God-damn-it.

[janradder]

Mark Fidrych, aka The Bird, died in an accident on his farm.

I loved Mark Fidrych when I was a kid. I loved how he used to talk to the ball and demand a new one when he felt the one he had wasn't cooperating. I loved how weird the guy was. I didn't understand then that players got injured, so when he disappeared from baseball I really had no idea why, but I always remembered him for being really unique.

Comments

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

My dad and his friends loved him, back then, too. I hadn't thought about him in forever...wow.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

He was from Massachusetts so the Boston Globe would occasionally do articles about him, otherwise, I don't think I would have thought about him in forever either. After he retired from baseball, he just kind of disappeared, though he seemed pretty happy.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

That's a shame. I loved watching him, that rookie season of his. If he hadn't been injured, who knows what me might have accomplished in his career.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I was too young to know anything other than that he was a pitcher and seemed to win a lot of games during that rookie season, but he was funny, which, to my five year old self, made him the greatest pitcher ever. It was too bad about those injuries. Nineteen wins as a rookie is pretty damn impressive.

[pierogi-queen.livejournal.com]

Grandpa liked him too - I remember him talking about this goofy pitcher who talked to the ball and would want a new when if the "luck" in the one he was using got all used up.

Do you remember seeing him when the Red Sox had the ring presentations for the 2004 World Series?

[janradder.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't get to watch the ring ceremony because mlb.tv didn't carry it -- just the game. I knew he was at Fenway to throw out the first pitch quite a few times.

In our local paper, Bert Blyleven related a story Graig Nettles told him which was that, in an effort to throw him off his game, Nettles had scattered birdseed around the mound. Instead of being distracted, Fidrych got on the ground to groom the mound and ate the birdseed, then went on to shut out the Yankees.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's so sad. I'm sorry, Jan.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It really is sad.

[sacwentie.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's sad.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Yeah. In the comments section for one of the articles I read about him, there were a lot of people who knew him and all of them said what a nice, humble guy he was.