Goodbye, Bird

The very fine baseball writers Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski write about Detroit Tigers phenom Mark Fidrych, who died Monday in an accident on his Massachusetts farm. Fidrych was 54.

I don't think I can explain to anyone who wasn't a baseball fan in 1976 just how popular "The Bird" was. If I said more popular than Manny, Junior, CC, and Jeter put together, you wouldn't believe me, but it's true.

The MLB Network recently ran Fidrych's amazing MONDAY NIGHT BASEBALL start against the Yankees as a segment of its ALL-TIME GAMES series. I suspect it will be running again, so catch it if you can. It will explain better than any blog post what was so magical about The Bird.