A tragic week for baseball

Yes, I know this generally is a politics blog. But I've been an avid baseball fan since 1971, when I was 5, and so the news today of the deaths of two iconic figures in the sport has rattled me a bit, especially after last week's death of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, just 23, as the result of being struck by a drunk driver.

Today we lost the inimitable voice of Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas and the once-wondrous, always eccentric pitcher Mark "The Bird" Fidrych.

I admittedly didn't hear a lot of Phillies broadcasts over the years, but every so often, the AM dial would find Harry Kalas' distinctively sonorous voice. Kalas (right) was one of the last of a generation of legendary baseball broadcasters with whom I literally grew up, a number that includes the Dodgers' Vin Scully, the late Jack Buck of the Cardinals, the Tigers' great Ernie Harwell, and the voice of my favorite team for so long, the Orioles' Chuck Thompson. At a time when nearly every game in every sport is broadcast on television and endlessly dissected in innumerable highlights shows, I can't help but smile when I think back on driving at night on some lonesome highway somewhere during the '80s and '90s and listening to Kalas and his contemporaries literally create a very visual game with just their words and inflections. (Kalas also was well known for his narration of NFL Films productions, having taken over some years ago for the legendary John Facenda.) Fittingly, Kalas collapsed in the broadcast booth while preparing to call yet another Phillies game.

Meanwhile, on the same day, we bid farewell to one of baseball's true characters. In 1976 at the tender age of 21, Mark Fidrych burst onto the scene. He had earned his nickname of "The Bird" because of his peculiar mannerisms on the mound and his shock of curly blond hair reminiscent of Sesame Street's Big Bird (as Sports Illustrated showed us at left). While talking to the ball and fussing with the dirt on the mound all the way, Fidrych was the story of the '76 season as he won 19 games for the Detroit Tigers and led the American League with a 2.34 earned run average. He was the AL's Rookie of the Year and finished second in the Cy Young Award voting to Baltimore's ace, Jim Palmer. Everyone figured Fidrych would have many more shots at a Cy Young Award, but in spring training in '77, he suffered a knee injury and, later that year, a torn rotator cuff that essentially ended his career. Failed comebacks in 1980 with the Tigers and 1981 with his hometown Boston Red Sox never dimmed his celebrity, although he preferred a quiet life at home with his family.

It's a sad day for this baseball fan, but I can't help but smile as I remember two of baseball's truly memorable personalities.