Today is the Anniversay of Thurman Munson's death. Alex Bleth posted this on facebook and I'm sharing it to whoever may be checking out this blog.http://thestacks.deadspin.com/thurman-munson-in-sun-and-shade-1001467402
When the Yankees bring Thurman Munson to New York after only ninety-nine games in the minors—after playing in Binghamton and Syracuse—he just says to anyone who will listen: What took them so long? He’s not mouthing off. He means it, is truly perplexed. What took them so goddamn long? Time is short, and the Yankees need a player, a real honest-to-God player who wants to win as much as blood needs oxygen or a wave needs water. It’s that elemental.And wham, Thurman Munson becomes that player. He wins the Rookie of the Year award in 1970. He takes the starting job from Jake Gibbs as if the guy’s handing it to him and plays catcher for the next decade, the whole of the seventies. He’s named the Yankees’ first captain since Lou Gehrig forty years earlier and shows up at a press conference in a hunting vest. He wins the Most Valuable Player award in 1976, and he still wears bad clothes: big, pointy-collared shirts and dizzying plaid sport coats.Not even disco explains his wardrobe. He helps lead the Yankees from a season in which the team ends up twenty-one games out of first place to the 1976 World Series, where they fall in four straight to the Cincinnati Reds despite the fact that Thurman Munson bats over .500. Then he helps take the Yankees back to the Series in 1977 and 1978—two thrilling, heaven-hurled, city-rocking, ticker-tape-inducing wins!
