Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (28 page)

With the Murcer children away, Thurman took Tori’s room and Lou took Todd’s. On the first morning, Kay arose early to make a wonderful breakfast, with ham, eggs, biscuits, gravy—the works. And the houseguests seemed to enjoy it all.

“Thurman must have been too embarrassed to say anything other than thanks,” Diana told Kay later on. “He never ate a traditional breakfast—not ever. Breakfast for him would be something like Oreos and milk.”

Kay would always think of this teddy bear of a man in this way: caring of someone else’s feelings, pushing down Oreos and milk for breakfast if left to his own devices.

Murcer, no stranger by now to baseball’s fates and fortunes, knew that his happy return to the Yankees might in fact be short-lived. It was clear almost from the start that he wasn’t brought in to be a big contributor in the middle of the lineup as he had been in the old days. He was in fact put on a roster in upheaval, Steinbrenner being convinced that the team was going to underachieve for the season, and thus that heads needed to roll.

“Yankee Purge Begins” headlined the
New York Post
the day after Mick the Quick Rivers, ol’ Gozzlehead, was shipped off to Texas. He
was informed of the deal by Cedric Tallis, the Yankees’ general manager, around 3:30 in the afternoon, left immediately for Texas, and got there in time to pinch-hit that night in a loss to Detroit. This was most unusual for Rivers, who could take as long as five days to get from Miami to Fort Lauderdale for spring training.

He went off for three players and one to be named later. That was believed by all to be Mike Heath, a Steinbrenner favorite, who had been traded by the Yankees to Texas over the winter with Sparky Lyle (the Yankees getting Dave Righetti), and then dealt by Texas to Oakland for two players. It was “understood” that he would be going back to Texas at the end of the season, but now it was also “understood” that he would in fact be going back to the Yankees.

This seemed necessitated by the fact that as a right-handed hitting catcher, Heath could be the player to move behind the plate in place of Munson, whose days as a catcher may have run their course.

“Munson’s days as the team’s regular catcher are over,” wrote Larry Brooks in the
Post
.

“People in the stands didn’t know how that man was playing in pain,” said Guidry “He was taped ankle to neck, like a walking cast. He was always in pain—knees, thighs …”

So much more was in play. Would Munson move to first? What of Chris Chambliss and Jim Spencer, lately the first base platoon, both seasoned and proven major leaguers?

Well, guess what. As had become a pattern with Yankee deals, which had been regularly failing inspection by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, this one wasn’t going to be a smooth one either. Kuhn didn’t like the structure of Rivers for four minor leaguers and wanted someone else in the deal. It looked like it might be Rivers’s old pal Oscar Gamble, a Billy Martin favorite.

Young Bobby Brown was being called up from Columbus to replace Rivers in center. If Gamble were sent to the Yankees, it would crowd the outfield, with Jackson to remain in right, and with Piniella
in the mix. Gamble would surely threaten to take Murcer’s precarious spot on the roster, just a month after he arrived.

So there they were, Munson, Murcer, and Piniella, all tucked into Bobby’s apartment, left to figure out the roster, or to watch TV and drink beer and call it a night.

As was often the case with Piniella, the subject turned to hitting, and he had an opinion on almost everyone in the White Sox lineup, which, even after midnight, he decided was a good thing to discuss.

Piniella was always like that. A few years earlier, I had the room next to his at the Fort Lauderdale Inn during spring training. One night—after midnight—he and Catfish Hunter returned from a night out, and both had obviously had a few beers. The walls in the hotel were thin, and their arrival woke me up. It was clear that they were resuming their conversation from the drive home—an analysis of every hitter in the league. Piniella, although a right fielder, thought he knew more about it than Hunter, a future Hall of Fame pitcher. And so team by team, batter by batter, the two began arguing about whether you throw a breaking pitch or a fastball away with the count 0-2 to Wayne Nordhagen, and I knew it was going to be a long night. Lou could outtalk Hunter, but Hunter was the wise one, and as I settled in for the night’s analysis, I somehow favored Cat’s opinions more. But Lou had an opinion on everyone, even from out in right field. I guess this served him well when he became a highly successful manager.

So Murcer and Piniella argued the hitters and Munson, the catcher who should have been right in the thick of it, said, “I’m going to sleep.”

As for whether Murcer would remain a Yankee with the latest roster reconfiguration, well, as Rivers once famously put it, “Ain’t no use worrying about things you got control over ’cause you got control over ’em. Ain’t no use in worrying about things you don’t have control over ’cause you don’t have control over ’em.”

In this case, control fell to Bowie Kuhn. Going back to his veto of the Yankees’ signing of Andy Messersmith as a free agent during spring training of 1976, the Yankees had often come under disagreeable scrutiny. But in this case, if they wound up with Gamble, it would be okay with Martin.

Piniella, Munson, and Murcer arrived at Comiskey Park around 2:30, right around the time that the team bus showed up. Miserable old Comiskey Park, where the Black Sox had thrown a World Series and where the White Sox had unintentionally dropped one in 1959, had a steamy old clubhouse down the right field side of the stadium. Piniella, who was one of the last Yankee players who smoked cigarettes, sometimes held back in the clubhouse for just that purpose. Murcer and Munson joined the other players who liked to get out to the field early.

The new face in the clubhouse that evening belonged to yet another outfielder, Juan Beniquez, who hadn’t played since July 7, when he went on the disabled list. With Rivers gone, Beniquez was activated and placed in the second spot in the batting order. Munson would play first base and bat third, as the Yankees tried to snap their three-game losing streak.

Rich Wortham would oppose the Yanks’ Tommy John that evening in a battle of left-handers. John had pitched for the White Sox from 1965 to 1971 and still had a good following in Chicago.

The Yankees did get a victory out of the evening, played under very humid conditions, but not without a cost. Beniquez, of all people, fell between second and third in the ninth inning and had to be carried off on a stretcher and sent back to New York. It was a pulled groin muscle, and he wouldn’t be seen again until September. One game and out. And on the day Rivers was traded.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Martin.

Murcer would now have to play center.

As for the game, the Yanks broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth when Willie
Randolph singled, went to second on a groundout by Beniquez, and scored on a single by Munson off Wortham.

It was career hit number 1,558 for Munson, and RBI number 701.

John, with his sinker working well, pitched into the seventh and gave up plenty of ground balls, with Munson recording thirteen of the team’s twenty-seven putouts at first without a miscue. Ron Davis finished as the Yanks won 7-2 to stay fourteen games behind Baltimore.

Piniella, Munson, and Murcer returned to the Murcer apartment after the game, with the rest of the team going back to the Continental Plaza.

On Tuesday, the second game of the series, the routine continued; Murcer drove his buddies to Comiskey; the team bus arrived around the same time. The injury report was going deeper in what was shaping up as a lost season. Figueroa, slated to pitch on Wednesday, told Martin he would warm up, but with bone chips in his right elbow already diagnosed, it was possible he might be done for the year. It would be another challenging week for Martin.

Wrote Figueroa, “In Chicago that night I told Munson that I was going to California the next day to see Dr. Frank Jobe, and as Munson had his plane in Chicago, I asked him jokingly if he could fly me to California. He answered that if it were not so far, he would take me.

“After, he told me, ‘Figgy, we are two beauties. We can’t do nothing to help the club win.’”

One wonders if his old line to Brian Doyle about complaining players—“So retire!”—ever entered his mind.

Having DH’d the night before, and with the team having won two in a row, Munson was as rested and as happy as it was possible for him to be, given his physical condition and the season looking like
a lost cause. Sensing this might be a rare opportunity to grab an interview with the team captain, broadcaster Frank Messer took a shot at doing his pregame show with Thurman before the final game of the series.

It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when Messer, tape recorder in hand, ambled up to Munson and asked if he’d mind.

Everybody liked Frank Messer, a genuinely good guy, a guy who liked to play cards with the players, a guy with a perpetual good attitude, day in, day out. He was also a terrific broadcaster, nestled between the playful Rizzuto and the skeptical Bill White, keeping the flow of the game, dutifully reading the team promos, maintaining a high level of professionalism. This was his twelfth season with the team, and fans were comfortable and entertained by the Rizzuto-Messer-White years. They complemented one another well and respected one another.

Messer was prepared for Munson to say no, which Thurman would have done politely, since he was among those who liked Frank a lot. And Messer knew Thurman didn’t particularly like doing interviews, even though one normally assumed that a team captain would do a lot of them. But he knew Thurman had things on his mind and that he trusted broadcast media more than print, and that Frank wouldn’t do him wrong.

Munson ended up agreeing to the interview, so hours before he would unknowingly play his final major league baseball game, he spoke with Messer. He tended to ramble on a bit in discussing his future and his health, he spoke rapidly, and there was a discomforting air of uncertainty in his responses. Still, the pride of his accomplishments came through, and he did make it clear that he wanted to remain a Yankee, if indeed he continued to play after 1979.