Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (16 page)

If being captain gave Thurman a new sense of responsibility, the only way I saw it demonstrated was when I needed a favor from him, as when I asked him to pose with a sponsor before the game, accept a pregame plaque, or meet some VIP visitors.

Before being named captain, he’d snarl and tell me what I could do with the request. So I’d get another player. “I don’t do that,” he would say to me.

Now, as captain, his sense of responsibility took over. He’d say, “What time do you need me to be there?” I’d tell him and he wouldn’t show up. So I’d scramble to get another player at the last second. I liked it better the original way.

The best example of this would come on Old-Timers’ Day in 1976, when we had Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, and Munson all present—a chance to take a picture of this great lineage of Yankee catching, going back to 1928. We were unable to accomplish this until now because Yogi had been coaching or managing the Mets, and hadn’t been to an Old-Timers’ game during Thurman’s time with the Yankees. Not even in 1972, when they retired his number.

So I rounded up Dickey, Berra, and Howard with no problem. Dickey was a wonderful older gentleman. Berra and Howard, both coaches, were fine. And then I ran around looking for Thurman. He was in his underwear in the players’ lounge, eating a doughnut, watching a rerun of
The Three Stooges
on Channel 11. I explained what we wanted to do and that he’d need to get fully dressed and meet us on the field.

“What time do you need me?” he asked.

I laughed. “No, I mean it this time,” I said. “I’ve wanted to get this picture taken for years!”

He sighed, got up from the lounge chair, and walked to his locker to get dressed.

But he didn’t appear on the field. I ran back into the clubhouse and Pete Sheehy told me to try the players’ lounge. There he was, still in his underwear, watching TV again. It was the same Three Stooges show. I wanted to cry but I could only laugh. Dickey, Berra, and Howard were by the dugout with Michael Grossbardt, our photographer.

I finally got Munson out for the picture. I loved that picture. And when I went to Thurman’s home in Canton three years later for his
funeral, there was the photo, enlarged and framed, in his office. He liked it too.

Joe D’Ambrosio had been a batboy during 1976 and 1977 and later became the number three man in the Yankees PR department, working behind Mickey Morabito and Larry Wahl.

“As a batboy with the team,” Joe recalls, “I knew Thurman well, but we weren’t very close. In fact, during my first year as batboy the kids rotated from ballboy to batboy to lineboy over the course of the season. When I was the only kid asked back for the 1977 campaign, Thurman was the one who told Pete Sheehy that I should be batboy all year. He said he didn’t want the other kids ‘’cause Joey knows what he’s doing.’ That meant the world to me.

“One Sunday in 1976, a getaway day, around ten a.m. or so, Thurman came to the park more gruff than usual and said he had a disagreement with Diana and left his road trip clothes in the hallway while he was leaving the house. He came to my locker and said, ‘Keys.’ One word. I said, ‘Keys?’ He said, ‘Give me your car keys.’ Not in an impolite way, but in an ‘I’m Thurman Munson, you’re Joey the batboy’ kinda way. ‘Okay,’ I said. And I gave him my keys.

“About forty-five minutes later, he was back.

“Now, I drove a 1974 mustard-colored Opel Manta by Buick back then. It was tiny. Thurman, not being tiny, must have had trouble fitting in. He tossed me the keys, said, ‘Thanks,’ and started back over to his locker. Then he doubled back to me. I didn’t know what went wrong. He said, ‘Where was the music coming from?’ I said, ‘What music?’ He said, ‘I had to listen to the goddamned Allman Brothers the entire way and I couldn’t shut off your radio. Where was the music coming from?’

“Well, eight-track tapes were the rage back then and I had custom-installed an eight-track player under my seat. When I started the car,
I’d ‘kick’ the cassette in and away you go. All controls for volume, track changing, etc., were in the player under my seat.

“When I explained it to him, he just rolled his eyes, gave me a c’mon-get-out-of-here kinda shove (his way of showing affection) and laughed all the way back to his locker.”

The Yanks held a nine-game lead by July 4. Randolph, the rookie at second, was so good he made the All-Star team. Rivers was every bit the catalyst they had hoped he would be, and he became a favorite not only among his teammates but also among fans, especially young ones. Figueroa was indeed a quality starting pitcher.

The Yanks and division rival Baltimore spun a rare ten-player mid-season deal, but it changed neither team’s fortunes. The Yankees kept rolling.

Munson hit .319 in the first half of the season and was the starting catcher in the All-Star Game, playing in Philadelphia for the nation’s Bicentennial. It was his fifth All-Star selection in his seven years in the majors.

(The American League players, along with team and league officials like me, all stayed at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, checking out on July 14. On July 27, members of the American Legion checked in for a convention, and contracted what came to be called Legionnaires’ disease. Thirty-four people died, allegedly from some bacteria in the cooling tower of the hotel.)

Thurman did not change his batting style to adjust to the shorter left field wall in the new Yankee Stadium. He never succumbed to the temptation of trying to conquer it. In the original stadium, he hit only 16 home runs in 944 at bats; about 1 every 59 times up. Maybe one a month. In 1976 with the new stadium, he hit 5 in 297 at bats—1 every 59 at bats. It didn’t change at all.

Furthermore, whether Munson being captain helped or not, the
press was feeling the presence of a mature team leader guiding his team to victory. In
Sports Illustrated
, Larry Keith wrote:

Of course, before we think Munson had reformed, the article later quoted Diana: “He wasn’t always so grouchy. He’ll growl and swear rather than dealing with a situation directly. He even scares me at times. He’ll leave the house for a game and kiss all the kids, then when he comes home, he’s completely different. Sometimes when we’re in public I just cringe at the way he acts.”

The champagne flowed on September 25 at Detroit when the Yanks, eight games ahead of the pack, clinched their first-ever Eastern Division title in the eighth year of division play. The season
ended with a rainout (not made up) on October 3, leaving Thurman with a .302 average in 152 games, 121 of them behind the plate. He batted third in the lineup almost every game. He hit 17 homers, drove in 105 runs, hit 10 sacrifice flies, went 3 for 4 as a pinch hitter, stole 14 bases, struck out only 37 times in 665 plate appearances, and cut his errors to 14.

By Labor Day, it was generally written that he was on his way to the league’s MVP award. The voting was done the day the regular season ended, but wouldn’t be announced until November.

The 1976 Yankees drew 2,012,434 fans, the first time an American League team had passed two million since the 1950 Yankees—twenty-six years before. The new stadium, the active return of George Steinbrenner, the coming of free agency, the pennant-winning team, and the big year from Munson were all factors, and this proud franchise was clearly headed into a new era of excitement and success. Two million would become standard for the team, and then it became three million in 2001 and four million in 2005. The dormant years of CBS ownership were long past, and those of us who had spanned the two eras were especially proud of what we saw come to be. I often think of our annual September press release announcing our having reached a million in attendance. The team now hits a million by early May.

The 1976 American League Championship Series was the first of three in a row to be played between the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals. This would be Munson’s first taste of the postseason (at least since the 1969 Syracuse Chiefs) and he caught every inning of the five-game series, batting .435 with ten hits—an ALCS record that was then broken when Chris Chambliss got his eleventh—a game-winning, pennant-winning homer off Mark Littell in the last of the ninth of game five.

The Chambliss blast sent the Yankees to their first World Series in a dozen years, and as Chris raised his arms in triumph, steps from
home plate, Munson, in his chest protector and shin guards, could be seen leaping from the dugout with the shriek of youthful delight that you’d hope would go with such a historic moment. The losing years were over. The Yankees were American League champions and going to their thirtieth World Series.

The Series opened in Cincinnati, all too quickly. The Reds were better rested and had their rotation in order. The Yanks had to fight and claw to win the pennant late on Thursday evening, October 14. The celebration followed on into the morning, when the exhausted team got on the bus for the airport and flew to Cincinnati. On Saturday, October 16, it all began. The Yankees had to start Doyle Alexander because neither Hunter, Figueroa, nor Ellis was rested, and Martin had chosen to ignore Ken Holtzman for reasons that remain a mystery.

The Big Red Machine, one of the great dynasties in baseball history, was simply too strong for the Yankees. They won 5-1 and 6-2 over the weekend at Riverfront Stadium. Back in New York, the Yankees quietly went down 6-2 and 7-2 before home crowds that had little to cheer about. Seven runs in four quick games. The players were pressing, Martin was tense and frustrated, Steinbrenner was angry, and the joy of the pennant was quickly forgotten.

Munson, however, was having a great time. He was busy collecting nine hits in the four games, batting .435, chatting up the Reds players as they came to the plate, and totally in love with the experience of being in the World Series. Four of his hits came in the final game, tying a World Series record for hits in a game. He wasn’t happy about losing, of course, but he was enjoying the competition and the thrill of being in the Fall Classic. At one point, when Reds manager Sparky Anderson went to the mound to confer with his pitcher, the official World Series film captured Pete Rose saying of Munson, “Man, he can flat out hit.”

He had the highest batting average of any player on a losing World Series team. Ever. And then the experience turned bad.

In the postgame interview room down the right field line and under the stadium stands, Series MVP Johnny Bench, who twice homered in the final game, spoke to the press. His manager Sparky Anderson was there as well.

Bob Fishel, my old Yankee boss and now the American League’s PR director, asked Munson to come to the interview room to represent the Yanks. Martin wouldn’t come. Thurman took the responsibility to represent his teammates and went to the room.

As he entered, Anderson was speaking. He was talking about how the Reds had “the most class” of any team in sports.

Someone asked Sparky to compare the two great catchers who had just played in the Series.

“Munson is an outstanding ballplayer and he would hit .300 in the National League, but don’t ever compare anybody to Johnny Bench, don’t never embarrass nobody by comparing them to Johnny Bench,” he said.

If you read the quote over and over, you could take the position that he was just lauding it on Bench and almost begging off the question of comparison. But Munson, in the room and hearing this, grew livid. Bench had batted .234 in the regular season with 16 homers and 74 RBIs. Thurman had a right to consider himself the best catcher in baseball, at least for 1976.

Anderson exited.

When Munson got to the mike, he was bitter.

“For me to be belittled after the season I had and after the game I had … it’s bad enough to lose, but worse to be belittled like that. To win four in a row and rub it in, that’s class. To rub it in my face.”

Some writers were confused by this tirade by Thurman, which was not in answer to any question. One said, “Are you talking about what Sparky said?”

Munson responded, “No, I’m talking about Mickey Mouse. They’re a good ball club, but I don’t believe that stuff about how good their pitching is. They outplayed us in every way, but I’m a realistic person too. When you lose four in a row, any team’s embarrassed. But to be belittled on top of the embarrassment is not nice to hear, especially when you’re standing next to somebody. But I don’t know if he knew I was standing there or not. I never compared myself to Johnny Bench, but if I played in the National League, I might be the best offensive player in the league.”

Someone took the bait and asked him to compare Billy Martin to Sparky Anderson.

“I never played for Sparky, but they both talk a lot.”

Bench was now in the room. Munson left the mike and shook hands with him. “Nice going, J.B.,” he could be heard saying. “Super.”

Billy Martin was crying in the training room and didn’t attend the press conference, as a manager is expected to. He’d been ejected from the final game for rolling a ball in disgust and frustration at the home plate umpire. Steinbrenner entered the training room and let him have it for the way the Yankees played, accusing him of not having the team ready.