* Lest we forget: Mark Fidrych

What a shocker to learn The Bird had passed away so suddenly.

I remember seeing Fidrych beat the Yankees on an ABC Monday Night Baseball telecast in 1976 during a day off from the summer camp where I coached the softball team. His antics drew rave reviews from the announcers and appreciation from the fans.

Fidrych published No Big Deal (with Tom Clark, J.B. Lippincott) in 1977. This was the first case I can remember from my readings where a player  came out with an autobiography so early in his career. Hope he made a few bucks off of it, since he didn’t hang around too long.

Here’s what Kirkus had to say about the book:

Last year’s baseball wunderkind, Detroit pitcher Mark Fidrych, gets a fine assist from poet and baseball nut Tom Clark who puts the Big Bird’s “”disjunctive rambles”” into semi-coherent prose. Fidrych is a naif, an exuberant bubble-head … more » who violates most of the rules of jockdom. Beginning with his insouciance about his own talents. “”I just played the game, I didn’t pay much attention to it.”” After he was signed by Detroit, he traveled the minor league circuit with gleeful ease and got better and better the higher he rose–from Class A to Triple A to a two-hitter in his first start for the Tigers. Was it talent? Brains? Hard work? Fidrych credits “”the winning atmosphere.”” Voom! That’s his favorite all-purpose word and it does seem to describe both the trajectory and velocity of his pitches and his career, if he lost it all tomorrow, Fidrych supposes he could always go back to messing with the innards of cars. Would the city of Detroit mount an insurrection if he were traded? Probably. But, like his huge and instant fame–“”it’s no big deal.

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