Ode On A Distant Night Of The Bird
I caught a little of the 1976 Mark Fidrych Monday Night Baseball Game (against the Yankees) replay on the MLB Network today. I remember watching that one when it was actually played that season. I was 13 1/2 years old at the time.
Back then, I had no idea what On Base Percentage was, or OPS – and, naturally OPS+. RCAA? RSAA? Offensive Winning Percentage? Command Ratio? Pythagorean Winning Percentage? Defensive Efficiency? UZR? Nope – I had no idea what any of those were “back then” either – zero, zip, nada, zilch. Life was a big sabermetric goose egg in those days.
I also had no idea what player’s salaries were in 1976 – well, maybe outside of Catfish Hunter. And, for the most part, I had no clue as to what players were doing off-the-field in their downtime…at least not like we know now about most players.
I knew that Gabe Paul was the General Manager of the Yankees in 1976. But, as far as I knew, then, the G.M. was just some guy who made trades. I had no knowledge whatsoever that Pat Gillick was the Yankees Scouting Director back then and that Patrick Nugent was their Farm Director. Related, the fact that Pat Tabler, Calvin Riggar, and Johnny Crawford were the Yankees first three picks in the Amateur Draft that summer was beyond my brain.
I was aware of some prospects in the Yankees system – like Mickey Klutts, Ron Guidry, Terry Whitfield, Gil Patterson, Larry Murray, Scott McGregor, Dave Bergman, Dell Alston and Larry McCall. But, what I knew was limited to what Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White told me about them.
Nonethess, I enjoyed baseball a helluva lot more back in 1976 than I do now…and watching this rebroadcast today confirmed this feeling for me. It was just the players and the game.
Watching baseball w/ the Scooter, White & Messer was a real pleasure. I still miss Phil. It was like having your uncle in the living room.
Thank God there wasn’t a mention of a “walk-off” in that game. Nor, after every batter was there a rapid replay of every pitch in sequence.
Random notes watching this game
1. The Yanks had a lot of players from Alabama
3. Billy Martin introducing himself; “Born in CA, died in NY.
Steve, I remember the last time you mentioned this game, it brought back a lot of memories. There was hype surrounding Bird but you couldn’t quantify or even qualify it in the same terms that exist with the advent of ESPN AKA NESPN, Fox Sports Net, the Internet media etc so on. Those Jamesian metrics you mentioned were not part and parcel of the game yet. OBP? The scouts talked about that metric amongst themselves and the front office(amount of walks) BUT the general public was so BA/HR/RBI obsessed, It was a simpler time for sure.I loved the Bronx Zoo period it was great theater to say the least.
About Catfish, my perception of Catfish at the time was that he was a “hired gun”/mercenary. Remember that free agency was still in its infancy so the novelty of switching teams NOT through a trade was still novel. I also thought of him of an Oakland A at first like Reggie BUT I grew to like them eventually and accept them as Yankees.
You mentioned that team of Messer, White and Scooter. I usually hate homers BUT Scooter was an exception. He was never moronic in his homerism like Sterling who is an embarrassment IMO. There was something uncool about Scooter that made him cool at the same bloody time! @ Redbug, he was akin to a relative wasn’t he?