The Bird game

I don't know how many Tiger fans remember this date, although I'm sure many do: June 28, 1976. I call it the Bird game: it was the game which shot Mark Fidrych to national fame. I watched it as a sixteen year old, and it is (outside of World Series wins, and then only arguably) my favorite Tigers' game.

Rookie Mark Fidrych, nicknamed the Bird, threw a complete game 5-1 victory over the New York Yankees in a nationally televised Monday night contest. My son found a copy of the event on a VHS tape at a rummage sale and picked it up. The tape was labeled simply, The Fidrych Game. We watched it the day before Memorial Day. Yes, I still have a tape player hooked up to my TV.

Fidrych was a character. He groomed the pitchers's mound, he talked to himself, he thanked the players behind him after good plays. He was certainly unique.

I was struck by how quickly the game was played: I counted typically only 8 - 9 seconds between pitches. That's how you're supposed to play: keep it moving. But far more than that was watching the simple, childlike excitement of the Bird as he pitched. He put on no airs, there was no bravado. He was not grandstanding. He was just playing baseball. And having fun at it.

Then the cheers after the last out were amazing. Tiger Stadium rocked with the chant, "We want Bird! We want Bird!" until he came out for the curtain call. The broad smile, the happiness on his face; he was just so sincere. You don't see that on athletes, and that's a shame. Because games should be fun more than anything else, even, perhaps especially, at that level.

The chills still ran down down my spine, 43 years later, watching that game with my son. Detroit Tigers fans who never saw the Bird missed something that was missing even from the World Series championship teams. They missed the most deserving player ever to don the Old English D. Perhaps the most deserving player ever to take the field in a Major League Baseball game.