Boston Dirt Dogs please observe a moment of silence with me for a dear member of the baseball fraternity. Mark “The Bird” Fidrych has passed on to the Field of Dreams…Baseball has lost a true gentlemen of the game.

It seems as I get older I spend more and more of my writing on remembering the past. Perhaps it is because before I reached this age, I didn’t really have a past. I just had the present and a future, those are not earned, we all get those, but your past is earned. I was taken back to that past this morning when I read of the passing of Mark Fidrych. My past with the the colorful pitcher was the summer of 1982. While my first professional baseball game might have been 1976 in Boston, my baseball education started in 1981 in Pawtucket and continued in earnest for the 1982 season. While a trip to Boston back then might have been an overnight adventure, a Paw Sox game was a near weekly event. My grandfather was a big Red Sox fan, as is my mother, and our trips to McCoy stadium became fairly common in 1981, where we saw many future Red Sox stars such as Wade Boggs and Marty Barret make their bones. The long walk up that ramp at McCoy stadium in Pawtucket, viewing the life-size paintings of Paw Sox greats, set the stage like no other simple cold cement wall could.

When it was announced that Mark Fidrich had been signed by the Red Sox and would be sent to Pawtucket for his comeback attempt, I must admit it hardly register with this Young Red Sox fan. I was frankly more interested in figuring out if the great Dave Koza was going to get his shot at the big club this year, or if Chico Walker was ready to harness all that potential and give the Red Sox a lead off hitter for the first time in years. My Grandfather, a baseball fan since the days of Ruth, was not going to let some news like this slip by my young eyes without notice. Next time I was over his house for a visit (which was pretty much daily) he proceeded to educate me on “the Bird” and his history. My mom even helped me get a book about him from the library. I was very excited as we all took the short trip down 95 just past the Apex department store to see his first game.

I’d like to say he dominated and had a successful come back, but that was not in the cards and that’s not what mattered to anyone that summer. Those halcyon days of 1976 were past and were not going to be coming back…were they? What he did though was make a heck of an impression on a young player and fan, whose favorite Red Sox at the time was the stoic Yaz. The antics seemed to be less then they might have been in 1976, or maybe everyone’s memory was a bit faded. They were there though, if you squinted your eyes just a little maybe you could see that 22 year old prancing around the mound grooming it just right or talking to the ball in a plea for its flight to be true. The crowd was alive with every pitch that night as they would be for the rest of the season. It was something special to be there in 1982 when the Bird pitched. We went to many games that summer, it was before part time jobs and other trappings of time and age steal your youth.

One game though was special to us, and I will remember the smallest detail for the rest of my life. While the Columbus and Pawtucket rivalry was nothing like the Boston & New York rivalry of the big club, we always tired to catch those games when we could and caught many games starring the immortal Steve Balboni. Our local paper ran a small story that the Yankees young gun Dave Righetti would be sent down to AAA for rehab tune ups. Well since I had nothing better to do, I used to track the Paw Sox rotation, so we could catch as many of the Bird’s games as possible. I quickly ran to my schedule and told my mom that if all went according to plan the two legends would be facing each other at McCoy. Whether she was genuinely excited or indulging my youthful enthusiasm I guess I’ll never know. She promised to call my grandfather (her dad) when he woke from his nap (he was a baker) and see if he would take me down to get tickets. This of course was LONG before the days of buying tickets on the web. By lunch time, my grandfather and I were riding in his Chrysler to the box office and picked up our tickets. It had to be the next day or the day after that the parent clubs confirmed what a 12 year old Red Sox fan living in Cranston already knew –the Bird was going to face Righetti and the region went crazy! The papers covered the event with daily updates, tickets flew out of McCoy stadium and fans were buying standing room only tickets. No small feat for a club and stadium that were well on the way to extinction before Ben Mondor stepped in and saved a piece of Rhode Island history and ensured generations more would make new memories and see old memories come back to life. Media coverage like this had not been seen in this area since the the completion of the longest game the season before.

The day of the big game was an event, we arrived very early so as to be assured a spot in the very small parking lot at McCoy and we always liked to catch batting practice and collect autographs. I was working on a team ball and by then it was almost complete. Ironically, one of the autographs missing was Fidrych. Most of the games we went to he was the starting pitcher and as such was not very available for signatures. I did end up getting his signature in RED pen no less on the last game of the year, he was very gracious to a young fawning fan. What I remember most about the game was that we had great seats. Certainly better then anyone other then local celebrities or season ticket holders had for that game. The fans were sitting in the isles next to our seats and all up and down the lower rows. The old stadium was busting at the seams. It was just wild, the stadium seemed more like a party than a baseball game. Both pitchers did not disappoint, they gave it their all that day. I wonder if Righetti knew what he was in for when he arrived at the park that day, hoping to restore the luster to his once limitless young career. It was 1976 again wasn’t it, it had to be, there was no other explanation for this much attention on a simple minor league game that meant nothing to most of the players, or did it? Righetti was near dominant, but Fidrych came out on top with the victory.

The local papers ran stories about every aspect of that game, featuring lots of pictures for a young fan’s scrap book. It was truly a local phenomenon. I wonder now what he must have felt about his last game on a truly wide stage. For one brief moment it must have felt like 1976 again, with a packed stadium and all of the eyes of baseball upon him. How wonderful years after he thought that would never happen to be brought back to one’s youth, to the days when his baseball life was ahead of him and the world was his to own. Before the hours of surgery and rehabilitation took away one of baseball’s great talents and personalities. After 1983, his prospects at a come back gone, the Bird retired from the game of his youth to the grown up responsibilities of working his farm in Massachusetts, hopefully finding the peace of mind he came to Pawtucket seeking those two summers. Peace of mind is something that can only be found with age and experience and very few of us get a chance to go back in time and secure that peace. In 1982 I went looking for baseball, for a dream as eternal as the morning mist, for something special and I found it! Thank you Mom, POP, Ben Mondor and thank you Mark Fidrych. My thoughts today go out to you and your family. Rest in peace knowing you will not be forgotten.