By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – As 6.8 inches of frosted flakes-sized snow fell this week on the Woo-Sox new digs in Worcester, Massachusetts this week, Major League Baseball recognized Jackie Robinson Day while MLB.com also celebrated the 40-year anniversary of Fernando-Mania and the amazing 1981 season of LA Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, the Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year winner of that amazing baseball season.
MLB’s annual tribute allows every player in the league to wear No. 42 and it’s probably the ultimate tribute to any one player of any pro sports league anywhere. Every April 15th, MLB dedicates all of its resources to memorializing the great Brooklyn Dodgers player who broke the color barrier for the majors.
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It’s wonderful, as every year new fans of the game are introduced to the story of the great Jackie Robinson. Simply put, it’s a pleasure to behold albeit a daunting challenge to official scorers everywhere in the league.
While not on the level of Jackie Robinson, Fernando Valenzuela deserves praise, especially from the greater Los Angeles area and from a nation of Mexican fans who enjoyed every minute of the full ride of Valenzuela’s MLB career.
“El Toro” broke onto the MLB scene in 1980 and pitched in only 10 games, going (2-0) in 17.2 innings pitched. He struck out 16 batters and allowed eight hits and two runs, none earned. His WHIP (walks, hits over Innings Pitched) was a low 0.74.
The magic of “Fernando-Mania” would come a year later, in 1981, when he went (13-7) over 192.1 innings, earned a 2.48 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP while striking out 180 batters and holding his opponents to a .205 batting average. His performance was limited by the ‘81 MLB player’s strike. Valenzuela’s magical run lasted another nine seasons with the Dodgers, until 1991 when he was released by the Dodgers and picked up, first by the California Angels, then bouncing around to the Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres and eventually retiring from MLB as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.
On December 20, 2006, in Mexicali, BC, Mexico, Valenzuela started for Los Aguilas de Mexicali in the last professional game of his career.
All that aside, that ‘81 season started a five-year run which built to the 1986 season when he went (21-11), threw 20 complete games and struck out a career-high 242 along with earning Gold Glove honors.
MLB dot com recognized the 40th anniversary of Valenzuela’s ‘81 season in a big way and it was fabulous to see this week.
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As you might expect with this column’s goal to zig when everyone else zags, so let’s note there’s another anniversary to be recognized this summer, as it’s the 35th year since the Summer of ‘76, MLB’s celebration of the “Bi-Centennial” and the Summer of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, he who was born in the place of 6.8 inches of April 16, 2021 snowfall.
Fidrych made his MLB rookie debut on April 20, 1976. So sadly, 33 years later – to the exact date – he died in a freak truck accident on his Northborogh, Massachusetts farm, suffocating as his clothes were caught up in the drive shaft underneath his truck.
Back in the Spirit of ‘76, any baseball fan alive recalls the amazing antics and the success they brought to a rookie pitcher for the Detroit Tigers.
Fidrych made the Tigers roster as a non-roster invitee to the Tigers’ spring training and, although he made his debut on April 20, he only pitched one inning through mid-May. In his third MLB appearance on May 15, Fidrych made his first major league start, caught by Bruce Kimm, his battery-mate from 1975 at Triple A minors in Evansville. He held the Cleveland Indians hitless through six innings and tossed an impressive two-hit, (2–1) complete game victory, issuing only one walk while striking-out five batters.
For baseball fans, it wasn’t the 2-1 win nor the two-hitter that caught their attention, but it was the fact Fidrych frequently paced the mound and talked to the baseball during his pre-pitch warm-ups. Fidrych would strut around the mound, manicure the dirt on the surface of the mound and near the pitching rubber, never allowing the grounds crew to go near his work of art, all the while talking to the baseballs.
Fidrich’s 1980s-style hair, curly and free-flowing earned his his nickname of “The Bird” as he had somewhat of a resemblance to Sesame Street’s “Big Bird” and at 6-foot-three, no one argued with the connection.
Here’s a glimpse of what happened that summer:
- May 25: Fidrych started at Fenway Park in Boston and pitched in front of busloads of his friends and family from nearby Worcester and Northborough but lost when he allowed a two-run homer to Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski while his Tigers fell to a Luis Tiant masterpiece shut-out.
- May 31: Fidrych pitched an 11-inning complete game victory over the Milwaukee Brewers and momentum began to build.
- June 5: He pitched another 11-inning complete game victory over the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas.
- June 11: Fidrych pitched another 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 yet another 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 in Boston with his friends and family in the stands, yet again. He gave up back-to-back home runs to Fred Lynn and Yastrzemski but won the game in his sixth consecutive start.
- June 28: Only four days later, Fidrych pitched before 47,855 at Tiger Stadium and an ABC Sports Monday Night Baseball national television audience in the millions, and Fidrych and the Tigers earned a 5–1 complete-game victory over the ‘76 World Series bound New York Yankees. With Fidrych’s pace, the game took only an hour and 51 minutes and Tigers fans would not leave the stadium until The Bird emerged from the dugout for a celebratory 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, shutting out the Baltimore Orioles, 4–0, and improving to 9–1 in ten starts. He reduced his earned run average (ERA) to 1.85.
- July 9: Pitching in front of a sell-out crowd of 51,041 at Tiger Stadium, Fidrych held the KC Royals to one run in nine innings, but run support was non-existent as Dennis Leonard shut out the Tigers, 1–0. Despite the loss, Detroit fans refused to leave the stadium, once again, until “The Bird” made a curtain call.
- July 13: Mark “The Bird” Fidrych became only the second rookie to start in the MLB All-Star Game (following Dave Stenhouse in 1962) but he gave up two earned runs in the first inning, none in the second, and took the loss.
- Fidrych got back to his winning ways after the MLB All-Star break and won his tenth game, a 1–0 victory over the Oakland A’s. Four days later in Minneapolis, before Fidrych’s 13th start, the Minnesota Twins released an unlucky 13 homing pigeons on the mound before the game. According to Fidrych, “they tried to do that to blow my concentration,” but he went out and pitched another complete game, an 8–3 win, to improve his record to 11–2.
On the 1976 season, Fidrych went (19-9) with 24 complete games and 250 innings pitched. He struck-out 97 batters and registered a 2.34 ERA and a 1.079 WHIP. He finished second to Jim Palmer in the 1976 American League Cy Young award voting and 11th in the AL MVP voting. He won the AL Rookie of the Year with all but two of the first place votes.
His 1977-through-1980 MLB seasons could not match-up with the magical year of ‘76 after he tore cartilage in his knee, fooling around in the outfield during his 1977 spring training sessions. At the end of the ‘81 season, the Tigers released The Bird and he was signed by the Boston Red Sox. Fidrych reported to the minors but he did not make it back to the majors. A torn rotator cuff injury was later diagnosed, in 1985, an injury he must’ve suffered during a July 4, 1977 game when he suddenly felt his arm “go dead.”
Fidrych had retired from baseball in 1983 at the tender age of 29 years old.
Fidrych lived with his wife, Ann, whom he married in 1986, and they settled nicely, living on a 107-acre 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 died, as noted above, on April 13, 2009 at the age of 54.
To my knowledge and via research online, there were no mentions of Fidrych this past week.
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