e paused. He'd never done that before - he was always in a racehorse rush to get down to business - but then, he'd never seen anything like this before.
Oh, he'd charged out of the dugout as if he were storming an enemy fortress, as usual. When he arrived at the mound, breathless, he'd dropped to his knees and rearranged the dirt just so, as usual. And as he peered in at the catcher, he'd moved his lips constantly, conducting an apparent conversation with the baseball, as usual.
But now he couldn't help himself. He wanted to take all this in. So he slowly turned, first one way, then another, making a complete circle, surveying the scene at Veterans Stadium: the dugouts stuffed with the biggest names in the sport; the ABC cameras beaming this tableau to the world; the 63,974 Philadelphia fans bellowing in anticipation, including commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Gerald Ford - the president of the United States, for crying out loud. And as he peered back in at the catcher, one thought overwhelmed him: ''Seventy thousand people here, and if I don't throw the ball, they're still waiting.''
Who could blame him for wanting to freeze this moment forever? It was a strange time to be catching his breath, but it was about the first chance he'd had. Two head-spinning months, eight whirlwind weeks lifted from a fairy tale, had culminated in this: the starting pitching assignment for the American League in the 1976 All-Star Game.
Since May 15, when he'd thrown six no-hit innings and wound up with a two-hitter in his first major league start, he had metamorphosed from Mark Fidrych, the kid from nowhere - all right, from Northborough, Mass., but who had ever heard of that? - to Mark ''The Bird'' Fidrych, delightful alien from another baseball planet.
The success and saga built - to a 9-2 record and a 1.78 earned run average, punctuated by a 5-1 victory over the Yankees June 28 at Tiger Stadium, a nationally televised Monday night lovefest that 47,855 Detroit fans refused to leave until he took a curtain call. And in the process, he'd somehow become a phenomenon, a mania, a freakish deity almost.
Bruce Kimm, his personal catcher with the Tigers, had seen countless pieces of evidence, especially after a game in New York. Fidrych got in a car with some friends and was immediately engulfed by worshipping fans, making it look as if he were riding in a vehicle built entirely of human flesh.
Rusty Staub, the Detroit right fielder and his All-Star teammate, had never heard anything like the cacophonous salute that followed the Monday night win. He'd gone into the Tiger clubhouse, where Fidrych was undressing, and told the bewildered 21-year-old - ordered him, finally - to get back in uniform, because the foot-stomping, girder-shaking crazies chanting, ''We want the Bird,'' weren't going to be satisfied until he gave them an encore. Staub just about had to pull him down the runway, the euphoria echoing from above, and push him up the dugout steps, instructing him to use his cap like a clock, turning and doffing it at every imaginary 10-minute interval. Staub, a 14-year veteran, no longer was taken aback by much in baseball, but this was the greatest vicarious thrill he'd ever experienced.
It was like this all the time, all over. A Fidrych start was estimated to be worth at least an extra 20,000 fans on the road, and opposing clubs would call ahead, clamoring for him to take his turn in their town. For the woebegone Tigers, limping toward a fifth-place finish in the AL East, the rookie was responsible for an increase of 400,000 in attendance. And when they arrived in a new city, it was as if a rock tour had rolled in; the fans beseeched and besieged Fidrych, and while he was provided no special security, Ralph Houk, his 56-year-old manager, said he would volunteer to be his bodyguard, so much did he love the kid.
As much as the results Fidrych produced with his 93-mile-per-hour fastball, his impeccable control, his sinister sinker, and slider that dipped below a hitter's ankles - after the hapless soul had swung and missed - it was his antics and persona that enchanted the general populace.
They had bought the media's spin that his various quirks were a showman's flourishes. They didn't understand that there was a logical purpose to each so-called eccentricity.
The race to and from the mound was to keep him energized. The mound maintenance was to put the dirt in perfect order after the opposing pitcher had left an uncomfortable hole in his wake. The gladhanding of teammates after nice defensive plays was a spontaneous gesture of gratitude. And those chats with the ball actually were soliloquies in which he reinforced to himself what he needed to do. These were all things his father, Paul, an assistant school principal, had taught him from the time he was old enough to grip a ball, and no one had taken particular note of them before. Not even the previous year at Triple A Evansville, where, instead of walking around the railing in front of the dugout, he would jump over it.
But there was no misunderstanding the rest of it. His eagerness, his enthusiasm, his pure joy in playing the game were genuine. And his awe at being able to play it at the highest level - even for the major league minimum salary of $16,500 - was endearing. He was an original, a true innocent, who had people wondering, in veteran Tigers catcher Bill Freehan's words, ''This kid is from Boston? Shouldn't he be more sophisticated?''
An improbable pro
No, because that wasn't him. Never had been. While he was growing up in Northborough, playing baseball had been its own reward; he'd more or less stumbled into all this.
He had been unwittingly riding the wave since he and his pals from the Northgate neighborhood - Kevin Hart and Danny Coakley and Donnie Raycroft and Tommy Sullivan - made their own diamond in the field behind Mr. Dumas's house and Mr. Conway's place, where they'd spend every summer day unless they were playing over at Proctor School.
Back then, he wasn't merely a pitcher; he considered himself a player, a kid who'd go wherever just to get into a game. In fact, he spent his first summer of American Legion ball as a shortstop; it wasn't until the following year, when Tommy Sullivan beat him out at short, that he asked the coach, Ted Rolfe, for a chance to pitch.
Duly impressed as he watched the kid take his tryout throws, Rolfe said, ''Why didn't you tell me last year you could pitch?''
''Because you didn't ask,'' said Fidrych.
For the next three summers, he was Rolfe's ace, and the coach was forever grateful when he beat Northborough's archrival, Milford, each year on the Fourth of July before holiday crowds of 2,000-2,500.
But otherwise, he was still just a kid who wanted to play, and in high school at Algonquin Regional and during his senior year at Worcester Academy, he'd be at first base or in the outfield when he wasn't on the mound. Sure, Worcester coach Tom Blackburn knew he had something special and would save Fidrych for the toughest teams on the schedule: the Brown and Dartmouth and University of Massachusetts freshmen. But while both Rolfe and Blackburn marveled at Fidrych's intensity and enthusiasm and reverence for the game, they didn't project a major league future for him.
Neither did Fidrych.
The summer after his senior year, he went to work at Zecco & Co., a Northborough outfit that remodeled gas stations, among other projects. On weekends, he pumped gas at the local Sunoco station. His only ambition was to raise money for his freshman tuition at Old Dominion, where Blackburn had helped him gain admission - without a baseball scholarship - at the last minute. The baseball draft? He didn't know when it was. He didn't think it concerned him.
Even the day his buddy Jimmy Carlson, a baseball fanatic who devoured the sports pages, came roaring up to the Zecco lot on his Yamaha 250 and announced, ''Fidy. Tenth-round draft pick. Detroit Tigers,'' it didn't make much of an impact.
Not until the end of the week, when he came home from the gas station for lunch and found Joe Cusick, a Tiger scout, sitting there, did he realize he had an alternative to majoring in electrical engineering at Old Dominion, a destination with little appeal because he was a reluctant student.
Cusick asked him if he wanted to play pro ball. Fidrych didn't hesitate. ''What else am I gonna do?'' he asked himself. ''Go to college? I don't think so.''
So he signed on the spot for a $3,000 bonus, which went to car payments and to fulfill his Worcester Academy tuition obligation.
Only now did he begin to consider himself a pitcher, and even then, he wasn't sure what kind. At his first pro stop, Bristol, Tenn., of the Appalachian League in the summer of 1974, he was told he would be used as a long man. He had to ask what a long man was, and for the first two weeks, he discovered there was no need for one, so effective were the Bristol starters.
When roving minor league pitching coach John Grodzicki dropped by the bullpen to ask how things were going one day, Fidrych told him, ''I don't even know what a game looks like.''
Grodzicki provided his salvation. Alleycat Johnson wasn't doing the job, so Fidrych became the new short man. That's how he finished the season.
The following year, he shot through the system without even realizing it. At Single A Lakeland, he became a starter, though nobody told him why and he didn't ask.
He also picked up a nickname. Taking note of his brown tangle of unruly ringlets, Lakeland coach Jeff Hogan approached him on the bus one day and said, ''You're not Fid anymore. I watch `Sesame Street' with my little daughter, and you remind me of that guy, so from now on, you're `The Bird Man.'''
That didn't bother Fidrych in the least; he'd watched Big Bird with his kid sister, and, anyway, he didn't care what they called him as long as they kept pitching him.
They did, at different levels and in different roles. Not far into the season, the closer at Montgomery developed a sore arm, so Fidrych became a Double A short man. And when the incumbent returned, it was on to Evansville for Fidrych, a starter once again.
And a prospect, too, though again it was news to him.
A Tiger - without stripes
He was invited to the parent club's spring training at Lakeland in 1976, and he figured, ''Well, if they're gonna have me here, let me show what I can throw.''
But he was still just going with the flow, unaware that he was impressing the brass and his teammates, who disregarded his peripheral routine and loved playing behind him because, as his Single A catcher, Lance Parrish, put it, ''He worked fast, threw strikes, and kept the defense in the game.''
One by one, his fellow prospects were shipped out until late in camp, only Fidrych and Frank MacCormack remained. Even then, he assumed he'd be around for only another week or so, to serve as afterthought fodder in exhibition blowouts.
He was wrong. He clinched a major league roster spot in his final audition against Cincinnati, during which he impressed Reds manager Sparky Anderson not only with his pitching but with his exuberance. ''Like one of those big flies that flit all over the place,'' said Anderson. ''They hit a window and - boom! - they bounce off there and head somewhere else.''
Fidrych landed on the Detroit roster. General manager Jim Campbell gave him the news, along with orders to get to a Lakeland clothing store post haste and come back with a more suitable wardrobe than the T-shirts and cutoffs he always sported.
Fidrych returned emptyhanded, and Campbell growled, ''Where are those clothes I told you to buy?'' Fidrych explained that he couldn't afford any of the $100-and-up suits, and Campbell demanded, ''What about your signing bonus?'' Already gone, what little there was of it, explained Fidrych.
So Campbell took him in tow back to the store and told the clerk to put the purchases on his tab, sort of a bonus signing bonus. Fidrych promptly picked out four suits and a London Fog coat.
''So that's all it took?'' asked Campbell.
''Yeah, as long as it's your money,'' said Fidrych.
One oversight. He forgot about footwear, so his new ensemble was set off by a pair of tennis shoes.
He wasn't such an easy fit on the Detroit pitching staff. Houk had vowed not to throw him to the wolves, and for the first month and a half, his workload consisted of two relief appearances spanning one inning.
Only when his roommate, veteran righthander Joe Coleman, fell ill with the flu in mid-May did Fidrych get a start. He was supposed to be a one-time, emergency fill-in. But he proceeded to baffle the Indians - while network cameras cut away from the other Saturday afternoon telecasts and focused on his no-hit bid and unique sideshow - and earned a regular spot in the rotation.
Coleman soon was traded, and Fidrych went on his magical ride, though he had no time to digest its public relations implications; he was too caught up in baseball.
So he was stunned during a game the first week in July when Detroit publicist Vince Desmond went on the public address system at Tiger Stadium and informed the crowd, ''We have found out who is starting the All-Star Game and who the starting pitcher will be - our own Mark `The Bird' Fidrych.''
The game was immediately halted - the opposing pitcher simply stopped working for three or four minutes because of the distractions - while the crowd roared, Fidrych's teammates pushed him out of the dugout to absorb the adulation, and tears welled in the rookie's eyes. ''It's everybody's goal,'' he thought, ''and I've made it.''
An awestruck All-Star
The 24 hours before he stepped on the mound at the Vet had been the biggest blur as Fidrych's stream-of-consciousness routine - ''If it comes into his head,'' said All-Star outfielder Fred Lynn of the Red Sox, ''it comes out his mouth'' - took over Philadelphia.
On the eve of the game, he had been summoned to a luncheon at the All-Star hotel, the Bellevue-Stratford, where an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease would soon claim 29 lives. Nobody had told him about either the luncheon or the proper attire, so he showed up on the dais wearing a dungaree shirt with a flower print, only to discover that everyone else in the room was in suitcoat and tie.
The gathering was memorable for other reasons. Fidrych got introduced to many of his heroes - ''Pleased to meet you, Mr. Garvey,'' he told the Dodgers first baseman - but what struck him most was the arrogance of the National Leaguers. Pete Rose, Johnny Bench - the whole world champion Reds contingent, in particular - were serving humble pie for dessert. They'd won 12 of the last 13 All-Star Games, and they told Fidrych and his teammates, ''Why don't you guys just collect your meal money and go home?''
Then NL pitchers John Montefusco and starter Randy Jones switched identities when they introduced themselves to Fidrych. So when it came time for the standard photo of the opposing starting pitchers, Fidrych went up to Montefusco and said, ''Come on, Randy, they want us.'' And Montefusco cackled, ''You don't even know who you're pitching against, do you?''
That cinched it. Fidrych was now on a crusade to beat the NL.
On game night as the main event approached, fellow Tiger and All-Star Ron LeFlore informed Fidrych that President Ford wanted to meet the players, especially the Detroit representatives, since the president was a Michigander.
''Can't it wait until after the game?'' asked Fidrych. ''I'm trying to concentrate on the National League.''
Uh, no, it couldn't, LeFlore told him. So Fidrych, ''doing his Bird jibber-jabbering,'' according to another first-time All-Star, George Brett, met Ford, who invited him to take a private guided tour of the White House ''that the public doesn't get to see.'' The president would show him around himself, and if he weren't there, ''then his son, Chris Ford, said he'd do it,'' said Fidrych.
Actually, that would be Jack Ford, who recently had been in the news for dating Chris Evert, but Fidrych could be excused for the mixup. His mind still was elsewhere - on those cursed National Leaguers.
The NL got him
Now here he was atop the mound at the Vet, in prime time on July 13, the focal point of the baseball universe, with the game literally in the palm of his hand, where it had figuratively rested for two dizzying months. Finally, his reverie was interrupted when Rose, the NL leadoff batter, stepped to the plate.
Ever the pest, Rose - who had advised his teammates beforehand to lay off the low stuff and wait for a high pitch - reached him for a single. The next batter, Mr. Steve Garvey, sliced a triple to right beyond Staub's reach. Damn. Two batters and already it was 1-0. One out later, yet another of those blasted Reds, George Foster, brought in Garvey with a ground out.
The rest of his two-inning stint was uneventful, but Fidrych left with a 2-0 deficit, and he would go down in history as the losing pitcher in the NL's 7-1 romp.
He also was denied one of his secondary goals, a chance to hit. He'd brought along a bat and helmet from Detroit, and when it came time for the pitcher's spot in the order in the top of the third, he begged AL manager Darrell Johnson of the Red Sox for the opportunity to use them.
''Sorry,'' said Johnson. ''You've given up too many runs.''
''Not even for a pitch or two?'' pleaded Fidrych.
''No,'' said Johnson, ''because I know you'll swing.''
As a consolation prize, Hal McRae, who would pinch hit for him, let Fidrych stand in the on-deck circle until his turn came. Then Fidrych retreated into the AL dugout. He went up and down the line, shaking each man's hand, thanking them all for making his All-Star debut memorable.
And he was gone.
A starcrossed career
He never pitched in an All-Star Game again. He seldom pitched in the majors again. After finishing the 1976 season with a 19-9 record and league-leading 2.34 ERA that earned him Rookie of the Year honors, he was standing next to Staub in Lakeland the following spring, recklessly shagging flies as the mood struck.
Staub called him over to the sidelines and sternly lectured him for 20 minutes, telling him he was too valuable a commodity, had too good a thing going, to be cavorting like this. Be careful, Staub admonished. Take it easy.
When they returned to the outfield, a fly ball headed their way. Fidrych asked Staub if he was going to get it. Staub declined. So Fidrych leaped for the ball - and when he landed, he ripped up cartilage in his knee. ''I don't know which hurt worse,'' he says now, ''my knee or my head after Rusty whacked me with his glove and said, `What did I just tell you?'''
After a delayed start to his season, he pitched well enough to be selected an All-Star again, but he never made it to the game at Yankee Stadium. Just before the break, having unintentionally altered his motion to favor his surgically repaired knee, he felt something give in his right shoulder.
It never came around, though at the time, nobody knew exactly why. Not until 1985 was the problem diagnosed: a rotator cuff torn in the front and back. Fidrych underwent surgery to fix it, but by then, he'd been out of the majors for five years, having gone 10-10 since his rookie joyride, and he'd retired from baseball in 1983 after yet another abortive comeback, this time with the Red Sox' Triple A affiliate in Pawtucket.
Today he lives modestly in Northborough with his wife, Ann, and 12-year-old daughter, Jessica, in a modernistic three-bedroom house that overlooks a 107-acre farm Fidrych is restoring. Since leaving baseball, he's been a subcontractor, hauling asphalt and gravel in his 10-wheel truck. The house, the farm, and the truck all were purchased with money from his second major league contract.
''I got a great life now,'' he says, sitting in his living room as the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park approaches. ''I got a family, I got a house, I got a dog. I would like my career to have been longer, but you can't look back. You have to look to the future.''
In fact, he has only one regret. He never took that White House tour with one of the Fords.
Peter Gammons
Red Sox
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