Thurman Munson: A Baseball Biography
by Christopher Devine

Reviewed by James Floto

Many baseball biographies read like the long version of the baseball card. This is one of the rare ones that delves into the player's background and personality without indulging in street-corner psychiatry.

'70s baseball fans of course remember the fiery Thurman Munson, Yankee catcher who died way too early, in his own jet plane he was flying himself. If Reggie Jackson was the straw that stirred the drink of the late '70s Yankees, a good case can be made for Munson being the drink.

The book is full of anecdotes and legends, quotes and commentary. "Thurm" was, after all, a great ballplayer, a controversial character, a chatty catcher and captain of the New York Yankees. He fell right in line with the Yankee tradition of great catchers (Dickey-Berra-Howard) when he nailed the Rookie of the Year Award in 1970. Remember that this was back in the days when CBS owned the Yankees with little success.

Thurman Munson came out of Canton, Ohio, fourth of four kids, his mom a housewife, the dad a truck driver, back in the days before truckers made big bucks. As Thurman himself recollected, Darrell (the dad) "wasn't around a lot" and "it was really tough for him supporting a family of four kids. Yeah, we had food and clothing, all right, but not a dime over that." Then Devine goes on to reveal some ugly information about Darrell that had no doubt reflected in Thurman's anger, his sarcastic humor, his fanatical guarding of home plate--and the battle between the sensitive litte boy that he had been and the sensitive man he remained under his macho mask.

Darrell Munson was a cruel, abusive man. Christopher Devine: "Mother Ruth's primary purpose was to keep the children in line, lest they be reprimanded." It gets worse -much worse.

After his sparkling Rookie of the Year campaign, Thurman was struggling during his sophomore year as were the Yankees and he was anxious about being away from wife, Dianne, during her second pregnancy, a difficult one. In the midst of all this turmoil his mom suffered a stroke. Darrell's response: he left the family for good.

Actually, despite the feeling of being abandoned, it probably was for the best. The next time this sorry creature appears in the Munson family saga was at Thurman's funeral. He assembled a press conference before the funeral. "I was a better player than Thurman," he crowed. "I never had the breaks he did, but I was the better player." Devine adds that at the funeral itself, "Darrell strode up to his son's casket, laughed, and walked away."

It should come as no surprise, then, that Thurman was a driven man. Who wouldn't be shattered with a father like that? It's amazing he came out as well as he did. Not only was he a great ballplayer, but he was a fine man.

Most of you know about his abilities as a player and it's easy enough to look this aspect of Munson up if you want more details. Let us just mention here that in a 10 and a half year career that began with a cup of coffee in '69 and ended in August of 1979 when his plane crashed, Munson hit for a .292 batting average, exceptionally high for a catcher, with all the wear and tear they get. That wear was causing the Yanks to consider moving him to first in 1980 and him to have pretty much decided to retire when his contract expired in 1981. He played in over 125 games throughout the '70s and more than 140 in 7 straight years, an incredible record for a backstop. While he was no Piazza, his slugging percentage was .410, he averaged over 20 doubles a year and in most seasons he hit about 15 homers. While he retired with 691 RBI in what was essentially a 10-year career, he drive in 101, 105 and 100 runs in'75-'77.

He may have lacked Carlton Fisk's power, but he was the better defensive catcher hands down, and it genuinely bothered him that outside of New York, most fans and media types considered Fisk the superior catcher. Still, Munson was selected to 7 All Star teams. He rose to the occasion in October, hitting .339 in 14 playoff games, all against KC, and in the '76, '77 and '78 World Series' he hit .373 in 16 games.

He and Fisk were polar opposites, temperamentally. Fisk, "cocky, brash, antagonistic, loquacious" was a natural enemy, with them being the two best catchers in the AL, the one a Red Sox, the other a Yankee. Munson was perhaps jealous of Fisk's fame and the tension lasted throughout their overlapping stays in the majors. Fisk did, however, pay his respects at the funeral and he tried to blame the hostility between the two on the media. The hostility had been real, but it was decent of Fisk to attempt to bury the hatchet.

The relationship with the other well-known Munson rival, Reggie Jackson, was more complicated. Munson was captain of the team and had been a Yankee for 7 years when Reggie in 1977. Thurm had been there with the painfully bad teams during CBS' ownership, and had watched (as a classy observer and non-participant) Steinbrenner's Bronx Zoo develop into a perennial winner by the time Jax arrived. Thurman had paid his dues and like most of his teammates, at first resented Reggie's strutting around the Yankee clubhouse as if he had invented pinstripes.

What is generally unknown is that over the three seasons they played together, the hostility died down and tines actually became friends. Munson even flew Reggie on his plane. Munson got along well with most of his teammates and was known for taking rookies under his wing.

He had a somewhat rocky relationship with the fans. He despised signing autographs, and was even known to hock tobacco on the wingtips of autograph seekers he knew were just in it for the money. An intensely private person, he didn't much care for interviews, either.

Very much a family man, Munson responded to his childhood hardships by becoming a successful businessman. He owned several companies in Ohio, and spent much of his free time conducting business by phone from whatever hotel the Yankees were in. He had several expensive cars and lots of extravagant possessions. Without doubt, his favorite material possession was the airplane.

He loved to fly. He loved the sense of freedom he felt in the air and appreciated being able to fly home to visit his family. As with Reggie, he was not averse to showing off to his friends, to the point that he graduated from small, single engine machines to a $1.4 million eight-passenger jet. It greatly worried his teammates, his wife and Steinbrenner. From the beginning the plane gave him a variety of mechanical problems, and he had only the minimum hours of experience required for flying such a big craft.

On August 2, 1979 he took a couple of pilot friends with him to the Canton airfield in an attempt to discover the plane's problems. The descent was slow, due to a power failure. Nearing the ground, the jet was out of control, hit a stump, burst into flames. He hadn't used his shoulder strap and was immediately paralyzed from the neck down. His friends, who escaped with minor injuries, realized Munson was still in the plane. They raced back and tried to rescue him, but the stored jet fuel exploded and they fled with their clothes on fire. Thurman Munson, 32, died of smoke inhalation, burned beyond recognition.