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“The Bird” is Down
By Rrrandy Wurst | April 13, 2009
Get the picture. A major league pitcher on his knees, his face close to the dirt, moving it around with his hands, then when it’s just right, patting it into place. Then rising, all gangly arms and legs and wild and woolly blond hair barely captured by his blue De-troit ballcap, rearing back and mowing down the American League for one great season and four okay ones. (The Bird’s record)
The only game in Mark “The Bird” Fidrych was baseball, pure and simple. No jive. No “look at me.” When he won, he shook his teammates’ hands like a little kid. But no chest-pounding or pointing to the sky after doing what he was paid to do as if showing the world that God favored him.
The Bird was a genuine character in a game that welcomes characters like Babe, Casey, and Yogi, like Reggie, Dizzy, Daffy, and Dazzy, like Bill “Spaceman” Lee and Leo “The Lip” Durocher. Or used to welcome them, anyway, before ballplayers made so much dough they couldn’t afford to be characters.
The Bird was a farmer who took off a few years to pitch great baseball. He got pinned under his dump-truck today at a still tender 54. He made people laugh. He made them cheer, even those rooting for the other team. He made us smile. Only the genuine characters can do that.
If the baseball gods have sway, they’ll see to it that The Bird is buried beneath the Detroit pitcher’s mound, where he belongs. A reminder that, before all the money and fame which destroy character and shun characters, baseball is a game.
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