When Mark Fidrych comes back to Michigan, as he did twice this month, he immediately becomes The Bird. He is still famous here, 30 years after he did anything fame-worthy. When people recognize Fidrych, what do they ask about?
"The season," he said.
It needs no clarification. He really only had one.
The year was 1976, which was perfect. If Mark Fidrych had come along 15 years earlier or 15 years later, he wouldn't have had such universal appeal. In 1961, many would have been appalled by his showmanship; in 1991, they would have figured he was a phony.
But 1976 was just right for the pitcher they called The Bird. In 1976 a man could be different without being an outcast; he could have long hair and talk to the baseball before he pitched without too much backlash. And ballplayers still were part of the working class. (He made the major league minimum of $16,500.)
Fidrych didn't just talk to the ball. When somebody got a hit off him, he spit out his gum and refused to use that ball again. He jumped over the white lines on his way to the mound. He got his nickname, The Bird, because minor league manager Jeff Hogan said he walked like Big Bird.
He was famously unsophisticated. The stories abounded: He didn't know who Yankees star Thurman Munson was. He always checked pay phones for loose change. His wardrobe was so raggedy, general manager Jim Campbell had to buy him a suit.
Fidrych had to be seen to be believed. This explains why Tiger Stadium attendance shot up every time he pitched.
Did he see himself as eccentric?
"No," he said last week in his thick Massachusetts accent. "I saw myself as a ballplayah."
So why do people remember him so well?
"Ah," he said, "I was a winnah."
And this leads to the next question people ask Fidrych:
"What happened to your arm?"
In 1976, Fidrych was 19-9 with a big league-best 2.34 ERA. He started the All-Star Game ... at 22.
But after one season, Fidrych's major league career was more than half over. He injured his knee in spring training in 1977, came back healthy, and then ...
"I was playing Baltimore in Baltimore and about the fifth inning something happened," Fidrych said. "The arm just went dead."
He had torn his rotator cuff. He was about to live every pitcher's nightmare, except he didn't know why. Nobody diagnosed the torn rotator cuff until 1985.
