Detroit Tigers: Analyzing Mark Fidrych’s Usage in the Summer of “The Bird”
The Idiosyncrasies of “The Bird”
The great thing about Fidrych was that he was 100% sincere. His antics weren’t for show, it was really him. He was genuine, the proverbial guy who was just glad to be there. After games, he would shake the hands of his teammates and thank them. He always looked like the happiest guy on the field.
One of Fidrych’s idiosyncrasies that he became well known for was the landscaping he would do on the mound. It looked strange for the pitcher to be on his hands and knees moving dirt around, but there was method to his madness. As he explains in the video below, he was just trying to keep the mound to his liking. In 1976, baseball diamonds weren’t kept up as meticulously as they are today. Different pitchers would create different holes on the pitcher’s mound when they pitched. Fidrych didn’t want to step into the other pitcher’s hole. He wanted to create his own, so he would fill in the dirt to get the mound the way he liked it:
"“It was a thing of, why go into someone else’s hole? That’s the way he pitches. Pitch the way you pitch and if he wants to go in your hole, let him. You know. So I just always filled it up. It was weird, people thought it was weird. I was not conscious of it. I just did it naturally. People thought it was weird. That’s what made writers start going, ‘Oh, we got someone different here.’”"
Fidrych also became known for talking to the ball. He explained that as well: “They said I was talking to the ball. Here I am, I’m on the mound going, ‘Okay, I got a guy on first base, now I got this guy coming up.’ I’m talking to myself. It was like getting some nerves off you, going, ‘God, I’m in trouble again. How am I going to get out of this?’ Okay, calm down, relax. That’s just what I do.”
One thing that Fidrych really appreciated was that the Tigers just let him be who he was. They didn’t try to change him, didn’t tell him to get a haircut or shave. They just let “The Bird” be “The Bird.”
Next: Fans Flock to See Fidrych