MUNSON

One of the greatest things about being a father is that after hearing your elders start sentences with“when I was your age” for much of your early life, you finally get to start sentences the same way with your kids.  Wednesday night was one of those moments. While watching the Yankee game with my younger son, it was mentioned that June 7 would have been Thurman Munson’s 70^th birthday.    And as the broadcast deviated from the game for a moment to talk about the former Captain, he asked “who was Thurman Munson?”

“When I was your age,” I said, as if I’ve been waiting 40 years for this moment “Thurman Munson was the catcher for the Yankees…”.  I went on how he was a gritty, humble, unassuming type of guy.  I realized that I was probably speaking about him in a way that suggested that I grew up next door to the guy; where we sold candy together door-to-door to raise money for our annual class trip to Washington DC.  But like I said, I’ve waited 40 years for these kinds of conversations, and when you have them, they’re often told through a romantic prism without even knowing it.  I mentioned that Munson could sometimes be prickly, and more often than not had an adversarial relationship with the press. But most importantly, I said, he was a leader at a time with the Yankees were most volatile, at a time when the city they played for was most volatile.  I went on for a bit more about this until the story reached its inevitable conclusion.

 

Billy Martin with Munson in the background. We thought this was normal.

 

One of the biggest differences that I noticed between playing Little League when I was kid, and the way it’s coached now is that when I played we were constantly, and I mean, constantly reminded that we should never, ever argue with the umpire.  These days, on the teams that I’ve helped coach, it’s not really emphasized.  It’s just assumed that it won’t happen, and it generally doesn’t…at least not by the kids anyway.  And then I started to realize why that was -- as young, impressionable Yankee fans growing up in the New York area in the 1970s, we were all raised on watching Billy Martin.  Things like throwing bases, kicking dirt, getting ejected, and giving juicy, alcohol induced quotes to the New York Post afterwards was just the norm.  Maybe the Minnesota Twins or the Texas Rangers didn’t function like this, but there wasn’t much way of knowing.   And that was all great, watching the combustible Martin go out there night after night unleashing his Type-A torrents on whoever, but if it weren’t for Thurman Munson keeping things in check, defusing the chronic dysfunction that was constantly looming, one has to wonder if the Yankees would have had as much success as they did in the 1970s.  Factor in George Steinbrenner, the world’s most least laissez-faire owner in the history of sports, and you didn’t even need to import Reggie Jackson to toss the match in the gas tank.  And then there was Reggie…



Munson to Billy Martin: Stay out of this.

So August 2, 1979 seemed like any other summer day in the woodsy, northern Westchester town of Pound Ridge, New York.  I was nine years old, and I was going into fifth grade in the fall.  For a suburb of New York City, Pound Ridge did much to hold on to its bucolic charm.  Old stone walls built two or three hundred years prior by the original settlers were found throughout.  All the street signs were in the shape of a pointing finger with a white background and black lettering.  There was no police department, just a resident state trooper that was sometimes there.  And even in 2017 there are still no traffic lights.  The Cold War was also alive and well at the time, and I remember our fears of nuclear annihilation were assuaged when my fifth-grade teacher assured us that if New York City was struck by a Soviet warhead, Pound Ridge was just far enough away to not get any fallout.  “Besides,” she added.  “The winds tend to blow east towards Long Island anyway.”

A typical Pound Ridge summer was attending the free day camp at the town park (either Ultimate Frisbee or Capture the Flag - take your pick - with a cookout afterwards), and then we all headed to the public pool for the balance of the afternoon.  There was a snack bar by the pool called Vons, where they had a small, but rather loud playing portable radio.  To this day whenever I hear songs like “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner or “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, I think of that place.  It was the late afternoon and I was home from my typical Pound Ridge summer routine of day camp/pool when the rotary phone attached to the kitchen wall rang.  It was my neighbor Peter Welsh, who lived two houses down.  I remember probably not wanting to talk to him, I’ve always hated phone calls, and there was always this competitive underpinning in my relationship with Peter, since he and I were both the same age, and had moved to Pound Ridge within a very short time of each other.  Sometimes we were good friends, sometimes not. 

“Hello.”

“Geoff, it’s Peter”.  Peter’s voice was easy to spot, it was raspy, throaty; like Froggy from The Little Rascals.

“Hey man.”

“Did you hear the news?”

“No what?”

“Thurman Munson died.”

“Get out of here,” I thought he was joking.  Besides, I specifically remember him saying that he died which to me suggested that he succumbed to natural causes.  How could the catcher of the New York Yankees just…die?

“I’m serious!”

“How?”

“Plane crash.”

“What???????????????”

And so I ran to the TV, turned on the local news, and there it was, the indelible image of Munson’s incinerated Cessna along some runway in Ohio. This was my “where were you when…” moment for when I learned that Thurman Munson was dead; talking to Peter Welsh on the phone from my kitchen in Pound Ridge, New York.  What’s interesting about this, is that when you speak to people who were around at the time, they all say the same thing; which is, of all the colossal events that have happened in the nearly four decades since, there’s something about Thurman Munson’s death that stands out above almost anything else.  Nobody is saying that Munson’s death is on par with the historical significance of, say, 9/11, or the scores of other jarring headlines since 1979.  However, the clarity of the moment, and the barrage of shrapnel that one took to their central nervous system as a result of Munson’s passing is on par with that of 9/11 for so many.   You might need an extra second or two to recall what you were doing when Ronald Reagan was shot, but you can rattle right off your tongue what you were doing when Thurman Munson was killed.  For what reason is anyone’s guess, but damned if isn’t the case. 

 

Daily News' Front Page Story of Munson's Death.

 

As I wrapped up my lengthy recollection of Thurman Munson, I realized that I probably offered significantly more information than what my son was hoping for; but then again, I have been waiting 40 years for these kinds conversations.  While this went on the Yankees were hammering away at what would result in an 8-0 drubbing to the hated Red Sox.  

No doubt old #15 would have been content.

 

Head Games for Headley

Many years ago, I had a job selling copiers in Washington, DC. In the branch office, which could have been the ugliest structure ever built, there were three huge white boards that listed every sales reps’ performance for all to see. On one column, it showed what each rep had sold for the current month and the percentage of quota. On the next column, it showed what every rep had sold for the year, and the percentage of quota year to date. One didn’t have to look for very long to see who was doing well and who wasn’t. This type of fish bowl management is quite common in many sales organizations; especially in the gritty, pound the pavement world of copiers. For the sales reps doing well, you could see them beam with confidence, often poking their head into their sales manager’s office and telling them about what another wonderful week they’ve had. For the one’s doing poorly, they would quietly slink in from the back door, find an isolated cubicle, and write up the week’s recap under the heavy dread of presenting this to their boss. From a baseball perspective, Yankees third baseman, Chase Headley, is one of these guys with the big zero on the board. His dread, while expressed silently, speaks volumes.

A grand example of this occurred in Tuesday’s 5-4 loss to the Red Sox. In the fourth inning, Headley was facing a frustrated Drew Pomeranz at the mound, who had already thrown way too many pitches at that stage in the game. Pomeranz, who’s boyish looks were now giving way to steely eyes of consternation, just gave up a slow moving, infield single to Didi Gregorius after being gorged for twelve pitches in a marathon at bat. On second was Aaron Hicks, also on base from an infield hit. For Pomeranz it must have been a flashback to Little League, with two men on base from cheap hits that just might have been outs if the ball had only bounced a little differently here or sped up a little faster there. With only one out, and nobody yet warming up in the Red Sox bullpen, this was a golden opportunity to break this game wide open against a tiring pitcher with two runners in scoring position. Players like Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge live for these opportunities; they’re the sales guys who are already 127% of their plan --- the ones who actually want to talk to their boss. But it wasn’t their turn to bat, it was the struggling Headley’s.

It’s one thing to struggle, but it’s another thing to show it. Just look at Yankee’s first baseman Chris Carter. His numbers are even worse than Headley’s. Even Yankees’ GM, Brian Cashman, had a few words to say about Carter’s performance, but Carter doesn’t radiate his misery in the way that Headley does. And when you unwittingly advertise that you wish you were doing anything besides what you’re paid to do, the world takes notice.

So Headley comes to bat with Gregorius on first and Hicks on second with only one out. But there’s trouble already. You can just tell by the way he walks up to the plate, slowly, tentatively, slinking in the back door like the sales rep who needs to update his resume. You can’t help but think that Headley is wishing for a plane crash, or some instant South Bronx conflagration to ignite so he can dodge this situation; and if he takes his time doing so, the odds improve. But there is no plane crash, no burning Bronx to speak of on this damp chilly night, and the extra dawdling does nothing but give Headley what he needs the least – time to think. The camera closes in on Headley. He’s not ready for his close up but he gets it anyway. He’s the anti-diva, with his inordinately taut facial muscles, his shrunken eyes – like crude little slits carved into a pumpkin – sealed lips, and leathery complexion all compounding how much he hates playing baseball right now. Nevertheless, he works the slogging Pomeranz to a full count. If he walks, fantastic, the bases will be loaded. If he strikes out, it’s still only two outs and everyone stays on base. What he doesn’t need to do is lamely hit a ground ball to the pitcher and kill the inning with an easy double play. Well, guess what?

Despite this, Headley seems to be the beneficiary of circumstance at the moment. A short-term trade is too costly, for say, Kansas City’s Mike Moustakas and the like, and there aren’t any prospects ready enough to be called up from the minor leagues. That’s not to say that the vultures of the New York media, or global sports blogosphere, aren’t having some guilty fun with Headley’s angst. Anything that even whiffs of imperfection, of just the fallibility of being a human being who plays baseball for a living, stokes up chants of Gleyber Torres, the 20-year-old Venezuelan “phenom” who’s played but 50 games with Triple-A Scranton, but has already been anointed as the Yankees’ panacea for their woes at third base. Torres is just fantasy at this point, but routinely bringing him up anywhere within Headley’s space offers some sadistic joy to those who’d offer a hose to a drowning man. Hey Headley – you thirsty?

In any case, at a minimum, a shift in attitude or body language would do huge wonders for Headley. A simple belly laugh, or a deflective “aw shucks” roll of the eyes would go far with taking the target off his back. Then again, so would hitting the ball. But if he can’t do that, he should at least have fun playing baseball.