Mark Fidrych a/k/a The Bird

I was searching for baseball poems on the Internet. Nothing could be more poetic than a poem about Mark Fidrych. He was special. He played the game with heart, took the nation by storm and never once winced or complained when his story ended in tragedy.

He never made big money, a great rookie season playing for the MLB minimum and then he was done. Went back to Massachusetts drove truck and farmed and died tragically a few years ago when a truck he was working on fell on him.

Need I tell you that the Bird was close to my age, close to my heart and a hero of mine for all the right reasons.

Mark Fidrych, Baseball’s Beloved ‘Bird,’ Dies at 54
Published: April 13, 2009

DETROIT — Mark Fidrych, the golden-haired, eccentric pitcher known as the Bird, who became a rookie phenomenon for the Detroit Tigers in 1976 and later saw his career cut short by injury, died Monday. He was 54.

His death occurred on his farm in Northborough, Mass., Joseph D. Early Jr., the district attorney for Worcester County, said in a statement. A family friend discovered Fidrych’s body beneath a Mack dump truck, Early said. He appeared to have been working on the truck at the time. The Massachusetts State Police began an investigation into the accident, he said.

During the summer of the nation’s bicentennial, Fidrych (pronounced FID-rich), then 21, electrified the baseball world. “He was the most charismatic player we had during my time with the Tigers,” said Ernie Harwell, the veteran announcer, who began broadcasting Tigers games in 1960. “I didn’t see anybody else who was as much of a character as he was."

Fidrych’s record in 1976 was 19-9, with an earned run average of 2.34, the best in major league baseball, and 97 strikeouts. His 24 complete games were the year’s best in the American League. Fidrych was named the rookie of the year in the American League and finished second to Jim Palmer in the race for the Cy Young Award.

Called “the fidgety, 6-foot-3 bundle of nerves” by The New York Times, Fidrych had a mop of golden curls and a gawky gait that prompted a minor league manager, Jeff Hogan, to compare him to Big Bird, the “Sesame Street” character. The nickname — shortened to the Bird — stuck, but his appearance was only one of Fidrych’s vivid traits.
He often talked to the baseball, fidgeted on the mound and got down on his knees to scratch at the dirt. Fidrych would swagger around the grass after every out and was finicky about baseballs, refusing to reuse one if an opposing player got a hit, and rejecting fresh ones he declared to have dents. He liked to jump over the white infield lines on his way to the mound, with a wide, toothy grin that, coupled with his hair, made him easy to spot even from the upper reaches of Tiger Stadium.

“Everybody really had a fondness for this young guy, especially the young girls,” Harwell said. “After he got a haircut, they’d run into the barbershop to see if they could get the curls off the floor."

Mark Steven Fidrych was born Aug. 15, 1954, in Worcester, Mass. His wife, Ann, whom he married in 1986, and a daughter, Jessica, survive him. The son of an assistant school principal, Fidrych attended public and private schools in Worcester and entered the 1974 amateur draft.

But Fidrych, a right-hander, was not picked until the 10th round, and he spent two seasons in the minor leagues before making the Tigers after spring training in 1976.
He threw a few innings as a relief pitcher and made his first start in May. He captured the attention of Tigers fans in his first game as a starter by throwing seven no-hit innings and allowing only two hits in a 2-1 victory against the Cleveland Indians.

A month later, Fidrych pitched the Tigers to a 5-1 victory over the Yankees in a nationally televised game in front of a capacity crowd at Tiger Stadium. Fans, who rocked the stadium with applause, refused to leave until Fidrych came out from the dugout to tip his cap. Weeks later, he was named the starting pitcher in the 1976 All-Star Game. But he gave up two runs and took the loss as the National League won, 7-1.

Still, Fidrych’s reputation grew as the season progressed, drawing near-capacity crowds to stadiums across the country as he performed his antics and kept winning ballgames, falling one short of 20 victories.

The Tigers, who paid him the league minimum, $16,500, for the 1976 season, gave him a $25,000 bonus and signed him to a three-year contract worth $255,000. Picking up a series of lucrative endorsements, including a deal with Aqua-Velva, an aftershave maker (he joked to The Detroit Free Press that “it was a lotion, not an aftershave, because I really wasn’t shaving yet”), Fidrych wrote an autobiography with the author Tom Clark called “No Big Deal.”

But as it turned out, his rookie season was his biggest.

Fidrych sustained two serious injuries as soon as the 1977 season began, tearing the cartilage in a knee while cavorting on the field in spring training, then suffering a rotator cuff injury during an early-season game. “I was playing Baltimore in Baltimore, and about the fifth inning, something happened,” Fidrych wrote. “The arm just went dead."

Fidrych did not have surgery until 1985, but by then his career was long finished. After 1976, he played in only 27 games through 1980. Released by the Tigers in 1981, Fidrych competed briefly with a minor league team owned by the Boston Red Sox.

His lifetime major league record was 29-19, with a lifetime E.R.A. of 3.10, in 58 games, all but two of them starts.

Fidrych went home to central Massachusetts, where he bought a dump truck, becoming a licensed commercial truck driver, and eventually his farm in Northborough, where his family owned a diner.

Fidrych returned to Tiger Stadium in 1999 for ceremonies marking the last game there. A cheer went up from the crowd when Fidrych pawed at the dirt on the mound.

“He was a little naïve, just a sweet kid, really,” Harwell said. “He captured the public’s

imagination.”

And now, the poem that brings it all back. How interesting that it is told via a man with a routine job, a man who could have made this routine job a career, but a man who is striving for more.

I Once Was Mark The Bird Fidrych's Substitute Mailman

David Schaafsma

I know Northboro pretty well

You go door to door every day

You get to know a town well, maybe too well

But for years I was a substitute carrier

On Keigo’s route, the name Mark Fidrych, The Bird

On one of four hundred mailboxes

‘74 pumping gas at the Sunoco

Algonquin diploma in hand

Spring training ‘76―a Tiger

If they want me to be a bat boy,

I’ll do it

Coleman gets the flu,

Bird gets his shot

Retires the first fourteen Indians, two hitter

That summer Ford pardons Nixon

Bird starts the All Star game

The summer of disco,

Mark borrowing

Tommy Veryzer’s i.d. to dance The Fried Egg

You remember what he was like:

When I’m out there the mound belongs to me

Talk to the ball, point where it has to go

Throw back balls that have hits in them

Manicure the mound on hands and knees

Strut around the mound after every out, run on

And off the field every inning

Manager Ralph Houk said, I’ve never seen anything like it

Not even Walter Johnson started this fast

This is how it fell apart, and it always does

But not usually this sudden

Goofing around in center field, spring training ’77

Blows his knee out, cartilage torn

In July, his arm, it just feels dead,

Torn rotator and it’s over

Nineteen wins one season, eight wins the next four years

And just like that he’s done, he’s toast

Summer ‘74 pumping gas and in ‘82

Back pumping gas, glass slipper

No longer fits

A contractor in Northboro today

53, just like me

I like to drive truck, he said when he played

So that’s what he does, commercial trucker

Ten wheeler, hauling gravel and asphalt

Some people say I look like him

Same height, same age, same curly mop of hair in those days

Road trip that summer to see him at Tiger Stadium

Couple kids ask me for his autograph

My buddies have a good laugh as I sign their gloves

I left the P.O. and Northboro in ‘97

Keigo retired and I had the chance to take his route

I would have become Mark Fidrych’s mailman!

But to take any job for ten years

Makes it your career

I had bigger plans for my life

I ran into him just once:

Crazy blizzard winter of ‘95

Three feet of snow,

see a guy digging out mail boxes

As I come with the mail the guy says

I’ll have this dug out in a couple minutes, sir

And I see it was the Bird

Sir, he calls me, a guy who once pitched The All Star Game!

No problem, I appreciate it, I say, and I did

Standing there, with an armful Of Rolling Stones and electric bills

Football News

For all you football fans out there, tonight is the night where Evergreen plays Kennedy. Coach Cougan will be in attendance. If anyone on the team is thinking of going to this game, feel free to give Coach Cougan a shout. Of course Coach Cougan would expect that you are going to the game to support Evergreen and is willing to lend you the appropriate Wolverine gear to make your evening the festive occasion that it should be.

Can't Win for Losing

Ahhhhg, the weather in Seattle. Sorry. When I had to make the call on whether to play or not, the facts were definitely against playing. We had sideways rain going on and forecast for thunder showers. Who was I to know that the weather would clear up.

We will try again next week, and next week I will be more forceful with the weather. The biggest reasons for that will be:

1. I don't think we will have as many guys who will be late or absent, as we did this week

2. The Smith / Cohee's have offered to host a "get together BBQ" at their house after the game.

I want to thank Matt and his lovely wife Lynne for making this gesture. I think this is a wonderful idea for a team with so many new faces. Perhaps this BBQ, and the ability for us all to get to know one another better may be more valuable than playing baseball in September. But one thing I ask of you all as a group; we must stand united in our decision NOT to view the five hour slide show of their summer vacation.

Frank Papasedero

I played college ball for Frank. I loved him and I hated him. He was that kind of man. His south Boston accent offended the New Yorker in me. He pushed, he yelled, he taunted he told you he hated you, he told you how bad you were. But he could also reach into you and make you better. He also had a kind side. And let me tell you, once somebody screamed at you like Frank, laid out all you faults at 80 decibels, when his words were kind they really got through.

At first I always played against him. And even then he made you better. It was no secret that his teams always had the best players. Future big leagues from my generation - Kenny Phelps, Floyd Bannister played for him. And when my crappy little South End teams played his I played my ass off trying to beat him - and did at times. And I always wondered - If he had the best guys, why didn't he ever come after me?

When he was hired at SU he did. He came and got me and I played for him for three years. Three years of having him scream at me, three years of him second guessing ever pitch I called. Three years of having him in my face after a strike out, a passed ball. We argued, we fought, he sent me out there every day. Every summer I had to beg for my scholarship back because inevitably by the end of each season he would tell me he was done with me. And every year I had eligibility, he brought me back.

Years later, when I would take a week off work to work his baseball camps with him he would always introduce me as the best catcher who ever played for him, and I would melt. Coming from him, well that said it all.

Wood Bat Game at Sand Point's Frank Papasedero Field

I have secured Frank Papasedero Field for this weekend and next weekend for our games with Bellevue. Great new TURF field on 65th Street and Sandpoint Way just north of the U of W.

Game time is 1:00, please arrive at 11:15.

This will be a WOOD BAT GAME.

NO METAL CLEATS.

We have 3 families that are bound by an O'Dea picnic at Lower Woodland (1-4) who will be late. Jake will be hunting this weekend. Roster of 14 tells me we just have 9 at game time with more coming late. LET ME KNOW if you cannot be there on time 206-793-0085.

Sunday's Hit Parade

The NEW MBC 15's came out Sunday and collected more hits than Frank Sinatra and Elvis combined. It was a site to behold. TWENTY ONE hits, SIX doubles and THREE balls off the fence. In addition to the hits that fell in cleanly there were line drives and hard hit balls a'plenty. This team swings the bat.

The two doubles each from Tino Peleti (2-5, 3 RBI) and Jake Hawken (2-4, 5 RBI) were no surprises to regular spectators of this team, but it looks like these two will have long ball competition from Quinn Burcham (4-4, 4 RBI and a deep Sac Fly) all year long. There were 12 RBI between these three!

Nick Salle, Nick Reeves, Stuart Fairchild and Riley Duffy each had two hits as well.

The team played fairly solid defense, especially when one considers they had not seen a ball diamond for months.

Excitement also had to be generated over how well this team threw the ball. This team added six new pitchers over last year's roster while loosing just two. And don't forget this team discovered a secret weapon pitcher in Mitchell Smith late last year.

After watching this team in their first outing Coach Cougan was reminded of Karen Moyer's comment at try-outs, "Wow, you have a lot of talent coming to the 15's this year, I expect a lot of wins from this team".

Meet Your New Teamates

We have some new players this year. I thought it would be nice to give a brief introduction of the boys prior to our first game on Sunday.

Here they are:

Above is Nick Salle. Nick is a pitcher/outfielder and last year played for the Puget Sound Stars. Nick will be our only player (and perhaps the only in the league) still in elementary school. Nick is one of the lucky third graders in Mrs. Fletcher's class at Our Lady of the Blessed Left-Handers. He excels in art and is the fastest boy on the playground.

Riley Duffy is another left-hander and another player picked up from the Puget Sound Stars. He pitches and plays first-base and outfield. Riley is a fan of Chick Flicks (loves to cry at movies) and has an extensive bottle cap collection. Other sports that Riley participates in are roller derby and cage fighting.

Quinn Burcham is an outfielder, pitcher and corner infielder and yet another addition from the Puget Sound Stars. Quinn was born in Antarctic and holds dual citizenship. He travels back each December for their Summerfest Athletic Competition and competes well. Last year his penguin project took third place.

Alex Mitchell is our final pick-up from the now defunct Puget Sound Stars. He is NOT related to our returning Mitchell Smith, although they do share a common name. Alex is an infielder. Alex comes from a family of twenty five brothers and sisters and is a world renowned concert tuba player. It is a wonder that Alex can even play baseball as his left foot has only two toes.

Ethan Clements last played for the O'Brien team. Ethan is a pitcher and corner infielder. Ethan is the son of Bill Clements who played with coach Cougan with the Seattle U Chieftains. Ethan's father was know as a hot headed/hot tempered fire ball who played the game with fierce reckless abandon. He was nicknamed Mr. Excitement (or just plain Mr. X) by his teammates as we just never knew when he would explode or otherwise cause trouble. Ethan is a quilter and makes his own clothes. Last year's O'Brien's team played in away jersey's made by Ethan.

Lastly (not pictured, for soon to be known as obvious reasons) we have added Russell Madche. Russell is not pictured because he was born with a rare condition which causes sudden invisibility. Russell is a pitcher, catcher and outfielder and we hope to use his rare condition to steal signs from the other team when he is otherwise unable to play due to invisibility.

First Poem of the Year

It Couldn't be Done
By Edgar Guest

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But, he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't" but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, as he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one we know has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle right in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That cannot be done, and you'll do it

A nice poem, a better thought and great advice. Do not let others define what can be done. My number one reason for showing you this poem if for the obvious baseball reasons. But don't stop there. Who is telling you what kind of student you are, what kind of classes you should take or avoid taking. What colleges you should set your sites on and other limits in your life.

Two real world examples:

I played ball with a guy who did not figure out what he wanted to be until he was 23 years old. And then he decided that he wanted to be a pilot of all things. EVERYONE told him NO WAY. He was 23, had no military flying experience HAD NOT EVEN HAD ONE FLYING LESSON. Age 23. His competition joined the air force out of high school and had been flying since they were 18. Today he is a pilot with Alaska Airlines (I always look into the cockpit when I enter a plane because I sure as hell do not want to fly on his plane!)

My wife's brother got the notion that he wanted to go to Harvard when he was in high school. Everyone said WHO ARE YOU KIDDING, no one from Evergreen High School in White Center is ever going to get into Harvard. Yet he got in and graduated with honors.

Do not listen to others when setting your goals. Sometimes nice advice is to spare you from the limitations that others have put on themselves. While I agree that you can't have everything, I do believe that you can have anything. It is all a matter of application, dedication and inspiration.