Thurman Munson

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Thurman Munson
Catcher
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
August 8, 1969 for the New York Yankees
Final game
August 1, 1979 for the New York Yankees
Career statistics
Batting average	.292
Hits	1558
RBIs	701
Teams
New York Yankees (1969-1979)
Career highlights and awards
All-Star (AL): 1971, 1973-1978 Rookie of the Year Award (AL): 1970 MVP (AL): 1976 Gold Glove Award (AL C): 1973-1975 Finished 3rd in the American League for batting average (.318) in 1975 Finished 3rd in the American League for hits in 1975, and 4th in 1976 and 1978 First Yankee captain since Lou Gehrig

Thurman Lee Munson (June 7, 1947 – August 2, 1979) was an American catcher in Major League Baseball who played with the New York Yankees from 1969 to 1979. Munson was killed at age 32 while trying to land his personal airplane.

Contents 1 Life and career 2 Death and legacy 3 References 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Life and career

Born in Akron, Ohio, he grew up in nearby Canton. He graduated from Lehman High School in Canton, where he earned scholarship offers from various colleges due to his standout performances in football, basketball and baseball;[1] Munson opted to attend nearby Kent State University on scholarship, where he was a teammate of pitcher and broadcaster Steve Stone. At Kent, Munson joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity.

Munson was selected by the Yankees with the fourth pick in the first round of the 1968 amateur draft. In the minor leagues, he caught for the Binghamton Triplets in their final (1968) season. He was named the American League Rookie of the Year in 1970 after batting .302 with seven home runs and 57 RBI, and making 80 assists. In 1976, he was voted the American League MVP after batting .302 with 17 home runs and 105 RBI, and stealing 14 bases. He is the only Yankee ever to win both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards.

An outstanding fielder, Munson made only one error while behind the plate in 1971 (he was knocked unconscious by a runner, dislodging the ball), and went on to win three straight Gold Glove Awards starting in 1973. A seven-time All-Star, Munson hit 113 home runs, batted in 701 runners, and had a career batting average of .292 over his 10-year career. He was also the first captain named by the Yankees since Lou Gehrig. Munson helped lead his team to three consecutive World Series (1976–78), where he batted a remarkable .373 overall (.339 in the American League Championship Series. From 1975-77, Munson hit .300 or better with 100 or more RBI each year, becoming the first catcher to accomplish the feat in three consecutive years since Yankee Hall of Famer Bill Dickey did it four straight seasons from 1936-39. Since Munson's run, Mike Piazza has also accomplished it (1996-98).

In the 1976 World Series, Munson batted .529 and collected six consecutive hits to tie a World Series record set by Goose Goslin of the Washington Senators in 1925, (also in a losing effort). After this hitting performance, which included a 4-for-4 night in the final game at Yankee Stadium, Reds manager Sparky Anderson was asked by a reporter to compare Munson with his catcher, future Hall of Famer Johnny Bench. Anderson's comment at the post-World Series press conference — "Don't ever embarrass anybody by comparing him to Johnny Bench" — may have been a tribute to his great player, but it angered Munson.^[1]

Munson also maintained a feud with the other top catcher in the American League in the 1970s, Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox. Fisk's ability to play until he was 45 years old (despite missing time in many seasons due to injuries) allowed him to build up career statistics that far exceeded Munson's.

Munson batted .320 with a home run in the 1977 World Series, in which the Yankees defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to two. In Game 3 of the 1978 American League Championship Series, with the Yankees tied a game apiece with the Kansas City Royals and trailing 5-4 in the bottom of the eighth inning, he hit the longest home run of his career, a 475-foot (145-meter) shot off Doug Bird over Yankee Stadium's Monument Park in left-center field, to give the Yankees a 6-5 win. They won the pennant the next day, and in the World Series against the Dodgers, Munson caught a pop-up by Ron Cey for the final out.

[edit] Death and legacy

Munson was frequently homesick, and took flying lessons so that he could fly home to his family in Canton on off-days. On August 2, 1979, he was practicing takeoffs and landings in his new Cessna Citation I/SP jet at the Akron-Canton Regional Airport. On the third touch-and-go, Munson failed to lower the flaps for landing and allowed the aircraft to sink too low before increasing engine power, causing the jet to clip a tree and fall short of the runway. The plane then hit a tree stump and burst into flames, killing Munson (who was trapped inside) and injuring two other companions. It is believed that the inability to get out of the plane, and the ensuing asphyxiation, is what killed Munson, rather than injuries sustained on impact or burns (the two passengers survived). He was 32 years old.^[2]

Munson's sudden death was major news across the nation and especially sorrowed the baseball community. Munson was survived by his wife, Diana, and their three children. The day after his death, before the start of the Yankees' four-game set with the Baltimore Orioles in the Bronx, the Yankees paid tribute to their fallen captain in a pre-game ceremony during which the starters stood at their defensive positions, save for the catcher's box, which remained empty. At the conclusion of Robert Merrill's musical selection, the fans (announced attendance 51,151) burst into a 10-minute standing ovation.

Four days later, on August 6, the entire Yankee team attended his funeral in Canton, Ohio. Lou Piniella and Bobby Murcer, who were Munson's best friends as well as teammates, gave moving eulogies. That night (in front of a national viewing audience on ABC's Monday Night Baseball) the Yankees beat the Orioles 5-4 in New York, with Murcer driving in all five runs with a three-run home run in the seventh inning and a two-run single in the bottom of the ninth.^[3]

Immediately following his death, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner announced that his uniform number 15 was being retired. On September 20, 1980, a plaque was dedicated in his memory and placed in Monument Park. The plaque bears excerpts from an inscription composed by Steinbrenner and flashed on the Stadium scoreboard the day after his death:

“

Our captain and leader has not left us, today, tomorrow, this year, next ... Our endeavors will reflect our love and admiration for him.

”

To this day, despite a packed clubhouse, an empty locker, with Munson's number 15 on it, remains as a tribute to the Yankees' lost catcher. The original locker that Munson used, along with a bronzed set of his catching equipment, was donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. His number 15 is also displayed on the center field wall at Thurman Munson Stadium, a minor-league ballpark in Canton. Munson is buried at Canton's Sunset Hills Burial Park.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Cory Lidle, a Yankee who also died in a plane crash, on October 11, 2006.

[edit] External links

• Baseball-Reference.com - career statistics and analysis
• Baseball Hall of Fame candidate profile
• Bullpen - Baseball-Reference.com's Bullpen
• VoteThurmanIn.com - a website which is dedicated to trying to get Thurman Munson into the National Baseball Hall of Fame
• ThurmanMunson.com
• NTSB.gov - probable cause investigation report on Munson's plane rash
• The Deadball Era
• Official website
• Daily News, July 4, 2004 Thurman Munson's final hour

Preceded by Lou Gehrig	New York Yankees team captain April 17, 1976 to August 2, 1979	Succeeded by Graig Nettles
Preceded by Lou Piniella	American League Rookie of the Year 1970	Succeeded by Chris Chambliss
Preceded by Fred Lynn	American League Most Valuable Player 1976	Succeeded by Rod Carew