a busy news day

Phil Spector is pronounced guilty, Marilyn Chambers is pronounced dead, Mel Gibson's wife files for divorce (turns out they've been separated since just after his drunken, anti-Semitic tirade in 2006), Minnesota politician Norm Coleman loses the same U.S. Senate race to Al Franken for the fourth time (yet vows to file another legal challenge) and, of course, another round of Opening Days, including the Mets opening Citi Field the same way they closed Shea (with a loss; and the Yankees beaten so thoroughly by Tampa Bay that they used a position player, Nick Swisher (the team MVP thus far), as pitcher for the first time in more than a decade).

but the most relevant news to me was the third baseball death in less than a week. first was the Angels' Nick Adenhart, killed by a drunk driver just hours after the best start of his career. then Harry Kalas (what a voice) died in the broadcast booth in D.C. before the Phillies-Nationals game. and then during that game we learned that Mark "the Bird" Fidrych passed away this afternoon in an apparent accident on his New England farm. he was 54.

(neither Philadelphia nor Detroit were opening parks this afternoon. in fact, both teams hosted their respective Opening Days last week, but I couldn't help but be reminded that Willie Stargell passed away on April 9, 2001, the first day of major league play in Pittsburgh's PNC Park)

his bright, shining moment, of course (though his major league career wasn't much more than a moment in itself), came on June 28, 1976 when ABC broadcast its Game of the Week on Monday night (in apparent hope that they could extend their football franchise).
my friends and I went to our homes early that night to watch, didn't leave until it was over.
longtime Oriole Elrod Hendricks (and whose picture stays on this home page) hit a home run for the Yankees' only score of the ballgame.
I've linked to the boxscore (thank you, Retrosheet), but in no way does the boxscore do Fidrych justice.
he was special.
if ever the words "joy" and "baseball" occurred in the same sentence, there's a good chance that Mark Fidrych's name appeared there too.
we didn't get to watch him for long, but we're lucky we got to watch Mark Fidrych as long as we did.