it appears that Mark Fidrych had that one amazing rookie season and went 19-9 and all, and then tore his knee cartilage in spring training 1977, and then totally ripped his rotator cuff trying to compensate in the next few years. That makes me sad. I would have loved to see him play. He just sounds like such a colorful character. I love reading stories like this.
Links:
One Strange Bird: Mark Fidrych
Hall of Mediocrity: Mark Fidrych
In 1976, Bird Was the Word
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