Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (15 page)

Bonds was traded to the California Angels for center fielder Mickey Rivers and starting pitcher Ed Figueroa. (It also meant, of course, that it was Murcer’s trade that ultimately led to Rivers and Figueroa.)

And then that same day, George “Doc” Medich, the pitcher who was pursuing his medical degree while playing baseball, was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Dock Ellis and Ken Brett, with a rookie second baseman named Willie Randolph included in the deal for good measure.

The team that had been a series of building blocks—Munson, Lyle, Nettles, Piniella, Chambliss, Hunter, et al.—would now have a terrific leadoff hitter in Rivers who could jump-start any game he appeared in, and Randolph a great fielder who would finally put to rest the so-called Horace Clarke era of Yankee baseball, under which no one ever seemed to come along to move the rather ordinary Clarke out of the lineup. (Sandy Alomar finally did in July 1974, but at thirty-two, he was considered a stopgap until someone like Randolph would emerge.)

In mid-January 1976, a large group of Yankee officials including Billy Martin gathered at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan to begin several days of planning meetings for the new stadium and new season. Steinbrenner had been granted permission to run the meetings, his suspension clearly coming to an early end. A court reporter was on hand to transcribe the discussions, and each of us later received a copy.

At one point the conversation turned toward making the players more fan-friendly, more responsive to autograph requests, and even encouraging them to toss free baseballs into the stands.

“We’re going to have to be more accommodating to the fans,” said Steinbrenner. “The Mets have a better reputation than us on that. I don’t want them to have a better reputation on anything. And Munson especially, he’s becoming more and more grumpy, not more and more accommodating, and that has to change.”

Then, after another mention of Munson was made, Steinbrenner said:

Mine is the next voice that appears in the transcript.

“Lou Gehrig was a captain of the Yankees,” I said. “When he became ill and subsequently died, Joe McCarthy said something like ‘Lou will always remain the Yankee captain and there’ll never be another one.’ And for that reason, DiMaggio and Mantle were never officially called captain or anything like that, so it’s always been a practice that existed.”

Steinbrenner heard me out and then said:

There was the birth of the idea. And we all knew whom he was talking about.

Munson spent the off-season back at his Fifty-second Street home in Canton, playing handball, hanging out with his buddies, reading aviation and gun magazines, going pheasant hunting, and getting more involved in real estate. He had invested in apartment buildings and commercial property, and was now part of a syndicate that would be developing 146 acres into a shopping center and office complex that would be called Belden Village.

“He started playing doubles in handball with me at the Y around that time,” recalls Jerry Anderson, who was helping to get him into real estate development. “Jess Tucker was the developer, and I was sort of Thurm’s counselor and consultant. We were just building our friendship.”

Of course, he was also spending the kind of quality time with his family that he so loved. Tracy was now seven, Kelly five and a half, and Michael barely two.

“People remember Thurman as this gruff tough guy, but he had a wonderful soft side,” says Diana. “When the girls needed their hair brushed, they wanted their daddy to do it. They said, ‘You’re too rough, Mommy; Daddy does it so gently!’ In that little loving act, you could learn a lot about him.”

As for Michael, Thurman would say to Anderson, “The little guy
is a handful!” Anderson felt he said that not only to reflect his times with his son, but to show his awareness of what Diana was going through when he wasn’t around.

Diana would later tell the
Springfield
(Mass.)
Union
, “When Thurman is around, you wouldn’t know he is the same child. Usually, Michael gets up ten or eleven times a night and calls for me. But when Thurman is home, he says, ‘Michael, I don’t want you getting up at night and calling Mommy’ And he sleeps until morning. And then when he wakes up, he calls Thurman. When I see that, I know we need Thurman around. This little boy needs his dad.”

The child care issue and the real estate developments were what made Munson think about the benefits of playing for the Indians. He could keep a close watch on his properties while enjoying being at home with his children. He was expanding his thinking and realizing that he wasn’t only a baseball player.

“I’d be more than happy to play in Cleveland,” he confided to Murray Chass of the
New York Times
. “I even told the Yankees that if we couldn’t get together, instead of losing me as a free agent, they should get three or four players for me by trading me to Cleveland.

“There are a lot of factors to weigh—what I could get here or in Cleveland where I would be home, or maybe I could get twice as much from an expansion club if I was a free agent. You have to weigh all those things. I’m not going to sign until I know for sure that I’m not making a mistake.”

With Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally having been judged to be free agents prior to the start of the 1976 season, Munson, along with hundreds of other players, was in a position to play through 1976 without signing a contract and to declare himself part of the first “free agent class” after the season. As a good businessman, Thurman seemed likely to consider this possibility. Sparky Lyle had almost done it in 1975, and might have been there with Messersmith and McNally, but he signed in the waning days of the season. No doubt he and Thurman talked it over.

Now spring training for the 1976 season had finally opened. The owners had locked the camps while a new Basic Agreement with the union was being negotiated. The commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, finally ordered the camps opened in late March.

Thinking about the benefits of playing for Cleveland versus a straightforward business decision to evaluate an offer from the Yankees, Thurman arrived at Fort Lauderdale Stadium on March 23.

Martin called Munson into his office at the ballpark.

“I want to make you captain,” he said. “I’ve discussed it with George and the coaches, and you’re a natural leader on this team and I want you to be the captain.”

“What does it mean?” asked Munson. “Like, I take the lineup out every game?”

The thought of that seemed a bit off, given that he would be in his full catching gear for home games, and often would have been warming up the starting pitcher in the bullpen.

“No,” Billy replied. “I’ll do that. I need to do that. It gives me time to talk to the umpires, ask about their kids, get on their good side if we need a close call.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Just be a leader by example,” said Billy. “You already are. But with the title, even a new player will know that you’re the guy carrying on Yankee tradition. It’s a good idea, the more I think about it.”

I suspect that at some level, Billy must have thought that had Casey Stengel lifted the ban, he, Billy Martin, might have liked being the team captain in the 1950s, more so than Mantle or Berra or Ford.

Thurman left Martin’s office and walked out to right field with George Steinbrenner before the team’s first workout. It was a beautiful time of day in Fort Lauderdale—not yet too hot, a gentle breeze in the air, empty stands being hosed down by the few stadium employees, and an occasional private jet taking off from Executive Airport next door. The newly restored general partner and his captain
were engaged in business talk. The conversation lasted about twenty minutes.

An intrasquad game was played, with Munson driving in the winning run. Afterward he dressed in his best double-knit plaid plants, threw a Banlon shirt over his head, and walked to the manager’s office, where he, Steinbrenner, and Gabe Paul renewed their discussions about a new contract.

George and Gabe considered Munson’s signing a priority. He had been third in the league in hitting in 1975, and with everyone feeling a pennant in the air, a happy Munson could be a big contributor to a new time of good feeling.

The three talked for more than an hour. With a towel draped around his neck, Thurman went to the players’ parking lot and into Paul’s trailer. Another hour passed, with a few reporters lurking outside.

Finally he emerged, the towel still in place. He looked tired. He got into Gabe Paul’s Toyota, put the towel on the passenger seat, and said, “I don’t want to say anything at this time. I want to sit back and think about what I’ve done. It’s a big load off my mind. I want to relax. It’s been on my mind a long time.”

Murray Chass, the best reporter at coming up with salary terms, reported that Thurman had signed a new two-year contract for a total of $275,000, which would make him the fifth Yankee in history to make $100,000 in a season, joining DiMaggio, Mantle, Murcer, Bonds, and Hunter. Of course salaries were about to change dramatically, and the milestone would be barely notable.

This, Munson acknowledged: “It was a fair thing to both sides, very fair. I knew what I wanted out of it. I knew what I needed. I love to play baseball. Money doesn’t enter into it, although I want to get paid what I deserve. But I don’t need the money I get from playing baseball to live on.”

With that, he drove Gabe’s Toyota back to the Fort Lauderdale Inn on Federal Highway to report the news to Diana. He was of the
belief that he would be subject to a sliding scale, adjusted upward to assure his being the highest-salaried player on the team (except for Hunter) as new free agents might arrive. This was, for him, the key to signing the deal. He would maintain that that was agreed to in the trailer meeting.

Munson hit third and went 0 for 5 on the historic opening day of the newly renovated Yankee Stadium, April 15, 1976, the Yanks winning 11-4.

The news of his being named captain was not made official until two days later, prior to the Yankees’ second game in their newly refurbished stadium. (And in his first at bat that day as captain, Munson homered, making him the first Yankee to homer in the new stadium.)

So much news was being made by the reopening of the park that it was thought to withhold it until game two. Many had known about it for weeks, but the official announcement came on the seventeenth.

“What about Joe McCarthy’s pledge to retire the position with Lou Gehrig?” asked Phil Pepe of the
Daily News
.

“If Joe McCarthy knew Thurman Munson, he’d agree this was the right guy at the right time,” Steinbrenner replied. It was a great answer. And it was probably true. Thurman did indeed have most of the characteristics that made a player a team leader. They didn’t extend to media relations and fan relations, but among his peers, he was seen as the perfect man at the perfect time in the franchise’s history.

The Yankees got off quickly and were enjoying a wonderful season under Martin. While it was true that he didn’t have a full spring training to work with, the team won five of their first six to go right to first place, and never looked back. After twelve years without a pennant, the 1976 Yankees were making this look all too easy.

On May 20 in New York, as though the rivalry needed refueling, the Yankees and Red Sox engaged in a brawl, set off by a home plate collision between Piniella and Fisk. In the ensuing scuffle, pitcher Bill Lee’s shoulder was seriously injured after a clobbering from Nettles. This time, Munson was off to the side in a role as peacemaker, perhaps attributable to his new captaincy, but knowing Munson, probably just owing to his arriving late to the party.

There was a momentary setback on June 5, when a wild throw by Munson, no strange occurrence by now, resulted in a loss to Oakland. The fans booed and Thurman flipped them off with the well-known “gesture.” Another player might have been doomed forever by the Bronx faithful. But the Yankee fans loved it, cheered him the next time up, and never got on him again.

Of giving the fans the finger, Thurman would say, “I wouldn’t suggest doing that every day to win friends and influence people, but at the time, I felt I got a bum rap and did what I had to, right or wrong. It came out right, I guess.”

Thurman could also be funny, especially after a drink or two after a long airport delay. In the days when the Yankees still flew on commercial flights, he was once playing his tape deck too loud. Alerted to some passenger complaints, Billy Martin sent Elston Howard back to tell Thurman to turn the music down.

“What are you, the music coach?” he said to poor Ellie. It was one of the more memorable lines on a flight that was too delayed for everyone’s good.