When Mark Fidrych Brought Down Tigers Stadium

I was 11 years old when Monday Night Baseball came to Tigers Stadium 50 years ago. My father took me and my 16-year-old brother to it. We drove all the way from Jackson but were turned away. It was sold out.

My dad was astonished. The previous year the Tigers lost 102 games. Those games we attended in 1975 took place in a cavernous stadium.

My father didn’t like dealing with ticket scalpers. Once a scalper tried to pitch my dad tickets behind home plate—prime seats. My dad took the tickets, walked 10 feet to the ticket office, and asked where the seats were located. He was told left field foul pole.

On June 28, 1976, even those seats would have been great. But this time, the ticket scalper just shook his head. No deal. He had no tickets left.

No tickets left? The Tigers were three games under .500 and 11 games out of first place. They hadn’t even reached the All-Star break yet.

“It’s The Bird,” the scalper said with a shrug.

The Bird was Mark Fidrych.

And if you weren't around for his magical summer of 1976, it's hard to explain what happened next. The wildest ride in Detroit Tigers history was just beginning, and this Monday Night Baseball game was the night the rest of America climbed aboard.

My dad drove us back home. We were able to catch the last few innings on TV. Usually, we watched sports down in the basement. But this time, the TV sat in the middle of the dining room table as my entire family, including two sisters and my mom, all were glued to this 21-year-old kid doing a Jack LaLanne workout on the mound before every pitch.

And when Fidrych got the final out and the Tigers won 6-1, the drama reached out and grabbed you: The fans chanting for Fidrych; the announcers pleading for the Tigers to retrieve Fidrych; and then it happened.

“And here he comes! Here he comes!” the announcer exclaimed.

The Bird emerged for his encore. Fidrych didn’t want it. He looked like a man refusing a reward for returning a lost wallet filled with $100 bills. But he came out momentarily, just a few steps past the dugout steps and tipped his cap. The crowd roared.

The Bird took three steps into the dugout, put his hands over his head, and doubled over as if he lost his breath. The fans wouldn’t quit.

A team official quickly retrieved Fidrych and led him back to the third-base line so the entire crowd could see what had just become the biggest attraction in baseball. Fidrych stumbled, overcome by the show of affection.

Fidrych had turned a usually laid-back baseball crowd into a bunch of chanting, delirious college football fans. The game ended on a simple ground out to second base, but it sure felt like a kickoff return for a touchdown.

Fidrych jolted off the mound, as if he was chasing the ball down himself. Once he witnessed the game ending, he turned and dashed to hug his catcher, Bruce Kimm, in a celebration similar to the famous Bill Freehan-Mickey Lolich embrace after the Tigers won the 1968 World Series.

That moment wasn’t lost on the announcing team.

“And the Tigers act like Fidrych has just won the seventh game of the World Series!” Warner Wolf exclaimed.

Fidrych then went to shake the hands of all his teammates, and in the confused excitement, even a Tiger Stadium grounds crew worker got in on the handshaking.

“I’ve been in baseball 35 years, I have never in my life seen anything to equal this,” Bob Prince, one of the Monday Night Baseball announcers, told viewers.

Later, baseball announcers, old time sportswriters, and even managers who were old enough to have played with Babe Ruth agreed they had never witnessed an encore for a player who simply won a regular season game in June.

The phenomenon of that night could never be recreated in modern times. Fidrych’s fame was earned. He went viral for not only being one of the top pitchers in baseball, but for his unusual antics.

He claimed to talk to the baseball, which sportswriters loved to repeat as if Fidrych was some spaced-out surfer dude. In reality, it was Fidrych’s way of talking to himself to reinforce what he had to do to get the batter out.

He got on his knees like a kid in a sandbox to smooth out the pitching mound because he didn’t like the grooves left by the opposing pitchers whose feet would leave holes from constant landing after every pitch.

Instead, in the 1970s, the newspapers painted him as a “flake.” The fans saw him as authentic.

And sports fans living in Michigan in 1976 were starving to be a part of something that mattered.

A national TV audience for a Detroit professional sporting event was rare. The Detroit Lions would get a token annual appearance on Monday Night Football and the Thanksgiving Day game.

Growing up in the 1970s, it was a big deal when Howard Cosell would include a 10-second clip of a Detroit Lions game during his halftime highlight show on Monday Night Football.

There was a Major League Baseball game of the week on Saturdays that often featured the World Series contenders such as the Reds, Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox.

Because of the special Monday night broadcast, this was the one time the nation could watch a Detroit Tigers game. And what a show Fidrych put on.

That game set off Bird Mania. That season, Fidrych would become the starting pitcher for the American League All-Stars and meet the Beach Boys, Elton John, Frank Sinatra, and even President Gerald Ford.

I was fortunate enough to watch The Bird pitch a few times that season from seats in the stadium. He won each time.

And if I close my eyes, sometimes I remember the Tiger Stadium concrete vibrating under me as over 45,000 fans stomped their feet and yelled, “We want The Bird!”

I’ve never experienced anything like that since.