Fidrych embodied the joy of baseball

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry

We didn't have a television on my family's dairy farm in Vermont, but when there were particularly special games, my parents let me ride my bike or walk to a neighbor's house to watch -- so long as I was up early and working in the barn the next morning without complaint. This was the deal that allowed me to see Carlton Fisk's home run in 1975 and Bob Welch's strikeout of Reggie Jackson in the 1978 World Series. This was why I was fortunate enough, at age 12, to see Mark Fidrych's joy one Monday night in the summer of 1976.

Fidrych rushed on and off the field like he couldn't wait to run out to the mound to throw an inning and then couldn't wait to run off to tell someone about how much fun he'd had. He patted down the mound, shaping it to his liking, and here was the big thing -- he seemed to talk to the baseball.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

    Ask Buster a question: Buster's Mailbag

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