Oh, no - Mark Fidrych has died. Only 54. His baseball career was sad enough - in a way - coming up, brilliant, just brilliant, for a year, then hurt, and done, after scratching around a few more years... Though more than brilliant, how many players have been more fun to watch? I can just about remember watching him - certainly remember all the highlights every weekend on TWIB. (Or would if TWIB had been on the air in 1976 - it started in 1977? holy crap! So where did I see him? Game of the week? 18 games against Boston? Weird.) (What a different game it was then: compare those strikeout numbers, 1976 to 2008 - 2 teams struck out 900 in 1976 - everyone struck out 900 last year. 4 Red Sox starters matched or exceeded anyone on the '76 Tigers in K's - the Tigers, of course, were led by their closer - who threw 121 innings... All this to provide context to the remark at Lawyers, Guns and Money, that Fidrych only had 97 strikeouts in 250 innings that year.) I wanted to watch him for years - what a shame that he couldn't do it... And now - what a shame that he's not going to get to live out a long good life...
And a hell of a week for baseball - Nick Adenhart, Phillies announcer Harry Kalas, now the Bird...
And finally - very weird that there's nothing on YouTube, though it's hard to say who has tapes of those old games... Here's an interview from 1985, which has a few clips of him pitching, and gives a good idea of his personality... and that cool western Mass accent...
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