Mid-April of 2011 will mark the 35th anniversary of Mark Fydrich's MLB debut with the Detroit Tigers, and it will also mark the second anniversary of his death.
A few years before Larry Bird became a well-known sports figure, Fydrich was “The Bird,” the one and only original. Like Dizzy Dean, he had a brief and luminous stellar season, marred by a freak injury.
Few of the younger generation may recall the man who spoke volumes to the baseball when he pitched. He looked gangly, like some kind of ostrich or big-boned bird, and hence he quickly gained the nickname “The Bird.”
Fydrich pitched for the Detroit Tigers during his best year, which happened to be his rookie season, in 1976.
It was the decade of wild attitudes among ballplayers. On the Red Sox you could find the other free-spirit pitcher, Bill Lee, who coined a group called the Buffalo Heads. Had Fydrich played with the Red Sox those years, he would have been one of the charter members.
Lee, whose moniker was “The Spaceman,” mentioned in his 2006 documentary, A Baseball Odyssey, that he often has been mistaken for Fydrich. They never played together. Fydrich sustained a baseball-ending injury, and he tried to come back with the Red Sox in 1981, but by then, The Spaceman had gone north to Montreal.
The two strangest ball players of their era were pitchers Lee (a lefty) and Fydrich (a right-hander).
In 1976, rookie Fydrich won 19 games and had an awesome ERA of 2.34. It was his antics, combined with his pitching, that won him cult status.
Fydrich's teammates on the Tigers thought him an odd bird, and with Sesame Street’s Big Bird a hit on television, he found himself christened with an immortal tag. He and Big Bird appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in June of 1977, one of the most enduring and endearing SI covers.
During games, Fydrich often rejected baseballs, throwing them back to the umpire because they were clearly baseballs with “hit” written all over them. He performed rituals on the mound, including talking to the baseball.
Beating the Yankees on national television made him a celebrity that year. Cities with poor baseball attendance found themselves with sellout crowds if it were announced that “The Bird” was pitching that day.
Fydrich out-dueled Bert Blyleven, Dock Ellis, Gaylord Perry and Nolan Ryan during his outstanding year. He won Rookie of the Year for the American League, but lost out on the Cy Young Award to Jim Palmer.
The magical time did not last long. The next spring training, Fydrich tore cartilage in his knee. Weeks later, he tried pitching and found he may have twisted his delivery. He later said his arm simply went dead. At 29, his baseball career was over, despite a few comeback attempts.
“The Bird” stayed in New England where he was born in Worcester, Mass. He owned a farm in nearby Northborough, married and started a family. For over 20 years he lived happily, his free spirit undamaged.
In April of 2009, a brutal accident with a dump truck on his farm ended his life and stole a baseball legend from us.
We pause today to think of “The Bird,” whom baseball misses greatly.
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