by Marty Appel
TR: How has that intensity, and that legacy, Jerry, shaped who you are now?
JA: Well, twenty-five years is a long time. And of course, Thurman didn’t live his complete life. So, you know, we only have him, and his memory, for a short period of time. But sometimes when I feel myself getting a little bit lax, or when I don’t think I might be able to come through in a situation, I think about Thurman. Because Thurman would just say, “Just get it done. Focus. Concentrate.” Punch the ball over the goal line. Get the base hit. Score the twenty-first point. Land this airplane.
TR: Why do we remember him, twenty-five years later?
JA: It absolutely amazes me that Thurman’s memory is as alive and well as it is. Tom, I travel the country, and people say, “Well, you are from Canton, Ohio.” I say, “Yeah, I am from Canton, Ohio.” They say, “Football Hall of Fame. And Thurman Munson.” And then we start talking about Thurman. “Did you know Thurman?” “Yes, I did.” “And you did? Thurman? And you worked with Thurman, on some of his real estate? Well, what did you think?” They always want to know. They know him. Then they will say, “Oh, I remember that August as if it was yesterday.” Most of the time, very seldom do I ever tell people that I was a survivor of that crash. But they remember. And that was the only connection, is from Canton, Ohio. Amazing to me. I think they remember. I think they remember Thurman, because he was, of what he represented. He was an ordinary guy. Sort of a country bumpkin, in a way. And he went to New York City. He made the big time. He was the captain of the New York Yankees. And yet he lived in northeastern Ohio. Canton, Ohio, a small little community, a quiet community, a Midwest community, a very conservative community. And it was almost as if he had these two lives. He was dedicated to his family, which I think made him stand out. And I think that’s much of the reason that he is remembered.
TR: You said you still fly.
JA: I do still fly.
TR: And what is it like, to fly back into that Canton airport?
JA: What is it like, to land on runway one-nine? The first time that I flew, after the accident, I was perspiring so profusely, that I thought I had wet myself. I was that nervous. The adrenaline was so high. And my tongue was so dry. When the tower cleared me to land on one-nine. And Tom, I can remember, not too many years after the accident, hoping, praying, that I would land on runway two-three, or five, any runway but one-nine, please. Because every time I fly on the final approach to one-nine, I would have to look down at that terrible place where we had crashed. Of course, now it’s all grown over, and all the trees are gone, and the stump is removed. But all those memories get resurfaced, as I flew over the approach for one-nine.
TR: I had a few different points, when we spoke, Jerry. You have said twenty-five years is a long time. But at several other points, during our talk, you have worn a lot of emotion on your face, twenty-five years later. Why?
JA: Well, twenty-five years is a long time. But when I think about the accident now, it’s almost as if I see it as a movie. Because I have learned so much. I have learned as a pilot. I have learned as a practitioner. I have learned as a father. I have realized all those things that Thurman missed. I mean, remember, Tom, we were in our early thirties. I mean, we were kids. And now, I have lived most of my life, and I have had my career. The reasons these conversations spark the emotion that it does, is that it’s very deep. And it was a time that was very exciting. I had given up another business to be able to go and get involved with Thurman in a partnership. I didn’t want to give up that other business. He said, “Give up that other business, or we are not going to do our partnership, with putting ballplayers together, to invest in real estate.” That was a turning point for me, in my career. And it’s the turning point that never took place. And we turned the corner, but never traveled the road.
WILLIE WEINBAUM: A couple of things. Just real quickly. You mentioned that people say to you, “The Football Hall of Fame, and Thurman Munson,” when you mention Canton. One of the things that, in all honesty, most people do not remember is that Thurman Munson was not alone. If you can, what are your thoughts on what most people do remember about that day, and the fact that you and David Hall are sort of footnotes to that history?
JA: Well, Dave Hall and I are footnotes to the history. And we are not public figures. Thurman was a public figure. He was a professional baseball player. His memories live on on TV. And you can watch him. You can, you could watch the 1978 World Series tape. And you see him in action. And David and I were just two friends with him that day, along for a ride. And we should be footnotes. We are survivors, but we were not the public figure. A lot of things have changed. And a lot of things have changed in baseball, and aviation, for the better, after that crash. I think many baseball contracts now exclude the ballplayers from being able to fly. I think that the FAA has tightened up some of the requirements for training. I think some aircraft companies have put less of a full-court press on public figures to buy aircraft. And Payne Stewart was killed in an airplane crash.
TR: Yeah.
JA: How many people know who else was in the airplane? Payne Stewart was the public figure.
17
Within minutes, fire and emergency rescue vehicles arrived and doused the flames in thirty to forty seconds. Emergency vehicles were parked end to end along Greenburg Road, where the plane had come to rest. It was, of course, too late to save Thurman.
The initial rescue team got there in minutes. Ed Hutchinson of airport security and Harry Yoder, an FAA technician who was with the airport fire unit, got close enough that they needed to be treated for smoke inhalation. Rescue units arrived from Greentown, Green Township, Uniontown, and Jackson Township. The City of Green was the closest fire department. Jeff Mashburn of the Summit County sheriff’s office said he couldn’t get closer than thirty feet because of the blaze.
Mashburn saw Anderson and Hall running from the flames. Detective William Evans reached the site and found Hall under a nearby tree, gasping for breath. He had burns on his hands and was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital by ambulance. In television coverage of the accident, Anderson can be seen on the ground, being treated by paramedics. Another ambulance took him to Timken Mercy Medical Center suffering from burns of his face, neck, and forearms.
Mashburn knew that there was another person in the wreckage, but the flames made it impossible for him to get to him.
The coroner’s report stated that Munson expired at 4:06 p.m., after four minutes of consciousness during which he would have realized the helplessness of his situation. A. H. Kyriakides, the Summit County coroner, found that the official cause of death was asphyxiation resulting from inhalation of superheated air and toxic substances.
The police, now aware that it was Thurman Munson in the plane, called Tote with the news. Thurman and Tote had eaten lunch together hours before.
The three Munson children were playing in their backyard when Don Armen, head of the flying school at Akron-Canton Airport, arrived, along with two instructors. Thurman had kept his planes in Armen’s hangars. Before leaving the airport, Armen had called Jody Anderson, Jerry’s wife, to tell her, “There’s been an accident.”
Diana was alone in the house, having just returned from grocery shopping with the family station wagon. They had been preparing for Thurman to barbecue chicken. Instead, upon hearing the awful news, she rushed Armen, pounded on his chest, and screamed, “Tell me this isn’t true!!!”
But then she summoned the strength to call in the children and gather them together in a side room, away from Armen and his companions.
“Daddy has gone off to be with God,” she told them.
The girls broke into tears as Diana pulled them all closer.
Michael said, “If my daddy’s with God, why is everybody crying?”
Armen didn’t stay long. But within five minutes a reporter called to get a confirmation or a reaction from Diana.
“If we hadn’t gotten there when we did, that’s how she would have learned of the acc
ident,” says Armen.
Armen attributed the accident simply to fatigue. “He hadn’t had enough sleep. He was a good pilot; he was capable of flying that jet. He was just going on too few hours of sleep after coming home from Chicago early in the morning and getting up to be with his kids.”
Diana immediately began calling family and friends and Armen left after about thirty minutes.
Her friend Joanne would take the children to a fast-food restaurant to get them away from the house for a while. Later, Thurman’s friend Jess Tucker would drive with Diane to the airport to pick up the Mercedes—without visiting the crash sight. There was a half-smoked cigar in the ashtray.
“There was no way Thurman would’ve left it unlocked if he’d intended to go flying that day,” she later reflected.
Tote joined the police in going to the Munson home. Later he stood in the driveway in tears. “We’re shook,” he said. “We’re really shook up. It’s unbelievable. Such a loss. A thirty-two-year-old son-in-law.”
The police set up guard duty at the Munson home and continued it there for days, helping to maintain the family’s privacy at such a time.
George Steinbrenner was at his big round desk at Yankee Stadium late in the afternoon, meeting with two of his financial people. At the reception desk for the Yankee offices, not far removed, Doris Walden answered a call with her usual “Good afternoon, world champion Yankees.” The voice on the other end said, “George Steinbrenner, please.”
She put the call through to Gerry Murphy, the former batboy and traveling secretary who was now serving as Steinbrenner’s executive assistant. The caller identified herself but withheld the full story, saying that she was calling from the Summit County sheriff’s office in Canton, Ohio, and she needed to put the sheriff through to George Steinbrenner.
Steinbrenner had left strict orders not to be disturbed during his meeting, but Murphy sensed the urgency and went in just the same. He had put two and two together when “Canton” was mentioned, and he assumed something had gone wrong for Munson.
“Goddamn it, I told you not to disturb me,” said Steinbrenner, predictably.
“I really feel it’s urgent that you take this, Mr. Steinbrenner,” said Murphy.
George picked up the phone. Murphy watched as his face fell, and he repeated, “Oh no … oh no … oh no … oh no…”
Steinbrenner would recall that the caller was the airport manager, but perhaps that was a later call.
He told The Sporting News, “I get a call from Canton, the [Akron-] Canton Airport. The manager was an old friend of mine named Jack Doyle. And he said, ‘George, this is Jack.’ I said, ‘How are you? What the hell is going on? Where are you?’ He said, ‘I’m in Canton.’ He sounded terrible. He says, ‘I guess you can imagine why I’m calling.’ And then it dawned on me—Thurman. And [Doyle] said he died in a plane crash … at the airport. [Munson] had two instructors. They were in the plane. He was practicing landing and takeoffs, which is difficult in a jet because in a prop plane when you give it power, right away you get the power. In a jet, that isn’t the case. There is that little hesitation. When he saw that he was in trouble on his landing, he tried to get the power going again and it didn’t take. It wasn’t like the prop plane. And he was killed. That was one of the worst moments.”
Steinbrenner allowed himself the human emotions of grief and shock and anger, and no doubt some thoughts about allowing Munson to fly in the first place. (“Can you imagine Dock Ellis saying that I’m responsible for Thurman Munson’s death because I let him fly that plane?” he later exclaimed. “I didn’t want him to fly that plane.”) Then he swung into action. And on that hot August afternoon, George Steinbrenner shined. He was truly “the Boss,” taking command. He was forty-nine years old, at the height of his power as a CEO, in his ultimate moment of guiding his club through its most awful tragedy.
He had Murphy round up his office team—Cedric Tallis the general manager, Bill Kane the traveling secretary, Mickey Morabito the PR man, Larry Wahl his assistant, Bobby Hofman, Jack Butterfield, and Bill Bergesh from player development, and others. (Butterfield, who was vice president for player development and scouting, would die in an auto accident on November 16, 1979, an event that further shook the mourning Yankee front office.)
In a clear and commanding voice, Steinbrenner informed his staff about the circumstances in Canton and the call he had received.
“He was composed, and at the top of his game,” said Wahl. “There was no grief in the room at that time because we were suddenly all in emergency mode.”
Within seconds he could shift from “helping the family” to “planning to go there” to “what are we going to do about another catcher?”
“He covered all the bases,” said Wahl. “It was amazing to watch. It was like he had this emergency rulebook in his head. He even talked about black stripes on the uniform sleeves in the first minutes. He talked about retiring his number, retiring his locker, having Cardinal Cooke at the stadium the next night, and what the scoreboard should show during the moment of silence. He was amazing to watch.”
Steinbrenner dispatched Wahl to go immediately to Canton to do “whatever needed to be done.” Murphy, who had flown with Munson about half a dozen times and considered him a friend, asked if he could go as well, and he did. So the two left the meeting at once to go home and pack bags, and then to meet at LaGuardia for a flight to Canton. Murphy, the former traveling secretary and in fact a pilot himself, was a good man for this assignment.
“We landed later that night,” Wahl recalls, “but it was so late that we just found a motel and didn’t go to the house until Friday morning. I didn’t know Diana that well, so it was difficult for me to invade the home at such a time. But she welcomed us graciously and appreciated our being there. Later, I became a publicist for ABC Sports and would have dinner with her every year when we did the Hall of Fame football game. She’s a great lady.
“Our mission was to take care of the family and to work with the city and the county, handling whatever needs anyone had as best we could. Looking back, it was very smart of George to send us there. Diana had Yankee representation at her side the whole weekend. And it was important to her.
“We didn’t have a car, so the sheriff’s office arranged for us to have a car and driver all weekend. The sheriff was great and took charge of everything. He was the key, he provided security at the home and kept people out.”
It was quickly decided that a public viewing would be held on Sunday and a funeral on Monday at the Rossi Funeral Home, a plan that would have to change as the magnitude of the event became more clear.
“Back at the house,” says Murphy, “Diana would be periodically overcome, and would say things like, ‘What is to become of us?’ She had the three small children and I could understand her real-world anxieties. Would they lose the house? Thurman’s salary? She went from grief to her motherly duties, back and forth. It was good that she had her parents there. She was always gracious to us throughout the difficult weekend.”
Tote showed Murphy and Wahl Thurman’s office, with a model of the Citation on the desk. “There it is,” he said. “There’s the killer.”
Minutes after Steinbrenner received the devastating news, he wanted to call his players before they heard the news on the radio. He split the task with Tallis; he would call the veteran stars of the team, and Tallis the others. The key was to be brief and move on so that they could reach everyone. Of course, as they worked their way through the roster, the news was starting to break on the radio, and the players were calling one another.
Cedric Tallis, a baseball “lifer,” knew Thurman mostly as a ballplayer he had coveted while running the Kansas City Royals, and now grieved as the Yankees’ general manager. “He always ran the ball out, always slid, never avoided contact despite the troubles with his knees,” he would say. “In baseball, this is the measure of the man, the guts behind the glory. And even as an opponent who saw him a dozen times a year, you saw
that quality in him.”
One of the first calls was to Catfish Hunter in Norwood, where Munson had once been a neighbor. Hunter was not used to getting calls from Steinbrenner.
“Did you hear about Thurman?” he asked. Told that he hadn’t, Steinbrenner said, “He’s dead. He got killed in the worst way, crashed his plane and burned up.”
Hunter told Armen Keteyian in his autobiography:
Oh, no, not right after Daddy and Clyde. It was like George had said an oak tree standing tall in my front yard for the last 30 years had suddenly just fallen over. Oak trees don’t just fall. Thurman Munson just doesn’t die. Not now, not this way.
I walked across the street to tell Nettles. He thought it was some kind of gag. “Right,” said Graig, “what’s the joke?”
“No joke,” I said, “Thurman’s dead.” Then the phone rang. Mr. Steinbrenner was on the line.
Dealing with three deaths in a span of three months was beyond belief. You try not to let it affect you, you know you’ve got a job to do, a game to play, but Lord, it’s a lot to ask of a man.
In Nettles’s book Balls, with Peter Golenbock, he says, “It took a few minutes to sink in. I just couldn’t believe it. It was the first real tragedy of my life. I broke down and cried like a baby.”
The calls went on. Steinbrenner called Guidry. “I knew there was something wrong,” Ron remembers, “because he just doesn’t call.” Disbelieving, Gator sat silently in his rocking chair long into the evening with his wife Bonnie and her parents.