3

Lakeland, Montgomery, and Evansville

Frank MacCormack was hanging out in the rec room at Fetzer Hall in Lakeland, Florida. Fetzer Hall, home to all Tiger minor leaguers in spring training, was a renovated ex-military barracks on the property of a World War I airfield that had been converted into Tiger Town. The twenty-one-year-old MacCormack was feeling good about himself. The hard-throwing pitcher was fresh off an impressive season at Class A Lakeland and figured to start the 1975 season no lower than AA. As he played Ping-Pong, he couldn’t help but notice another player, a guy he had seen around a few times but didn’t know. The guy was playing pool—rather loudly. The guy was Mark Fidrych. “I thought he was nuts,” says MacCormack. “He was trying to do all these crazy trick shots, talking nonstop, just saying anything.” MacCormack, a cocky, street-smart wise guy from New Jersey, became annoyed listening to the nonsense and tossed a few snide comments and thinly veiled insults in Mark’s direction. Mark endured the taunts for a while but finally dropped his pool stick and approached MacCormack, wondering who this guy was who was hassling him before he even knew him. The two pitchers were separated and cooler heads prevailed fortunately. Later, after this crude introduction, the two got to know each other and became friends. “I ended up rooming with him on and off for the next two years, in Evansville and even in Detroit after I got called up,” says MacCormack. “He was a character right from the start. He wasn’t shy—he had no pretentions about himself. He walked around and said what he felt, whatever came into his head. He didn’t think about the repercussions of anything he said—I mean that in an innocent sort of way. After getting to know him, we became good friends, really good friends.” He pauses. “He was still nuts though.”

Not being allowed to bring a car to camp, Mark had gotten his buddies to drive him down from Massachusetts for his first spring training at Tiger Town in 1975. Mark, Wayne Hey, Bob Murphy, and Bill McAfee—neighborhood friends since early childhood—all piled into a small car packed with Mark’s gear. The plan was for the other three to head to the new Disney World park in Orlando after dropping off Mark. They pulled up to the Tigers’ headquarters and Mark unloaded his stuff from the trunk. The four small-town boys looked at all the professional baseball players entering, feeling like little kids with their noses pressed against a candy store window as they recognized players they had previously seen on television. Suddenly feeling out of place in the presence of the major leaguers, the three friends told Mark, “You’ve got to go in there. We’re leaving.”

Mark was slated to start the 1975 season with the Class A Lakeland Tigers along with a lot of his Bristol teammates. It was one step up the ladder. There were about 150 minor league players in camp, all competing for the same spots. The reality that there were a finite number of jobs available faced them every day. All the players had hopes, aspirations, and signed contracts, but they all knew they had to prove themselves—they could be released any day. In the dorm and on the field, they met and mingled with their future teammates and competitors-for-jobs. While some players were reserved and cautious, preferring to keep their cards close to their chest, others were not. Mark Fidrych, particularly, was not. Outgoing, talkative, uninhibited as always, he was not hard to notice.

The players spent much free time at Zimmerman’s Bar, about a half an hour away, laughing over beers and playing pinball, one of Mark’s favorite activities. Zimmerman’s was a small bar—not much bigger than a diner. Players went there after games and practice; often the place would be filled with nothing but players and a few writers. The owner liked baseball players and made them comfortable. The trick for the players was to be back in the dorm by the 11:30 curfew—not an easy task for those without cars. They had to either bum rides back with older players or writers or use their thumb. If no one picked them up hitchhiking, they walked the whole way. The doors to the dorm were locked at 11:30—anyone not present at that time got fined when they showed up and begged to get in. Mark and his roommate learned a way around that, however. They unscrewed the bolts on the window to their first-floor room and were able to sneak back in when the need arose.

Being caught outside the locked dorm was only one of the hazards wayward players faced. “One night I was driving back to camp,” recalled Hoot Evers in 1976, “and I saw this strange figure hitchhiking on the road. He had no shirt on, just cut-off jeans and tennis shoes that had to be at least ten years old. And his body was baked sun red. He had been on the beach all afternoon and was trying to get back to camp before curfew.” Recognizing Mark, the director of Tiger player development picked him up. Mark was not exactly happy to be found in that condition by Evers. “Of all the luck,” he said when he got into the car. “All the cars that go by and I gotta get picked up by my boss.”

Patrick Zier was a young sports reporter for the Lakeland Ledger in 1975. Sometimes referred to as the hippie sportswriter, Zier had long hair and a beard—the kind of look that would have gotten him thrown out of most clubhouses only a few years earlier. “When are you going to get a haircut?” Jim Campbell would joke with him when he saw him at the baseball field in Lakeland. Zier would answer back to the bald general manager: “When you get a wig.” Because of his casual appearance and attitude, and the fact that he was closer in age, Zier was able to get to know the players better than the older reporters. He often hung out with them at Zimmerman’s and enjoyed their company away from the park. He sometimes bought a case of beer for the clubhouse when the team won a big series. Players learned that he could be trusted—something said off the record was kept just that. Zier was able to get a bird’s-eye view of Mark Fidrych from the beginning—before events would turn him into a media sensation—and watch him progress over the ensuing years each time he returned to Lakeland. “Mark was pretty much a normal guy back then,” Zier says. “He was a typical kid, just more exuberant and hyper. But otherwise he liked to fool around with the guys, just like any of the other players. He really wasn’t that much different. I would have never called him a flake. I think a lot of that flake stuff got blown out of proportion by the writers later; not the Detroit writers who got to know him, but the out-of-town guys who were just looking for a good story. Mark was very open; he didn’t hold anything back. He was never reserved. He always said whatever he felt, and occasionally that got him into trouble. Sometimes things got misinterpreted.

“When you were in Lakeland back then,” Zier continues, “you were a nobody. There were no agents, there wasn’t anybody who had big bonuses back then. Nobody was making any money. They were just regular young guys. They did what regular young guys will do. But you could tell Mark could pitch in 1975. I think everybody at that time knew he had one of the best arms in the system. And he did a lot of the same things on the mound that he did later. He was very exuberant on the field. People didn’t make as big a deal about it here—maybe because the crowds were so small. I think he fed off the crowds—as they got bigger, he could feel the energy. He was very genuine, he wasn’t crazy. He really wanted to get good at baseball. He knew it was the only thing he could do that set him apart.”

For all his fun off the field, Mark knew when it was time to work. He had a serious side and a very strong determination to succeed. Zier later recalled one night when he gave Mark a ride home. Mark talked candidly about himself, and “unlike most people, he knew his strengths and weaknesses and was willing to face up to them. He was not real smart, he said. He couldn’t go to college and make something of himself. Baseball was like college for him, he said. ‘And I’m going to make it to the big leagues, you watch, because I know if I don’t, I’m nothing.’”

The 1975 Lakeland Tigers were managed by a fifty-six-year-old lifer named Stubby Overmire. Stubby pitched in the majors from 1943 to 1952 with the Tigers, Browns, and Yankees, then managed in the minors from 1954 to 1975. Overmire was well liked but somewhat lax in his rules. He didn’t hold the reins as tight as some in the organization felt that he should have, reasoning that if a player was old enough to sign a pro contract he was old enough to run his own life. Stubby’s genial nature made discipline distasteful. Although he applied discipline when necessary, players had to get pretty far out of line to agitate Stubby, and he had few rules. Naturally, there were those who took advantage of this.

“In some ways, perhaps, Stubby wasn’t cut out to be a manager in the low minors,” wrote Patrick Zier in 1977. “He was just too nice a guy.” He knew baseball, however, and was quick to spot exceptional talent. It gave him great satisfaction when his guys moved up to the next level. He loved calling a player in and telling him to pack his bags for Montgomery. When it was time for the bad news that the player was going the other direction, however, Stubby might brood about it for days. “Stubby understood what it was to want to be a major leaguer,” Zier wrote. “He understood the sacrifices the individuals on his team made. He knew what it was to work and devote your life to something, and he understood the frustration of being told all that was for nothing.”

Conditions at Lakeland were better than at Bristol—a step up. Nicer buses. Nicer hotels. Nicer towns to visit. But it was still low-level minor league baseball with the players not making much money. Always on the lookout for cheap accommodations, Mark rented a cramped old trailer a few miles from the Tigers’ home of Joker Marchant Stadium. Teammates joked that he lived in a hot dog stand, but, in reality, most hot dog stands may have been a little more spacious—and better smelling. Still without a car, Mark was dependent on others to get around, but overall life was good.

The players were fortunate that the people of Lakeland were very supportive of Tiger baseball. A number of businessmen regularly met with players and enjoyed their company. “My father owned several businesses in Lakeland and he loved baseball,” says Diane Horn Whitaker, who was nineteen years old in 1975. “He always invited players over to our house. They would just hang out and play pool. Sometimes we would have cookouts or take them skiing; just stuff for them to have fun. Of course, Dad paid for a lot of things because they didn’t have any money back then. We were big baseball fans, so we had a lot of fun with the guys. Mark was part of a group that would hang out with us a lot. He was very down to earth. He was just a really nice guy, always happy. Definitely not extravagant; he had very simple tastes. He always wore this plaid shirt—I thought it was the only shirt he had.

“But he was humble and appreciated everything he had,” she continues. “He was very serious about baseball. He always said he was going to make it to the majors. And after he did, stardom didn’t change him when he came back to Lakeland each year for spring training.”

Paul Fidrych could not have been more proud of how his son was doing playing professional baseball. Paul’s schedule as a teacher allowed him time off during the summer to see quite a few of Mark’s games. “We went everywhere—Bristol, Lakeland, Evansville,” says Lorie Fidrych. “When we drove down to visit him at Lakeland, we stayed with Mark in the little trailer and I had to sleep on the floor. I didn’t like it because there were a lot of cockroaches in the floor, and there were alligators everywhere. But Mark didn’t care too much about how his apartment was—he didn’t spend much time there. He always seemed happy when we came down to see him. We would go down to the bullpen and sometimes get to go out on the field. That was impressive to me because I was little. My parents were so proud of him.”

“Mark had a really neat relationship with his family,” says Bob Sykes. “His parents and sisters came to see him quite a bit—even when we were in Dunedin in the fall league. You could tell they were very close.” Mark couldn’t wait to call home after every good outing on the mound.

At Lakeland, Mark became a starting pitcher again. “We think he has an outstanding arm,” Hoot Evers told Zier early in the season. “We wanted to see what he could do as a starter.”

“I had always been a starter in high school,” added Mark, “but after I signed they told me I was going to be a reliever, so I relieved. I just do what they tell me. I figure they know what they’re doing.”

Stubby Overmire was impressed with Mark’s intensity and desire. “When we first got him he’d come into the dugout after the first inning and go right over to the john and throw up,” he said in 1976. “I’d ask him if he was all right, and he’d say, ‘Sure. I always do that.’ He was liable to say any damn thing that came into his mind. But his concentration was incredible. When he was on the mound, he didn’t know anyone else was in the park.”

Not knowing anyone else was in the park, Mark was prone to strange actions on the mound. Mike Coombs was a catcher at Lakeland along with Lance Parrish. “The Bird did basically the same things at Lakeland that he does with Detroit,” Coombs said in 1977. “But you didn’t notice it as much because you just figured he was crazy. He walked around in those high-top white sneakers, cut-off shorts, and a Perry Como sweater and was just a crazy guy.… I enjoyed catching him.”

Patrick Zier called him “Fidgety Fidrych” in the Lakeland Ledger and wrote of Mark’s mound behavior in early 1975: “Mark Fidrych is a nervous person, you know, one of those kind of people that hates to be still. He moves around a lot and he also has a fastball that moves.”

Opposing manager Rac Slider of the St. Petersburg Cardinals noted, “He may talk to himself on the mound, but he’s a good pitcher.”

One game, Mark pitched a complete game in a 5–2 win, despite getting sick in the dugout three times between innings. “I drank too much cold water,” he explained to Zier after the game.

Mark began the season well by winning his first three starts. Then he lost five in a row. Most of the losses were due to a lack of run support, errors, and an infuriating string of cheap hits—bloops over infielders’ heads and seeing-eye bleeders. The losing streak bewildered Mark, who asked Overmire what he was doing wrong. Stubby explained that he was completing his games and throwing well, just not getting any hitting support. He told Mark that he still had confidence in him and to just keep throwing the way he was.

In late July, Mark was met by the manager when he arrived at the park. Stubby told him, “Give your uniform to Bronson.” Bronson was the Lakeland equipment manager. There was only one reason to give him your uniform: because you wouldn’t be needing it anymore. With a 5–9 record, Mark’s first thought was, “I’m gone.” Overmire, seeing his shocked face, quickly added the good news, “You’re going up to Double A.”

Hoot Evers later told Mark they hoped that moving to a winning environment would improve things for him. “I was down at Lakeland,” Mark later said. “Everyone was. I think they sent me to Montgomery to improve my morale.” They also knew that Mark was throwing well and not being hit hard despite his losing record and ERA of 3.77. Four of his losses had been by one run. They knew Mark Fidrych was a rising star in the system.

The Montgomery Rebels were a good team and were leading the Southern League when Mark arrived. Montgomery was managed by Les Moss, who was the polar opposite of the easygoing Overmire. The first thing he said when he greeted Mark was, “You gotta get a haircut.” When Mark showed up at the park the next day, fresh off a cheap hack job on his hair, Moss was unimpressed. “I thought I told you to get a haircut?”

Mark answered, “I did.”

“Yeah, I know,” replied Moss. “Only next time I tell you to get a haircut, go get a good one.”

Moss ran a tight ship. If someone didn’t show up on time, everybody got fined ten dollars. Miss a sign—ten dollars. Get picked off—ten dollars. There were lots of ways for a player to lose money. New guys were quickly taught the facts of the system by the other players upon arrival. To keep up morale, Moss held a lottery on pay day every two weeks and picked three names to divide up the pot of fines.

Mark was beginning to learn that one had to adjust to the changes of minor league life on the fly. He quickly found himself an apartment in Montgomery. He was upset that he had recently paid a month’s rent in advance on his Lakeland hot-dog stand, which was now lost. He paid a month’s rent for his new apartment, $125, then left with the team for a fifteen-day road trip.

With the Rebels, it was back to the bullpen for Mark. He quickly impressed the right people by pitching very well. Mark noticed an improvement in the infield play behind him—especially with double plays on ground balls. For a low-ball pitcher, that was a big help. He pitched in seven games and had a 2–0 record.

August 16, before he even had time to enjoy his new apartment in Montgomery, Mark was promoted again, this time to Triple-A Evansville. In Detroit, the season was going poorly—the Tigers were in last place. Their relief ace, John Hiller, had been hurt along with several other pitchers, and the Tigers had sought pitching help from Evansville. This opened some spots. Tiger general manager Jim Campbell had followed Montgomery for several days to watch Mark and a few others pitch and had liked what he saw.

Another step up. Nicer hotels, they flew for away games, and meal money was now ten dollars a day. Mark lost another half-month’s rent (and the fifty dollar deposit) as he vacated his apartment to head to Evansville, but on the bright side, his pay, which had increased to $800 at Double A, was now bumped up to $1,200 a month in Evansville—pretty good money for a twenty-year-old who only a year earlier was working at a gas station. Mark got the news of the promotion while the Rebels were playing in Orlando and flew directly to join the Evansville team on the road in Wichita, arriving with only the clothes he had taken with him on the road trip. The rest of his clothes were still in Montgomery and had to be shipped later.

The Evansville Triplets were a hot team. Managed by former Tiger Fred Hatfield, another competitive tough guy, they had started the season near the bottom of the standings, losing ten straight and nineteen out of twenty-three during one stretch in May. After getting reinforcements in the form of number one draft pick first baseman Jason Thompson and several good pitchers who moved up from Montgomery, including Mark Lemongello and Frank MacCormack, they turned their season around. They had won sixteen of the previous twenty-two games and were in first place when Mark Fidrych was called up. He made an immediate impression on the Triplets, arriving at the field as the game was just starting. “Mark jumped out of the taxi all wound up,” says catcher Bruce Kimm. “He thought he was going to pitch that day. I told him to relax, that he was pitching the next day.” Kimm, who would become Mark’s private catcher in Detroit the next year, had seen him briefly in spring training but had not met him. “I had never seen anything like him,” Kimm continues. “The next night was his first start in Triple A. It was really something. The first inning, our shortstop Chuck Scrivener made a play—a pretty good play, but not a great play—a play we had seen him make a lot. Mark went over and shook his hand, right in the middle of the inning. We razzed him a little bit about it back in the dugout, and he said, ‘Well, they don’t make plays like that in A or Double-A ball.’ That was sort of neat because nobody had ever done that before.”

Mark, a starter again, quickly became the ace of the staff, going 4–1 with a 1.59 ERA in six games to finish up the season. “He stood out even in Evansville,” says pitching coach Fred Gladding. “He had good command of the strike zone and he was such a great competitor. He didn’t like to lose. He was very easy to coach. He would listen to you and do what you suggested. But I didn’t have to make many changes with him. The first time I saw that stuff that he did on the mound, I went, ‘Wow, what is this?’ But then you realized that he did the same thing every time and it was just his way of concentrating.”

“Mark was already good when he got to Evansville,” says Kimm. “And he pretty much did the same stuff at Evansville in 1975 that he did at Detroit in 1976. We had a little fence in front of the dugout. Instead of going around it like everybody else, he would jump over the top of it. He never walked—he sprinted from the dugout to the mound and back. He was just an excitable guy. When he pitched, you could feel the crowd getting into it.”

The crowd. Fans responded to Mark in Evansville just like they would the next year in Detroit. “Even in Evansville the fans were crazy about him,” says Gladding. “He talked to everybody, signed autographs, posed for pictures, would do anything they asked. He interacted with the fans like you’d never seen anybody do. And he looked liked he enjoyed talking to them. You could tell he enjoyed them as much as they enjoyed him.” There was just something about the guy: magnetism, charisma, something. But whatever it was, fans loved it.

Mark Peerman was nine years old when his parents first took him to see Mark Fidrych pitch at Bosse Field in Evansville. “The thing I remember after all these years is the show he put on, all the stuff he did,” says Peerman, now forty-five. “I was hooked instantly. He was so unique, no one else did anything like he did. Also, the way he applauded his teammates was special. He would shout and point at them and shake his fist at them when they made a play. I think it came across to the fans how sincere he was. The fans really appreciated his effort. Everyone loved him.” And Mark loved to interact with fans, especially kids.

“One game we got there real early and went down by the dugout,” Peerman continues. “He came over and talked to us. I had on a T-shirt that I had used a marker on to make a homemade jersey, to look like what the Triplets wore. Mark noticed it and said he liked it. He was just great. He posed with us for a picture and gave us an autographed ball. I still have the ball.”

Mark moved into an apartment with pitchers Lemongello, MacCormack, Ed Glynn and Dennis DeBarr. The five teammates spent a lot of time together away from the park. “It was crazy hanging out with him,” says MacCormack. “He had so much energy. It seemed like he never paid attention. He was constantly talking, doing things, bouncing around. His thoughts would change every second. You’d go nuts trying to keep up with him. You couldn’t keep up with him. He acted like a scatterbrain, but then he’d get on the field and you never saw such concentration on the mound. He could just block out everything—an unbelievable ability to focus. We thought he was some sort of savant for pitching.”

Pitcher Steve Grilli was also at Evansville and would play with Mark later for several years. “Mark was the same that year as he was the rest of his life,” says Grilli. “He was a free spirit, but very genuine. Kind of a blue-collar type guy. He always enjoyed whatever he was doing. He didn’t really get caught up in a lot of other stuff; he was just playing baseball, something he enjoyed doing. He had a lot of the same mannerisms, but the coaches didn’t make a big deal about them in Evansville—it was just something he did. He was just being himself and nobody told him to stop.”

In nine starts at Evansville, including the playoffs, Mark only lost two games: 2–1 and 1–0. On August 27, the Triplets were in position to clinch the divisional title against Omaha. Mark was scheduled to start. Before the game, he told manager Hatfield to go ahead and order a case of champagne. Hatfield replied that if Mark didn’t win, he would smash all the bottles over Mark’s head. Mark won 2–1, and the champagne bottles were opened and enjoyed, not broken over his head.

In the American Association playoffs against Denver, Mark took the mound with the Triplets leading the best-of-seven series three games to two. In a game notable for the contributions of future major league managers, shortstop Tony LaRussa got Denver on the board first, scoring a run with an infield ground out. After giving up two runs in the fifth, Mark slammed the door and pitched seven scoreless innings as the Triplets tied the game and sent it into extra innings. Infielder Jerry Manual hit a two-out home run in the twelfth inning to give the Triplets the win. Mark finished the twelve-inning game with an eight-hitter and the victory. After getting the last out, Mark raced to the plate and gave catcher Gene Lamont a big hug, then ran out to center field where Art James had just made the last catch and gave him a big hug also. One line in the minor league section of the back pages of the Sporting News gave observant major league fans a hint of things to come when it stated, “A pitcher who talks to himself on the mound, Fidrych followed his division-clincher against Omaha by twice beating Denver in the playoffs.”

After Evansville went on to win the Junior World Series crown, there was talk of promoting several pitchers, particularly Lemongello, MacCormack, and Fidrych. “Everybody is talking about those pitchers, everybody,” Tiger manager Ralph Houk told a reporter. The team decided against moving Mark up though. He would have to be content with two promotions in 1975. Houk later explained, “If we had been in a pennant race, we might have brought him up. But that would have meant we would have had to put him on the roster and protect him in the draft, and there was no need for us to do that.”

It had been a fantastic year for Mark Fidrych—vaulting from Single A to Triple A in less than four months. He had rapidly become a mature pitcher; his numbers had gotten better at each step up, against tougher competition. Two factors played a role: (1) the fielding play around him improved drastically as Mark moved up the ladder, and (2) with the excellent defensive catcher Kimm behind the plate, he could throw his slider in the dirt with confidence. All the low balls that were beat into the ground became outs—double plays with men on base. As Mark later said about Evansville, “I threw the ball and just said … they’re gonna make the plays … going for a double play.… They get you out of it. Just like that! You know how much that takes off your mind?” Mark’s control got better at each step up in the minor leagues also. He struck out fewer batters, walked much fewer, and threw fewer pitches to get guys out. Mark gave credit to Tiger pitcher Vern Ruhle for teaching him, while they were together in winter ball after the 1974 season, to let the infielders help him and not to try to strike everyone out. In Bristol and Lakeland, Mark walked one batter every two and a half innings. In Montgomery and Evansville, he walked about one every five.

After the season, Mark had five days to go home and then reported to the Florida Instructional League as he had in 1974. This time, however, he went as a man who had proven himself to be a definite major league prospect. Grodzicki told him not to worry about his record but to work on his change-up as much as possible in Florida. Even so, Mark posted a 4–2 record and led the Tigers to the Northern Division title. The schedule was much more relaxing in Florida and the players had time to enjoy the amenities and the ocean. “Me and Mark went fishing a lot,” says pitcher Dave Rozema. “One day, Mark goes, ‘I’m tired of catching this small stuff, I’m going for a shark.’ And he put a huge chunk of meat on the line. It hadn’t been in the water long before something big grabbed it and took off. We couldn’t get it in, it broke the line. Mark was just rolling laughing.”

After the fall season concluded, Mark went back to Northboro for the winter, fresh off playing for three first-place teams in a row. Relaxing and hanging out with his friends, he didn’t realize that it would be the last time he would ever be plain-old Fid from Northboro—he was about to hook his line on one of the biggest great-white media sharks of all time.