Baseball trivia question re Thurman Munson & Mark Fidrych

HoofHearted

Okay you Thurman Munson (or The Bird?) fans, here's a question to test your familiarity with his career: What is the "minor feud" which supposedly took place between these two players according to this 1977 Rolling Stone article? I've got a couple scans of the cover, a picture and the part of the article mentioning the "feud". As I've mentioned before, the 1970s were a "black hole" in my sporting life as I spent time in the service, partying, going to college, partying, etc. etc. and partying some more...

The cover:



An accompanying photo of The Bird man:



And the article in question. Please note the sentence three-fourths of the way down the first paragraph:



Just curious...

lostdart58

This should explain:


Not everyone loved the Bird, of course. Yankees captain Thurman Munson growled, "Tell that guy that if he pulls that s hit in New York we'll blow his ass out of town." (The Bird nearly laid a goose egg on the Yanks, surrendering only a solo homer, in his dominating debut at the Stadium.)

tkd7

<< <i>This should explain:


Not everyone loved the Bird, of course. Yankees captain Thurman Munson growled, "Tell that guy that if he pulls that s hit in New York we'll blow his ass out of town." (The Bird nearly laid a goose egg on the Yanks, surrendering only a solo homer, in his dominating debut at the Stadium.) >>



Actually, that debut against the Yankees was at Tiger Stadium.

For Fidrych's first trip to Yankee Stadium:
August 4, 1976

Fidrych faced the Yankees last night for the first time since that Monday night game in June where he beat the Yankees and gained national recognition for his pitching and his antics on the mound. This one was played in Yankee Stadium before 44,000 noisy Yankee fans.

The Tigers got off to a good start in this one. In the first inning, Ron Leflore singled and stole second. Rusty Staub walked with one out. Willie Horton reached on an error by Graig Nettles and Leflore scored on another error by Sandy Alomar. Jason Thompson then hit a sacrifice fly to score Staub.

The Yankees came back in the third. Fred Stanley led off with a single. One out later, Roy White hit a two run homer to tie the game 2-2.

It didn’t take long for the Tigers to get the lead back. In the top of the 4th, Veryzer led off with a single. Rusty Staub followed with a walk. Horton then singled to score Veryzer for the go ahead run. The Tigers led 3-2 after 4 innings.

In the Yankee 7th, Nettles led off with a single. Oscar Gamble followed with a two run home run to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead. This was only the second time Fidrych had given up more than one homer in a game. He has allowed 7 homers in 16 starts for the season. John Hiller replaced The Bird in the 8th. The final score was 4-3 Yankees. Fidrych is now 11-4 and still leads the league with a 1.96 ERA.

Billy Martin tried to psych out Fidrych before the game. He bought some black beans and had Nettles spread them around the mound before The Bird pitched in the first inning. After the game, Martin said: “I was feeding the Bird during the game. You’re allowed to feed the Bird, aren’t you? I fed The Bird home runs.” It wasn’t all bad from Martin though. Later, he admitted: ”He’s a damn good pitcher, that kid. He’s colorful too.”

Fidrych said that he saw the beans but ignored them. He also had no excuses: ”I can’t believe it. Those pitchers were low and they golfed them out. I talked to the ball but that’s life I guess. I shoulda won the game. But I blew it. I had my defense behind me. They played un-godly behind me and I gave up two taters.”

HoofHearted

Thanks for the update, guys. I did some more research and found the following from SI.com:



<< <i>The Bird's breakout moment came at the end of June, when he brought a 7-1 record and a 2.18 ERA into a game against the Yankees on national TV. The Tigers drew an extra 18,000 fans for the games Fidrych started that year, and close to 50,000 chanted his name as Fidrych tamed the first-place Yankees 5-1. After the game, reporters asked the rookie what he thought about the disparaging comments Yankees catcher Thurman Munson had made about him earlier in the day. With complete sincerity, Fidrych replied, "Who's Thurman Munson?" >>



Fun stuff! Wish I would've been paying more attention to BB in the '70s. I missed out on a lot of action!

stown

You learn something new every day.

Thanks for sharing

5STAT

And today...Mark can be seen driving his construction equipment around Westborough, MA and the local area. Laying pavement and doing cinstruction..

Far fetch from the diamond!!

RoarIn84

Yeah, too bad about his injury. I was born in the 'spirit of 76' and didn't get to really enjoy his glory days, but I do have a BEAUTIFUL copy of that Tigers/Yanks game at Tiger Stadium, complete with the interview and commercials. I watch it regularly like I watch my favorite movies! The wife thinks I'm nuts, but who cares? That game was a month before I was born. All I can feel when watching this is 'WOW' what a game, what a time, what a character!!! That curtain call he takes at the end is priceless and one of my favorite moments in baseball! The Tigers were HORRIBLE that year, but The Bird still nabbed 19 wins and sold out the stadium every time!

calaban7

I saw the BIRD pitch a couple of times. The way he acted , reminded me of someone that like to handle the stokey. His talking to the ball drove the batter nuts , as it normally worked. I think Graig Nettles had this routine when he faced Fidrych where he would talk to his bat, like Fidrych talked to the ball. Nettles went 7 for 18 , with 2 HR's against him . One game he went oh- fer against him, and some reporter asked him ,"What happened ?" Nettles with all seriousness explained he had just cracked his bat and the bat he picked up wasn't made in America and didn't understand english.

Mark Fidrych was good for baseball that year. The management simply burned his arm up. He had 24 complete games with 5 games over 10 innings pitched.

HoofHearted

All right! Fun stories! Thanks for taking the time to share them. I was hoping there'd be some background to that passing reference in Rolling Stone...