Farewell to the Captain

With the Yankees playing a day game yesterday, the YES Network used the 9:00 time slot to show a game that will be forever burned into my brain. It was August 6, 1979, the day they buried the Yankees captain, Thurman Munson. Thurman had been killed 4 days earlier when his plane crashed while practicing touch and go landings at the Akron-Canton Regional Airport.

The days that followed were a blur for a 17-year old recent high school graduate from New Jersey. I still recall where I was when my best friend called me to tell me what had happened. I remember watching the news in disbelief. Imagine how you felt when you heard that Corey Lidle was tragically killed last year and multiply it times a million.

On August 6, Thurman Munson was laid to rest in front of family, friends, teammates, and opponents. The Yankees had to make the trek back to Yankee Stadium that night for a scheduled game with the Baltimore Orioles, some of which were at the funeral. George Steinbrenner had considered taking a forfeit. Billy Martin was inconsolable. But the Yankees made their way back in time and the game went on. The game was to be nationally televised on ABC, and Steinbrenner lifted the blackout restriction so that local audiences could see the game as well.

Watching the game last night brought back those days, but with time comes acceptance. Though it's still hard to believe he was gone at age 32 and that 28 years have passed. It was great seeing some of "my boys" back then. My favorite, of course, Bobby Murcer. Lou Piniella, Graig Nettles, Ron Guidry, Roy White, Chris Chambliss, Willie Randolph. And of course there was Bobby's heroics.

There was 3-run home run off of Dennis Martinez to cut the Orioles lead to 4-3 and then the game winning 2-run hit in the 9th off of Tippy Martinez. Billy Martin wasn't going to play Bobby, figuring that after eulogizing his friend and not getting much sleep for days, he wouldn't be up to it. But Bobby said that for some reason he felt energized. The rest is history.

The win brought temporary joy to an exhausted team and to its fan base. No one cared any more about the 1979 season. A bad season had just gotten a whole lot worse. The Captain will always be remembered.

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On a lighter note, the game also brought back the memory of just how annoying Howard Cosell was. He had no business broadcasting anything, let alone baseball. He stepped all over his fellow announcers, in this case Keith Jackson and Don Drysdale, so that he could beat them to the punch. His repetitiveness was like combining Mike Francesa and Tim McCarver. To use his own words, he was a mockery.

photo courtesy of Thurman Munson - the official site