Mark Fidrych
Mark Steven Fidrych, nicknamed "the Bird", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played five seasons in Major League Baseball with the Detroit Tigers.
Known for his quirky antics on the mound, Fidrych led the major leagues with a 2.34 ERA in 1976, won the American League Rookie of the Year award, and finished with a 19–9 record. Shortly thereafter, however, injuries derailed his career, which ended after just five seasons in the major leagues.
Early life
The son of an assistant school principal, Fidrych played baseball at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough, Massachusetts, and at Worcester Academy, a day and boarding school in central Massachusetts. In the 1974 amateur draft he was selected in the 10th round by the Detroit Tigers. He later joked that when he received a phone call informing him that he had been drafted, he thought he was drafted into the armed services, not thinking there were any Major League teams considering him. In the minor leagues one of his coaches with the Lakeland Tigers dubbed the lanky 6-foot-3 right-handed pitcher "The Bird" because of his resemblance to the "Big Bird" character on the popular Sesame Street television program.1976 season
Fidrych joined the Tigers spring training camp in 1976 and made the roster, though he did not make his Major League debut until April 20, pitching only one inning through mid-May.In his third appearance, on May 15, Fidrych made his first major league start, caught by Bruce Kimm, his batterymate in 1975 at Triple A Evansville. He held the Cleveland Indians hitless through six innings and ended up with a two-hit, 2–1 complete game victory, with one walk and five strikeouts. In addition to his pitching, Fidrych attracted attention in his debut for talking to the ball while on the pitcher's mound, strutting in a circle around the mound after every out, patting down the mound, and refusing to allow groundskeepers to fix the mound in the sixth inning. After the game, sports writer Jim Hawkins wrote in the Detroit Free Press: "He really is something to behold." Rico Carty of the Indians said he thought Fidrych "was trying to hypnotize them."
On May 25 at Fenway Park in Boston, Fidrych started his second game in front of two busloads of fans who traveled from Fidrych's hometown of Northborough. Fidrych pitched well, allowing two earned runs in eight innings, but Luis Tiant shut out the Tigers, and Fidrych received his first major league loss.
On May 31, Fidrych pitched an 11-inning, complete-game victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. On June 5, he pitched another 11-inning, complete-game victory over the Texas Rangers in Arlington. Fidrych continued to pitch well heading into the All-Star break:
- June 11: Fidrych pitched a complete game 4–3 victory over the California Angels before a crowd of 36,377 on a Friday night at Tiger Stadium.
- June 19: Fidrych pitched a complete game 4–3 victory over the Kansas City Royals before a crowd of 21,659 on a Wednesday night at Tiger Stadium.
- June 24: Fidrych returned to Fenway Park with his family and friends in the stands. He gave up back-to-back home runs to Fred Lynn and Yastrzemski but won his sixth consecutive start.
- June 28: Fidrych pitched before 47,855 at Tiger Stadium and a national television audience in the millions, as the Tigers hosted the New York Yankees on ABC's Monday Night Baseball with Bob Prince, Warner Wolf, and Bob Uecker in the broadcast booth. Fidrych earned a 5–1 complete-game victory which took only an hour and 51 minutes. Fans would not leave the stadium until The Bird emerged from the dugout for a curtain call. After the broadcast, which was filled with plenty of "Bird" antics, Fidrych became a national celebrity.
- July 3: Fidrych pitched before a sell-out crowd of 51,650 on a Saturday night at Tiger Stadium. He shut out the Baltimore Orioles, 4–0, improved to 9–1 in ten starts, and reduced his earned run average to 1.85.
- July 9: Pitching in front of a sell-out crowd of 51,041 at Tiger Stadium, Fidrych held the Royals to one run in nine innings, but Dennis Leonard shut out the Tigers 1–0. Despite the loss, Detroit fans refused to leave the stadium until The Bird made a curtain call.
Just three days later, on July 16, Fidrych won his tenth game, a 1–0 victory over the A's. Four days later in Minnesota, before Fidrych's thirteenth start, the Twins released thirteen homing pigeons on the mound before the game. According to Fidrych, "they tried to do that to blow my concentration." Fidrych pitched another complete game, an 8–3 win, and improved his record to 11–2. On Saturday, July 24, Fidrych surrendered four earned runs on nine hits and lasted only 4 innings; John Hiller got the win for the Tigers in long relief on the Game of the Week.
After the game, Fidrych was interviewed on live television, and a small controversy arose when Fidrych said "bullshit" on the air. Fidrych recalled: "He said, it looked like you were gonna cry. I just said, No, I wasn't about to cry. I was just bullshit.... And then I said, excuse me. I said, I didn't mean to swear on the air but I just showed you my feelings." The next day, Fidrych received a telegram informing him he had been fined $250 by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn; however, it was a prank sent by his own teammates.
On July 29 and August 7, Fidrych threw consecutive six-hit complete games. He won one of the games and lost the other. The Tigers edged the Rangers, 4–3, on August 11 as Fidrych notched his 13th win over Gaylord Perry. Six days later, the Tigers drew a season-high 51,822 fans as Fidrych went to 14–4, beating opposing pitcher Frank Tanana 3–2. On August 25, the Tigers downed the White Sox, 3–1, in front of 40,000 fans on a Wednesday night in Detroit. Fidrych held the White Sox to five hits in a game which lasted only 108 minutes. Between August 29 and September 17, Fidrych lost three consecutive decisions, bringing his record to 16–9.
Fidrych beat the Indians two starts in a row, on September 21 and 28. In his last start of the 1976 season, Fidrych picked up his 19th win, defeating the Brewers, 4–1, giving up five hits. A month later, Fidrych was announced as the runner-up for the Cy Young Award, with Jim Palmer taking the award.
Fidrych won the AL Rookie of the Year Award and was named Tiger of the Year by the Detroit baseball writers. He led all of MLB in ERA and Adjusted ERA+, while leading the AL in complete games. He finished in the top five in several other statistical categories, including wins, win percentage, shutouts, walks plus hits per innings pitched, and bases on balls per nine innings pitched. He received the 11th-highest vote total in the year's AL MVP voting.
In Fidrych's 18 home starts in 1976, he compiled a 12–6 record while the Tigers averaged 33,649 fans; the team drew an average of only 13,843 in his non-starts.
During the offseason between the 1976 and 1977 seasons, Fidrych published an autobiography with Tom Clark titled ''No Big Deal.''
Injury and retirement
Fidrych tore the cartilage in his knee fooling around in the outfield during spring training in 1977. He picked up where he left off after his return from the injury, but about six weeks after his return, during a July 4 game against Baltimore, he felt his arm just, in his words, "go dead." It was a torn rotator cuff, but it would not be diagnosed until 1985. At the time Fidrych injured his arm in Baltimore his record was 6-2 before the game. He was removed from the game after 5.2 innings right after Eddie Murray hit a two-run home run. The Baltimore Orioles scored six runs in the inning and won the game 6-4. Fidrych finished the season 6–4 with a 2.89 ERA and was again invited to the All-Star Game, but he declined the invitation due to injury. Still on the disabled list toward the end of the season, Fidrych worked as a guest color analyst on a Monday Night Baseball telecast for ABC; he was subsequently criticized for his lack of preparation, as when play-by-play partner Al Michaels tried talking with him about Philadelphia Phillies player Richie Hebner and Fidrych responded, "Who's Richie Hebner?" As an AL player, Fidrych had never had to face Hebner, who played in the National League.He pitched only three games in 1978, winning two, including an opening day win. On August 12, 1980, 48,361 fans showed up at Tiger Stadium to see what turned out to be his last attempt at a comeback. Fidrych pitched his last MLB game on October 1, 1980, in Toronto, going five innings and giving up four earned runs, while picking up the win in an 11–7 Tigers victory which was televised in Detroit.
At the end of the 1981 season, Detroit gave Fidrych his outright release and he signed as a free agent with the Boston Red Sox, playing for one of their minor league teams. However, his torn rotator cuff, still not diagnosed and left untreated, never healed. At age 29, he was forced to retire. Fidrych went to famed sports medicine doctor James Andrews in 1985. Dr. Andrews discovered the torn rotator cuff and operated; still, the damage already done to the shoulder effectively ended Fidrych's chance of coming back to a professional baseball career.
Fidrych remained cheerful and upbeat. In a 1998 interview, when asked who he would invite to dinner if he could invite anyone in the world, Fidrych said, "My buddy and former Tigers teammate Mickey Stanley, because he's never been to my house."
Fidrych lived with his wife Ann, whom he married in 1986, on a farm in Northborough. They had a daughter, Jessica. Aside from fixing up his farmhouse, he worked as a contractor hauling gravel and asphalt in a ten-wheeler. On weekends, he helped out in his mother-in-law's business, Chet's Diner, on Route 20 in Northborough; the diner was later operated by his daughter. He would also frequent the local baseball field to help teach and play ball with the kids.