When "The Bird" was the word

[PM770]

Thats a cool mock-up of a 1976 in your avatar. But that 1977 with the All-Star designation and rookie trophy is THE card!

[clydepepper]

The world was a better place with that guy in it!

RIP - We miss you Mark - & We will always cherish those days!

[CW]

Great article -- thanks for posting it!

I was just looking at the Wiki page for Fidrych the other day and it was fun reading about some of the games from his magical '76 season. Strange (and also a bit sad) to think that by the time we pulled our Fidrych RCs from our '77 Topps packs, we had already seen the best of The Bird. It's fun to read these old articles to really see how he captured the hearts of Detroiters and fans across the US.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by PM770

Thats a cool mock-up of a 1976 in your avatar. But that 1977 with the All-Star designation and rookie trophy is THE card!

+1. Nods.

I'm going to buy that card sometime this month. I love that card. The Bird was unique. One of those incredible enigmatic stars that faded out too quickly.

[ooo-ribay]

Sidd Finch was better.

but the Bird was cool too.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

Sidd Finch was better.

but the Bird was cool too.

Aw, Finch never even pitched a complete game*


*albeit an irrelevant detail by then

[SAllen2556]

CW, I have 5 Fidrych's that look just like your ungraded one. If I ever pay PSA 10 money for a card, I think the '77 Fidrych will be the one.

I just always thought he should have had a '76 card since that was his only good, injury-free year. Every Spring Detroiters would get their hopes up that he'd be coming back, and every year he'd get hurt again. Of course later they found out what his injury was (rotator cuff maybe?) and discovered that, today, he would have had surgery and been fine. Imagine a healthy Fidrych with Jack Morris on those great 80's Tiger teams.

[CW]

You can never have too many Fidrych RCs, Scott. A PSA 10 worthy of the grade would be a fantastic card. The last one I saw sell on eBay was weak for a 10 and it sold for $2K. Finding a nicely centered 9 can be tough enough.

If you have a chance to post your cool custom '76 Fidrych in full size, please share it. Great idea to make one!

[SAllen2556]

Photo is from a 35mm slide taken by my dad - one of about 50 he took for the story. Pretty sure Topps also used 35mm slides for their cards in this era so I always thought it had the right "look". It's the font for his name that was tough to match. Oh the time you can waste playing with photoshop....

FIDRICH1976_edited-1.jpg

1976fidrychback.jpg