by Marty Appel
In this case, control fell to Bowie Kuhn. Going back to his veto of the Yankees’ signing of Andy Messersmith as a free agent during spring training of 1976, the Yankees had often come under disagreeable scrutiny. But in this case, if they wound up with Gamble, it would be okay with Martin.
Piniella, Munson, and Murcer arrived at Comiskey Park around 2:30, right around the time that the team bus showed up. Miserable old Comiskey Park, where the Black Sox had thrown a World Series and where the White Sox had unintentionally dropped one in 1959, had a steamy old clubhouse down the right field side of the stadium. Piniella, who was one of the last Yankee players who smoked cigarettes, sometimes held back in the clubhouse for just that purpose. Murcer and Munson joined the other players who liked to get out to the field early.
The new face in the clubhouse that evening belonged to yet another outfielder, Juan Beniquez, who hadn’t played since July 7, when he went on the disabled list. With Rivers gone, Beniquez was activated and placed in the second spot in the batting order. Munson would play first base and bat third, as the Yankees tried to snap their three-game losing streak.
Rich Wortham would oppose the Yanks’ Tommy John that evening in a battle of left-handers. John had pitched for the White Sox from 1965 to 1971 and still had a good following in Chicago.
The Yankees did get a victory out of the evening, played under very humid conditions, but not without a cost. Beniquez, of all people, fell between second and third in the ninth inning and had to be carried off on a stretcher and sent back to New York. It was a pulled groin muscle, and he wouldn’t be seen again until September. One game and out. And on the day Rivers was traded.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Martin.
Murcer would now have to play center.
As for the game, the Yanks broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth when Willie Randolph singled, went to second on a groundout by Beniquez, and scored on a single by Munson off Wortham.
It was career hit number 1,558 for Munson, and RBI number 701.
John, with his sinker working well, pitched into the seventh and gave up plenty of ground balls, with Munson recording thirteen of the team’s twenty-seven putouts at first without a miscue. Ron Davis finished as the Yanks won 7-2 to stay fourteen games behind Baltimore.
Piniella, Munson, and Murcer returned to the Murcer apartment after the game, with the rest of the team going back to the Continental Plaza.
Chicago, Tuesday, July 31
On Tuesday, the second game of the series, the routine continued; Murcer drove his buddies to Comiskey; the team bus arrived around the same time. The injury report was going deeper in what was shaping up as a lost season. Figueroa, slated to pitch on Wednesday, told Martin he would warm up, but with bone chips in his right elbow already diagnosed, it was possible he might be done for the year. It would be another challenging week for Martin.
Wrote Figueroa, “In Chicago that night I told Munson that I was going to California the next day to see Dr. Frank Jobe, and as Munson had his plane in Chicago, I asked him jokingly if he could fly me to California. He answered that if it were not so far, he would take me.
“After, he told me, ‘Figgy, we are two beauties. We can’t do nothing to help the club win.’”
One wonders if his old line to Brian Doyle about complaining players—“So retire!”—ever entered his mind.
Having DH’d the night before, and with the team having won two in a row, Munson was as rested and as happy as it was possible for him to be, given his physical condition and the season looking like a lost cause. Sensing this might be a rare opportunity to grab an interview with the team captain, broadcaster Frank Messer took a shot at doing his pregame show with Thurman before the final game of the series.
It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when Messer, tape recorder in hand, ambled up to Munson and asked if he’d mind.
Everybody liked Frank Messer, a genuinely good guy, a guy who liked to play cards with the players, a guy with a perpetual good attitude, day in, day out. He was also a terrific broadcaster, nestled between the playful Rizzuto and the skeptical Bill White, keeping the flow of the game, dutifully reading the team promos, maintaining a high level of professionalism. This was his twelfth season with the team, and fans were comfortable and entertained by the Rizzuto-Messer-White years. They complemented one another well and respected one another.
Messer was prepared for Munson to say no, which Thurman would have done politely, since he was among those who liked Frank a lot. And Messer knew Thurman didn’t particularly like doing interviews, even though one normally assumed that a team captain would do a lot of them. But he knew Thurman had things on his mind and that he trusted broadcast media more than print, and that Frank wouldn’t do him wrong.
Munson ended up agreeing to the interview, so hours before he would unknowingly play his final major league baseball game, he spoke with Messer. He tended to ramble on a bit in discussing his future and his health, he spoke rapidly, and there was a discomforting air of uncertainty in his responses. Still, the pride of his accomplishments came through, and he did make it clear that he wanted to remain a Yankee, if indeed he continued to play after 1979.
MESSER: Good evening, everybody, this is Frank Messer on the New York Yankees pregame show sponsored tonight by Abraham and Strauss. Game number two between the Yankees and the Chicago White Sox. My guest on the Yankee pregame show is Thurman Munson. We’ll be back to talk baseball with Thurman in just one minute.
MESSER: Thurman Munson, the question being asked by Yankee fans everywhere these days is: What about the future of Thurman Munson; the report that the knees are bad; you’re not able to catch anymore; just what is this story? Thurman?
MUNSON: Well, Frank, my knees are bad and I saw a doctor last week. They’ve both been X-rayed and he said that I am not gonna catch for a while, and how long that exactly is I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of pain there and I probably won’t be catching for quite a while. And if it’ll clear up, I’ll go back but if they don’t and they’re right, maybe I won’t catch. [Short laugh] I don’t know.
MESSER: Is it possible your career as a catcher could be over?
MUNSON: Well, anything is possible, Frank. I won’t be that dramatic. I’m talking about what the Yankees are gonna have to do. I think my knees have some stress on them. It has some problems. And I think what the Yankees have to do to make up their minds. I want them for me to work me around for another two or three years. And I think that’s one decision that they would have to make. As far as right now, Thurman Munson is not gonna catch for a while and … that’s coming from me and not from the Yankees’ office. And you know, they’re bad and—and when they hurt like they do, I just can’t do that much. I had the problem most of the year and I went ahead and played with it and I don’t wanna hurt myself and the ball club, and I just decided not to play.
MESSER: What about Thurman Munson? Does he want to be around for another year or two or three more years?
MUNSON: If I go and play, so that I might retire from baseball but I wanted to go to Cleveland or somewhere else, that’s not true anymore. And whether my last year is not this year, as long as my career lasts, I wanna play with the Yankees. And I wanna play as long as I am physically capable of going out there and having people remember me the way that I once was. And I don’t mean maybe having good statistics that I used to have and this and that… remember me stretching the singles into doubles and taking extra bases, going first to home and all that kind of stuff, and if I can’t do that then I’m not gonna play.
MESSER: Thurman Munson, the last few games, you’ve been playing at first base. Tonight, you’re penciled in as the designated hitter, so Billy Martin obviously wants to keep your bat in the lineup.
MUNSON: Well, I told Billy before that when I’m catching six or seven days a week as I had been I can’t hit. One thing about hitting or pitching, if your legs do go, you’re in more trouble. I’ve got a lot of trouble, I’ve got a lot of problems, I couldn’t make a
decent turn at the plate. It cuts my power down and all of a sudden, you started cheatin’ to do things, then you’re not good together. So I told them if I did get out and play another position that I would be a much better player and a much better hitter like I was once. I think it proves that if I took four or five days off in a row, I wouldn’t play first base in Milwaukee and I hit these three balls right to the fence, and one of which would have been a home run if it hadn’t been for the wind blowing in and I hit a couple of balls really well so I’m convinced in my own mind, and, and I think the Yankees are too, that if I catch and I’m just gonna get back into the recession that I’ve had, because physically, I can’t do it.
MESSER: My guest, Thurman Munson, will be back in one minute.
MESSER: Thurman, let’s talk about another position for you. If there is to be another position, what would it be? Where would you like to play?
MUNSON: Well, I think if there’s gonna be, I think the outfield would be worth playing. I haven’t played infield since I was in college. And everybody says, he’s a good athlete, he can learn to do things but it’s a lot easier said than done. I think that if I could go to the outfield, at least learn to be an average outfielder and run, keep my legs in shape and do the things that I’d like to do without hurting. And there’s a lot of pressure at infield; you better know your position pretty well and I’m sure you couldn’t take an infielder and make a catcher out of him. Just like it’s hard to take a catcher to make an infielder. And I think physically, I can do it, but mentally, I don’t know. It’s kinda tough, it’s just something that—that happens after thirty years, you kinda wanna be left alone, you don’t want somebody else’s problems either.
MESSER: Now, all right Thurman, if you would go to the outfield, which outfield position do you think would best suit you?
MUNSON: Well, either left or right, to me it really doesn’t matter. Left field’s kinda tough at Yankee Stadium because of the fence. But the fence isn’t as bad as it once was and anyway, it doesn’t matter really to me. The only thing that I’m concerned about is to go out and get enough work to be able to play the outfield respectable and in order to do that, they have to let you play every day out there.
MESSER: Do you feel you have the arm it takes to play the outfield?
MUNSON: I don’t know how much of an arm it takes, I don’t know how many assists there are a year in the outfield. I sit back to catch. I don’t know how many people get assists as an outfielder. How many would it take is a pretty reaction that what it takes for wanting to do things. If you wanna stop a guy from going first to third, you charge the ball, not worrying too much about making a mistake, and let’s face it: you field the ball and you come throwing to the infield and people just gonna know, even last year I wanna play ball, I played eight to ten games. I can’t remember anybody doing first to third on me. I take charge and I get the ball quick out as I did and you don’t have to have a strong arm to intimidate people.
MESSER: Final thought from Thurman Munson after this.
MESSER: Well, Thurman, we talked about every aspect of it. The fact that if the knees may not let you catch anymore, that the future will decide that. What about hitting? You think you would still be in the major leagues for another two or three years as long as you want to play?
MUNSON: Well, it’s not even a question, Frank. I’m just thinking that it really depends on the legs, it depends on turns, it depends on having enough power to push off to go into the ball, to do the things that you wanna do. You know, hitting so much now, people don’t realize you have something physically wrong with you. All of a sudden, you start trying some other things, you start trying to get your hands out, and you get started having problems. I know that if my legs feel good, and probably because I’ve hopefully been a little smarter around, or a little better.
MESSER: Thurman, in retrospect, do you wish now you had not caught as many games a year as you had?
MUNSON: Well, Frank, I been asked that before and maybe I could have caught three or four more years if I’d caught a hundred games a year but I tell you, you know I’m a pretty proud guy, I’m pretty proud of the fact that as a catcher I always averaged 140 games a year for the ten years. I’ve been a damn good player doing so; not too many catchers have ever done it. I think I got more games. I got more hits in ten years than any catcher in the history of the game, and I can’t say that I’d, there are not too many guys who’d had the chance to get the awards that I received and to win championships like we had. And I don’t regret it at all because one thing anybody can say about me is that I like to win and I think that constitutes of playing every day.
MESSER: Thurman Munson, wherever you play, I hope it is every day. The outfield, first base, designated hitter, the Yankee lineup card just would not be the same without Thurman Munson’s name in it.
MUNSON: Thanks, Frank. I hope so too.
MESSER: The pregame show has been sponsored by Abraham and Strauss, I’m Frank Messer and stay tuned for New York Yankee baseball.
Munson that night would DH against Randy Scarbery, the White Sox starter, who was 1-5 going in. Murcer would be in center, Jerry Narron behind the plate, and Jim Spencer at first. The Spencer move was a good one: he hit a three-run homer in the sixth off Scarbery to lead the Yanks to a 7-3 win, giving Guidry a win and Gossage a save. Neither had been pitching well of late; the win made Guidry only 9-7 a year after his 25-3 season, and Gossage’s save was only his sixth after 27 the year before.
It wasn’t a good game for the aching Munson. He went 0-5, with four groundouts and a fly to left.
It wasn’t a good day for the White Sox player-manager Don Kessinger, either. Kessinger, the last player-manager the American League would see (Pete Rose would hold both jobs in the NL from 1984 to 1986), would be out of a job by week’s end, with Tony LaRussa taking over on August 3 to begin an illustrious managerial career of his own.
Back at Murcer’s apartment, Bobby, Lou, and Thurman were talking baseball, drinking scotch, talking flying.
Back in Canton, Diana watched A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson on TV and cried at the end when Kristofferson’s character, John Norman Howard, dies.
She called Thurman after the movie and told him she was scared of his flying. He reassured her that she was his best friend and he was privileged to share his life with her.
“I love you very much,” Murcer and Piniella heard him say.
Piniella would tell Maury Allen for his book Sweet Lou, “He didn’t need it, but you couldn’t argue with him about anything.
“That night, it was baseball, friendship, and our happiness to have Bobby back. It was very sentimental; Bobby was almost in tears.
“Then Bobby started saying to Munson, ‘What do you need that for?’ Thurman brushed it off. ‘I’m comfortable, I’m confident,’ he said.”
Chicago, Wednesday, August 1
August began with a night game in Chicago to wrap up the series, a game televised back in New York on WPIX.
Piniella recalls, “After breakfast, Bobby drove us out to the airport. [Thurman] talked about the plane the whole time. We drove to the hangar area. We got into the plane. It looked like a rocket, long and sleek. We sat for a few minutes, and finally Bobby and I looked at each other. We shook our heads. ‘Let’s do it some other time,’ Bobby said. I unbuckled my seat belt, Thurman let the ladder down, and we got out.
“‘Ahh, hell,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to worry.’”
In the afternoon, Commissioner Kuhn finally approved the deal that sent Oscar Gamble to the Yankees, but Gamble would not join the team until Friday in New York.
Don Hood, who was 3-0, pitched seven strong innings for the Yanks, with Jim Kaat hurling the final two in an easy 9-1 Yankee win. Hood had been told he was starting only eight minutes before game time, when Luis Tiant complained of a stiff arm. Tiant was moved up to start Friday night in New York. The Yanks benefited from three homers, Reggie Jackson’s nineteenth, Lou Pin
iella’s tenth (both in the first inning), and Jerry Narron’s second. Narron caught and hit eighth. Thurman was at first base and hit third. It was the 1,423rd regular-season game of his career.
In the first inning, batting against left-hander Ken Kravec, Munson walked and scored on the Jackson homer. In the third, again facing Kravec, he struck out. In so doing, he strained his right knee, exchanged a nod with Billy Martin, and left the game, replaced by Spencer at first. He had made two putouts at first before departing.
When a Chicago reporter approached him afterward to ask about why he had left the game early, he cursed at him and sent him on his way. A normal day for Thurman and the press.
After the game, with most of the team preparing to fly back to Newark Airport, the Murcers drove Thurman to Palwaukee Airport north of Chicago, where his new Cessna was waiting. Piniella watched Munson throw a suit bag over his shoulder, tip the clubhouse man, and walk out the door. “Take it easy, Thurman,” Piniella said. Munson didn’t hear him.
Thurman invited the Murcers to look into the cockpit, and they wound up sitting inside for about twenty minutes, listening to Thurman describe the features of the plane. Thurm borrowed some money from Bobby for fuel.
“Thurman had been after Lou and me to fly from Chicago to Canton with him after the game,” Murcer told Bill Madden for his book Pride of October. “I told him I couldn’t do that. I’d heard from Reggie and Nettles—who had both flown with him—about his plane and I just didn’t want to do it.”
The Murcers got out of the plane and Thurman asked them to go to the end of the runway and watch him take off.
“So we positioned ourselves at the end of the runway in our car in this tiny airport, and then he took off and I’m watching this big old powerful jet go roaring over our heads and I thought to myself, ‘I cannot believe Thurman is up there all by himself in that powerful machine, flying that crazy plane.’”