Mark
Fidrych was one of my favorites. His death inspired me to start writing
to the players of 1976 and get their stories of Mark "The Bird"
Fidrych. Today I am 5 player cards short of having the 1976 Topps
baseball card set signed by all the players. Mark came on the scene in
1976 as a complete surprise to the baseball world. In 1975 he made it as
high as AAA when he pitched 6 games with Evansville. The following year
he was a rock star. He started his major league career in Oakland as a
reliever. He came in before 3.080 fans in Oakland and pitched against Don
Baylor. It would be the smallest crowd to see him all year. With runners
at the corners and only 1 out in the bottom of the ninth, Don got a single
to drive in the winning run of a tie game. The game was over and no one
noticed the skinny pitcher with number 20 on his back. Mark had one more
appearance as a reliever in Minnesota before things began to change. His
next appearance was a start against Cleveland. He got a complete game
victory beating Cleveland 2-1 on 2 hits. Mark showed that he was a
showman at the least and a possibly the greatest pitcher of his generation.
He had a couple of habits that made him stand out. He would get on
his hands and knees to fill in the holes on the mound created by the opposing
pitcher. Today as in 1976, most pitchers will do this with their feet but
Mark was a bit different. The other thing he did was to talk to himself on
the mound to keep himself alert. This appeared to the batters and fans as
if he was talking to the ball. As I said, I have been asking the players
of 1976 for their stories of Mark. My favorite might be Jerry Terrall who
was a second baseman for the Twins. He said the first time he saw Mark it
looked like he was talking to the ball and telling the ball what to do.
Jerry said he stepped out of the batters box and told his bat to
disregard everything Mr. Fidrych had told the ball and just hit the ball
squarely. He ripped double on the next pitch and while he was standing on
second Mark got the ball back and looked out at Jerry at second. Mark
grinned and tossed the ball out of play to get a "better
ball" that would not allow a hit. Mark ended up the season
going 19-9 with a league leading ERA of 2.34 as a 21 year old rookie. He
had 24 complete games in the 29 games he pitched. Remember, 2 were in
relief. Mark was a control pitcher. If you get a chance to watch
any of his games in replay you will see that rarely does a pitch of his come
above the belt. Most are down at the knees. But most people missed
this as they were watching his antics on the mound. His big break or
rather his national break came on Monday Night Baseball when he pitched against
the Yankees at Tiger Stadium and he beat the Yankees 5-1 on 7 hits. He
was brought back out on the field for a curtain call after the game and was
interviewed by Bob Ueker on national TV. The national audience
immediately fell in love with him. He was immediately a phenomenon.
He made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. This was something no
other baseball player had ever done. Soon he was pitching to 3 times the
average crowd. GM's would call Detroit and ask that they hold Mark back a
start so he would pitch against them on the road. In 1976 Mark was
watched by almost a million fans in the 29 games he pitched. To put this
in perspective, Cleveland, Chicago, Oakland and Minnesota all drew fewer fans
for their entire home season than Mark did in 29 games. And California,
Milwaukee and Baltimore were less than 100,000 fans more in 81 games each to
his 29. Mark was the starting pitcher for the All-Star game. A rate
fete for a rookie. But as fast as his career took of it was also
derailed. He had a knee injury the following year in spring training and
he changed his mechanics. That coupled with the 250 innings pitched as a
rookie blew out his arm in 1977. Mark would go 10-10 over the next four
seasons trying to get his arm back. But it never did come back. His
final record in the majors and as a Tiger was a 29-19 record in five seasons as
a Tiger. By the way, his nickname of "The Bird" came from his
resemblance to Big Bird of Sesame Street.
Skinny
Graham was a pitcher for the Tiges in 1929 going 1-3 in 13 games.
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