A Tribute to Mark “The Bird” Fidrych (1954 – 2009)

I grew up in hockeyland, aka Canada.  Nevertheless, for one remarkable year, youngsters in Victoria, British Columbia, were not trying to emulate the moves of Bobby Orr or Guy Lafleur.

Rather, the Little League fields in Victoria — as I imagine they were in the rest of North America — were replete with kids fidgeting, talking to baseballs, kneeling down to fill up holes in the mound with their hands and hurling pitches one after the other in rapid succession.

I would hazard a guess that no other sports figure’s mannerisms were copied by the youngsters of North America as extensively as those of Mark Fidrych’s – not even Willie Stargell’s bat twirl or Joe Morgan’s elbow pump.

In 1976, seemingly everybody wanted to be Fidrych.  For one remarkable season, Fidrych was the Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky of baseball.

I didn’t recall his exact statistics for that season — 19-9 with an incredible 24 complete games all starting when he was called up (in the middle of May!) — until I read them in the news yesterday.  However, the way he dominated and the way people around the continent awaited news about his latest outing were indelible.

For me, as I suppose for many others, the memory of Fidrych which stands out most is an appearance during an ABC Monday Night game shortly after he made his debut.  I can’t remember the score or even the opponent that night.  I do remember the way a young pitcher with herky-jerky motion and borderline neurotic ritual on the mound bowled down batter after batter.

Here was not a prepackaged, processed athlete fed lines by his agent.  Here was a genuine good.  An athlete who appeared to derive as much joy from playing the game as he gave to its fans.

Sadly, his career would pretty end the next season due to injury, and he would never fully recover his form.  The Fidrych Comet which whizzed by us all too fleetingly for one season had come to a screeching halt.

More tragically, The Bird’s life, like his major-league career, was too short.