The Baseball Book Club discussion

This will be the discussion thread for the November biography selection, "The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych." Starting discussion question to follow.

I just finished this book and enjoyed it. Where is the discussion question/s?

I couldn't find any discussion questions online when I searched, and since I have not read it yet, I couldn't start the discussion. I would say just go ahead and give us your thoughts on the book and we can go from there.

PS MLB network is re-airing The Bird this week or next.

I found it by accident last night, but because it was already 20 minutes in, I decided to monitor the schedule so I can either see the whole thing or DVR it.

I just posted my review of this book here on Goodreads - you can find it by clicking on the cover at the top of this thread. It will be posted to my blog tomorrow but I wanted to add a couple of thoughts on the book here as well to get some more discussion going since there were no good discussion questions to start.

What I really liked about the book, and I mention this in the review, is how Fidrych's life after baseball is captured. Granted, this may have been out of necessity because his career was so brief, but this book has a really good picture of his life outside of the game. I loved the story when he introduced his farm animals to SI Writer Gary Smith.

Also, I want to add a personal note as I was lucky enough to be at Metropolitan Stadium the one game that Fidrych pitched against the Twins in 1976. Doug writes about the lasting memory I had from it - when Fidrych walked toward first base after Tony Oliva got his fourth hit of the game and congratulated Oliva. From my vantage point of the second deck of the left field bleachers, all I saw was the walk toward first base and tip of the cap, but I thought it was because he knew that Oliva was one of the game's better hitters when both knees were healthy. Before reading this book, I didn't know Fidrych knew so little about other players in the game. This story and the "Thurman Who?" quote were LOL moments while reading the book.

So ... I guess the author captures quite nicely, the very essence of Fidyrich. I just may have to put this book on my reading list, if I didn't already do so.

I have it on order-Amazon disappointed me. I got Wrigleyville and Iowa Confederacy but not The Bird yet

I really enjoyed this book. Fidrych was a little before my time, but I'd always heard about him and seen brief clips. I didn't even know that this book existed - so I was glad to hear about it from this forum.
I think that the author did a great job not only capturing Fidrych and his personality, but also the context (time and place) as well.
Definitely catch the MLB doc if you can!

Thanks for the nice comments.

Going in I had no idea what Fidrych was really like. All I had to go on was the popular view in the print of the day, which was largely repeated over and over through the years.

After doing the research, I thought the key to the Fidrych story was his true personality. I felt that the media did him a disservice by largely portraying him as a goofball. The more people I talked to who knew him, the more I thought I should try to show what he was really like.

Some biographies, the only thing you need to say about the guy's post-baseball career is "he made a lot of money signing autographs and played a lot of golf." That was definitely not the case with Fidrych.

When I visited his hometown I ate pizza one night with his sister and her husband and listened as they went on and on telling stories. The next day I did the same thing in a garage with some of his friends. Just being a fly on the wall while they went through the years, laughing and sometimes almost crying was an eye-opening experience into his true nature and how he touched the people around him.

Also, in response to Patricia, I thought the times in which he played were absolutely critical to the Bird's story. If he had hit the majors in the '60s or '90s it wouldn't have been nearly the same in terms of his impact, fun and the fans' reaction. It was really the perfect storm in terms of timing.

Lance wrote: "I just posted my review of this book here on Goodreads - you can find it by clicking on the cover at the top of this thread. It will be posted to my blog tomorrow but I wanted to add a couple of th..."

Cool story Lance. I had no idea you were there. That was one of his famous games. Must have been great to see it.

And I loved his line about Oliva, "Oh that guy. I don't know who he is but he's a really good hitter."

Yes, that was the time I took a lot of bus trips to the Met, before Mom and Stepfather got tired of me spending money at games, so I decided the next year to make money at the park (had to wait until the Vikings season started as I didn't turn 16 during the 1977 baseball season). The two of them were on their honeymoom that week and my brother was at our grandparents' house.

So...what's a 14 year old to do when he has the house to himself but hop on the bus and head to the ballpark to see the most exciting pitcher that year?

That was the game they had to hold up about a half an hour to start because so many people were coming in.

This review is from Harold:

I just finished reading The Bird by Doug Wilson and I don't know where to put it so here are my feelings:
This is a wonderfully touching book about a man that I remember watching on Monday night baseball and at the All Star Game of 1976. I wondered then if this guy was for real or just a hot dog who was putting on a show to build on his own career. The writing vividly brings back those nostalgic days of baseball innocence during a period of transition from the reserve clause to free agency.
I have this image of a novel I read by Mike Reuther about a similar type of kid. It's called Nothing Down and the protagonist is Homer Newbody. I now believe Reuther had to have had Mark Fidrych in mind when he wrote his novel. "Fid" was by all accounts a young man who would have played the game for nothing, because he loved playing it so much. I had to scratch my head when I read that his original contract(later revised after the season) was for $16,500 a season. I made more than that as a government worker in 1976 and that was only my second year of work. He in fact told reporters he didn't want a raise because he loved his job and didn't want to worry about "having a thousand problems"(dollars)
Wilson makes clear that Fid was the genuine deal. he had been "talking to his ball" and manicuring the pitching mound as a high school kid-well before the majors. And from all accounts, teammates, opposing players, friends, neighbors, strangers, The Bird was a loveable, kind, charitable, and genuinely good person with no pretense whatsoever. He was hard working, enthusiastic, humble, polite, and generous with his time and deeds. And this was when he was the biggest thing since Babe Ruth when he broke in the majors in 1976. He was the image of a young man that all of us longed for, especially after players like Reggie Jackson and others changed the game into a "me first" business.
There are numerous cute and funny instances throughout the book of his naivete, enthusiasm, and his popularity with every day fans. I particularly liked the "Thurmon Munson who" story, and the elementary school child who, when told as homework to name three birds, named two indigenous Michigan birds and The Bird as the third.
What impressed me is that opponents didn't get jealous or mad at him; they knew he was for real. For fellow teammates to say that a particular moment with Mark was their best moment of their career says a lot about the man. The charity work that he did especially for children causes was remarkable.( I especially was impressed that the author spoke with Rosemary Lonborg, a lovely woman that I had the pleasure to meet in Vermont in 1983.) I would have liked a bit more detail about his cause of death and the funeral, but I have no complaints. I loved the book, its main "character" and the story of innocence reflected by the Fid.

Thanks Harold.

I was surprised at how nice Rosemary Lonborg was and how much she devoted her life to helping kids with cancer at the Dana Farber Institute. She collaborated with Mark on the children's coloring book that he self-published and handed out free by the hundreds over the years. I wanted to get her input because I thought a coloring book was the perfect venue for his story to kids and to get her opinion of his motivations for the book. It turned out to be remarkably consistent with every other aspect of his life. (also a side note--several of Mark's friends who were die-hard Red Sox fans told me how impressed they were at the funeral that Rosemary and Jim Lonborg stood in line with everyone else to pay their respects, even after numerous people recognized them and wanted them to cut in line in the front).

The part about the death was something I toyed with and has been mentioned by others. I wrote more about his death and the aftermath, but I took it out after a long consideration.

I put the death as short, sudden and unexpected--essentially a short paragraph--because that's the way it happened. He was doing what he loved, having a ball with life and then, bam, it was over.

After reflecting, I didn't think any grisley details about how he died and why really added anything. And I felt that the book should be much more about how he lived than how he died.

It was one of those last-second author decisions that is open to debate (kind of like leaving out the part in Pudge that dealt with the night he got a DUI--it didn't really add a lot to the whole story).

I figured that was your reasoning, and on the one hand I appreciated that. On the other hand, I wanted to understand how the accident could have happened, and whether people like Leyland, Gates Brown, Horton, Sykes, etc came to the funeral.

Actually, I liked it that you didn't dwell on his death and all the details on it - if someone really wants to know, they can use Google for that. Like you said, the story was about his life, not about his death.

Harold, you can relate as Doug's ending in this book reminded me of the ending of "Defending Jacob" - sudden and without a lot of details.

Yes but Defending Jacob was a novel and it was a shocking ending so he didn't need more details

Harold wrote: "I figured that was your reasoning, and on the one hand I appreciated that. On the other hand, I wanted to understand how the accident could have happened, and whether people like Leyland, Gates Bro..."

Horton gave a very moving eulogy at the funeral. He and Lonborg were some of the only baseball people there. There were almost two thousand people lined down the street for the viewing (the town of Northboro only has about 10,000.

Thanks Doug