Munson

by Marty Appel

  They first met while Anderson, a student at the University of Akron, was taking some classes at Kent State. They would see each other from time to time over the years back in Canton, but became really close after the 1975 baseball season when handball brought them together more frequently at the local YMCA.

  “He was so competitive in handball, and he had such quick hands,” said Anderson. “He’d never really played before, not seriously, and yet he was as good as anyone. It would piss me off, because I was a very good player. In the off-seasons after 1976, 1977, and 1978, he’d return to the Y, tired from the baseball season, and I’d beat him for a few weeks. But then as January and February came around, he was ready to beat me. And he did, almost all the time. We wound up playing doubles together and even won a tournament.

  “He did love real estate. He would talk to me about it a lot. I became his confidant. Jess Tucker, a big Canton developer, used to suggest investments for Thurman, and he’d run them by me. Tucker had bought a massive piece of land in the seventies and got Thurman to invest in it. He was one of ten partners in what would become Belden Village, a major shopping center. I guided him through the process. It helped that Thurm knew Canton. He was a visionary, and just as he could see the coming innings of a baseball game in progress, he could see a good real estate opportunity. He knew what could work and what probably wouldn’t. I think he probably owned real estate worth about $1.5 million eventually. And he had that good sense to know if something was going to be built on the wrong street.

  “I believe he once told Diana, ‘If anything ever happens to me, don’t sell Belden Village!’”

  Today, if you go to the west end of Munson Street where it meets Everhard, at the top of the hill, you can see the shopping center (which is now called Westfield Mall). Yes, there is a Munson Street, the subject he was supposed to have addressed that afternoon.

  “He was really a man’s man,” says Anderson. “The self-confidence, the cigar, the swagger. But he had this odd sense of humor too; he could be very clever with this.

  “One day I remember we were hanging around the airport when he still had his King Air, not too long before he bought the jet. It was about three p.m. and he had to go to Toronto for a night game. He said, ‘Would you fly right seat with me? I’ll be tired after the game and you can fly it back.’

  “So I went! It was just an impulse, but it wasn’t a long flight, and the beauty of engaging in aviation is the ability to do such a thing.

  “So we land in Toronto and quickly went through customs, but then someone from the airport said, ‘Oh, you guys must be ballplayers!’

  “And Munson said, ‘Yeah, and we’re here to thump you guys.’

  “They asked him for an autograph, which he was always happy to sign, despite a reputation otherwise, and then he turned and said to me, ‘C’mon Willie, give ’em your autograph,’ and he told them that I was Willie Randolph. I’m a five-foot-seven white guy and Willie was already an American League All-Star who had played in three World Series. But they were all like, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Randolph.’

  “So I signed and we had a good laugh over that, and he said, ‘C’mon, let’s get outta here before they discover us.’”

  To Anderson’s thinking, Thurman had no displeasure with the Yankees by 1979, and talked about playing for Cleveland strictly as a matter of convenience. Despite later statements from people who said he had given up on that notion by ’79, he would tell Anderson, “This shit’s wearing me out. I’d really like to play closer to home.”

  Munson and Anderson had no formal business relationship, other than two guys with common interests, until May 1977. And while Anderson collected no Yankee or Munson souvenirs, has no autographs, no caps, he did hold on to a ticket from a game on that May day when he sat in the Yankee Stadium clubhouse with Thurman during a rainout and first talked about a business arrangement together. It would be their first formal collaboration. Anderson would find real estate investment opportunities, and Munson would find investors among fellow ballplayers. That would be the basis of their business.

  It took time for this to eventually materialize with formal documents. With no e-mails and no cell phones in those years, it could be months between their next meeting. They used to get together occasionally at “a little hole in the wall” in Canton for breakfast, and that was where they were the day before the All-Star Game in 1979, talking real estate and talking about a partnership.

  Jerry began drawing up the papers, but there would be an obstacle. He had invested in a racquetball court with two other partners. Thurman didn’t like that deal at all, although he was not involved.

  “It’s going to drain you,” he said to Anderson. “It’s a fad. It won’t work. Get out of it.”

  Anderson was hesitant.

  “Listen,” Thurman said, talking tough and with a cigar in his hand. “I don’t want to get into business with you if you’re being drained on the other end by that stupid racquetball court. Here’s the way it is: Take your choice. You can be partners with the captain of the New York Yankees, or with a couple of boneheads in a racquetball court!”

  It was one of the few times—maybe the only time—that Munson had invoked his celebrity. But of course, by using the word “bone-head,” he had made it funny.

  Anderson, knowing Thurman had taken advantage of his moment, withdrew from the racquetball court partnership. He sold his one-third share to his two partners and closed the deal on July 20, putting the cash in the bank.

  “Here’s another thing,” he noted. “Had I not listened to Munson, I would have been in deep trouble. As it was, I was sort of living deal to deal off real estate in those days. After the accident, I was unable to work for months. The cash in the bank from the racquetball sale saved me. Without that, I don’t know what we would have done. I would probably have had to declare bankruptcy.”

  Anderson finalized the paperwork for his now formal partnership with Thurman. The papers were in the briefcase he brought on board with him when he climbed into Munson’s jet on August 2. The documents burned in the fire.

  Few people live to describe a crash, let alone people familiar with all that goes on mechanically with the plane. And because Jerry’s description of the day to ESPN is far more emotional and insightful than any secondhand account could be, we have chosen to let his words take the story from here. Tom Rinaldi conducted the interview with producer Willie Weinbaum at his side. It took place in New Smyra Beach, Florida, on June 1, 2004, a week before what would have been Thurman’s fifty-seventh birthday, and two months before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accident.

  JERRY ANDERSON: Well, on August 2, I had been out doing some training earlier that day in my Beechcraft Bonanza with a fellow by the name of Dave Hall, who was my instructor. I was working on my instrument rating. And we came back to the ramp, taxied back in about three o’clock. And Dave said, “Oh boy, I think Thurman has his new airplane here.” So we got out of our airplane, and sure enough, Cessna Citation, “November 15NY.” We knew that was Mr. Munson’s [laughter] new aircraft. So I jumped out of our plane, and I said, “Thurman, what are you doing here today?” And he said, “It’s our day off.” And I said, “Oh my gosh, that’s right. It’s your day off.” He said, “I’ve been checking out a few things on the plane. Come take a look.” So that was my first introduction. And I was in awe of it. It was beautiful.

  TOM RINALDI: I was gonna ask. What was your reaction, and what was his, to showing you the plane, Jerry?

  JA: You would have thought it was a newborn child. [Laughter.] I mean, we walked around that airplane. And he patted it, and he stroked it, and he showed it to me. He said, “I am so proud of this. This is something that’s gonna enable us to really come back and forth. And I am gonna be able to see my family more.” And he said, “Look at that. Look at that tail number.” And that’s when he pointed to “15NY.”

  TR: What was your reaction to the plane?

  JA: I couldn’t wait to go up in it.
[Laughter.] You know? I had just gotten out of my single-engine airplane, doing my instrument training. And here was my friend who had a brand-new jet. And I had never been in a jet. So I was very excited to have an opportunity to fly. I couldn’t wait to fly out to Yankee Stadium and maybe take one of those trips.

  TR: What happened next?

  JA: Well, Thurman said, “Hey, you guys want to go for a ride? We are gonna, we are gonna take it around the pattern. And I need to check a few things out.”

  TR: He got in the plane, and what happened from there, Jerry?

  JA: Well, this is about three o’clock in the afternoon, and we walked up, and started looking at the plane. I think it was about 3:30 in the afternoon when we finally got in, and started looking at all of the, at all of the … [coughs].

  TR: So, he showed you the plane?

  JA: Right. And we walked around the outside of the plane. And in fact, Thurman was explaining what a preflight was like on a Citation jet, versus maybe in the airplane that I just come out of, the single-engine aircraft. And they ask if we wanted to take a quick flight. And he said he had to check out a couple of things on the announceator panel, which is basically the panel of lights that tells you whether or not things are working on the aircraft. And he said, “Come on in. Let’s take a look.” So Dave Hall and I looked at each other, and said, “Hey, let’s, let’s go.” And we hesitated to see who was gonna go in the front right seat. And I said, “Oh, you win the toss. You go ahead.” I acquiesce to him because Dave was an instructor. And I had not been in a jet. And he sat in the right seat, and I sat in the jump seat. And we sat in the airplane for a few minutes, and talked about the differences of the turboprop aircraft versus the jet. Thurman was looking at his checklist, reviewing a couple of things in the book. David and I ask a couple of questions about the different lights and the different panels. And what this item meant on the panel versus that, that particular item. And we looked over the emergency door. Saw how the emergency door were, where to be if needed, how the emergency door were to come out. And, of course, I think we all thought the same thing, that, well, we are not gonna need that emergency door today. Both David and I looked at the entrance door. And we knew how that handle worked. Pretty much just basic training, just to make sure that you understand how the doors work. Sat there for a few minutes on the ramp, looked over, said, “Thurman, this is fantastic. It smells great. I mean, the leather is beautiful. It’s a beautiful airplane.” And he said, “Well, let’s go. Let’s take her around the pattern.”

  TR: How did he seem to you right then, Jerry? How would you characterize his mood?

  JA: Well, Thurman was in a great mood that day. He was having a good day. He was in Canton. He didn’t have to rush off to Yankee Stadium that night. And not that he didn’t love baseball, but he didn’t have to rush out that night. He got to spend the night in town. I know he always looked forward to that. Wasn’t rushed. And looked at the checklist. And made a call to the tower. Taxied out carefully. And on our way. I think he had his head on square that day.

  TR: What happened from there?

  JA: The—well, it’s well documented. We stayed in the pattern that day. Meaning, we just flew around the airport. We didn’t fly off-site. We taxied the runway two-three, which is southwest to the bound runway. And got our clearance, and we took off from that runway. And I could remember just being thrilled with the acceleration, you know? Coming from my little, uh, 285-horsepower single-engine plane that I had just flown an hour ago, this was phenomenal. And we flew, what we call, around the pattern. You know, basically means that we flew down the runway, we took off, we made a left turn, we made another left turn, and we paralleled back to runway, to come back to runway two-three, for a landing. And, of course, during that time frame the tower asked us what we wanted to do. And Thurman responded, it was gonna be a touch-and-go. Which basically means that the airplane would touch down, and then we’d take back off again.

  TR: What was his goal? What was he trying to do with you guys, for people that don’t know, Jerry?

  JA: Well, he was just trying to give us a sense that day of the smoothness of the aircraft. I recall him saying over and over again how smooth the aircraft is, and how quiet it is, compared to the King Air.

  TR: You make a couple of passes. And what happens next?

  JA: We made a couple of passes around the pattern. We made three passes on runway two-three that day. After the third pass, we were asked by air traffic to control, to extend our, our pattern a little bit, to extend our runway, to extend our downwinds. Meaning that we were told to fly a little further, before we turned again back toward the runway. And this time though, instead of turning us to the left, it took him back to runway two-three, the air traffic control asked us to turn to the right, off to line up for a different runway, a runway that was headed due south, runway one-nine. And, at that time now, things were happening pretty fast, because we had accelerated. And because we had extended our takeoff, we were a little higher than maybe we should have been. We were a couple of hundred feet higher, as I recall. No big deal. Thurman banked the aircraft around to the right. And we descended. Lost some of that altitude. Got back down closer to pattern altitude. And now, we were gonna land, land on a runway that was off to our right side, versus before where we were always landing on a runway that was off to the pilot’s left side. So now we are coming back around for one-nine.

  TR: What happened as the plane started to descend, Jerry, toward one-nine?

  JA: As we got ready to make our, what’s called 180-degree turn from, or a ninety-degree turn. As we got ready to make our ninety-degree turn, from what you would call “base leg.” Meaning, perpendicular to the runway to make one more ninety-degree turn, to line up for the runway. There were a couple of things that were happening around the airport. And I have, of course, since learned much more than I knew at the time. And as a pilot, I am a much more experienced pilot than I was twenty-five years ago. But what happened at that particular point, when we started to turn back toward one-nine, is we had a series of diversions take place. And two of the diversions that took place were: we heard traffic being talked to by air traffic control, by the tower. One plane landing on runway two-three, another plane landing on one-nine. So, as pilots, we recognized, we have other airplanes out there. And we need to find them. So we had both Dave Hall and myself, and immediately looking for, Where is the other aircraft? Let’s make sure we know where those other aircraft are. So we had a diversion. I suspect, I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect Thurman too was looking for those aircraft, as good pilots do. Where is the other aircraft? You don’t just depend on the tower.

  As we turned then toward final, on one-nine, one of the things that we noticed is that—and David and I both noticed the same thing—is that we were a little bit lower than what we had been on previous landings. No big deal. On final approach, you always have to adjust upward or downward. What was different though about this approach is that, unlike the other approaches, this one was different. We had turned to the right. We had a lot of other traffic we were looking for. We had been a little bit too high in the pattern. There were a lot of things going on that were different than the other ones. So, from the standpoint of a pilot, I can recall thinking, We are not as stabilized, on our approach this time, as we had been in the past. And it was not of concern. We were just, were not as stabilized as we had been.

  So those diversions that maybe took us off of a coordinated final approach to the runway, were now out of the way. And we were now descending toward one-nine, relatively rapidly. And I felt us sinking. And I noticed that as we were sinking, of course, Thurman is reaching for the throttles. And he pushed those throttles forward. But it was a very unusual feeling that we had, because although we were, had just started to accelerate, we were sinking as well. As a pilot, I knew that that sinking feeling was not something that was [laughter] advantageous to us. And I was waiting for those engines to kick in. But the engines didn’t seem to kick in nearl
y as quickly as they should have. I subsequently learned, of course, that jet engines have to spool up. But they just didn’t seem to be kicking in the way that I felt they should.

  TR: How long was that moment, Jerry? The recognition of the sinking, and the waiting for the rise?

  JA: The recognition of the sinking, and the waiting for the acceleration were literally seconds. I mean that. We are not talking about minutes here. We are talking about five, six, seven seconds, maximum. But it was also time, the point at which, I realized that this descent was probably not going to be arrested, and that we would probably crash short of the runway.

  TR: I don’t know how difficult it is to answer this, Jerry, because I—I didn’t live through it. But what are those six seconds of recognition like?

  JA: Well, I think for anybody that’s ever been through any type of a crash, whether it’s an airplane, an automobile, or even a bicycle. There is a moment in time that freezes for you, and you recognize that you are about to make impact. You don’t know what the outcome is going to be, so your initial thought is, Oh my gosh, you know? Am I gonna be able to walk away from this? I had been scooted off to the side, looking into the cockpit. When I realized that we were gonna make impact with the ground, I, my seat, my seat belt was on, but loose. I quickly turned around, to try and shield myself from the impact. And that is probably one of the things that, that saved me, because although we had some, or a lot of hard impact, as we hit the ground, and then as we went some, through some trees, I felt the fuselage just taking the pounding, [claps] boom [claps] boom [claps] boom [claps] boom. And then, as we finally hit [claps] what appeared to be, my initial impression was, we must have hit a ditch, and sort of popped up. [Claps.] And I realized, as we came to a stop, mm-hmm [claps], that I was still intact. I mean, unbelievable as it might seem, I thought, My God, I have survived this. And I looked up to the cockpit, and David was moving, and, and Thurman’s head was twisted a little bit. And I thought, This is, uh, unbelievable. We are going to walk away from this airplane. And we have just crashed an airplane, and we have all survived.