Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (40 page)

Tracy and Kelly sat quietly with their grandparents, while Michael, in his little number 15 uniform, scampered in and out of the room. It was very comforting for the team that Diana had made herself
available to them, rather than removing herself and sitting in the front.

Billy Martin, wearing sunglasses, then led the team into the McKinley Room. He had sought assurance before leaving New York that the casket would be closed. It was.

He hugged Diana, but it certainly seemed that someone was going to have to get the emotional Billy through this day. He was not going to be the one providing moral support. George Steinbrenner, also in dark glasses, embraced her.

Everyone received a two-sided, mimeographed “program,” titled “Funeral Service for Thurman Munson, McKinley Room, Canton, Ohio, August 6, 1979, 9:30 a.m.” On it, I jotted down names of former teammates or opposing players who had gone to the trouble of getting to Canton on their own: Bobby Bonds, Mickey Rivers, Dick Howser (then the baseball coach at Florida State), Dell Alston, Jay Johnstone, Paul Blair, Sparky Lyle, Fritz Peterson, Gene Michael, Mike Heath, Dave Rajsich, Duane Kuiper, Scott McGregor, Rick Dempsey, Cliff Johnson, John Ellis, Toby Harrah, Mike Hargrove, Buddy Bell, and Wayne Garland. Two umpires were there, Rich Garcia and Bill Haller.

Blair, who went to Cincinnati early in the season, expressed what many of the old teammates were feeling. “I expect somebody to say ‘Thurman’s alive.’ I can’t believe the man is gone.”

The manager of the Mets, Joe Torre, was there, little knowing that he would one day be a big part of Yankee history too. With the Mets he was enduring a third straight last-place finish. But there was the New York connection, and he was delegated to represent the crosstown rivals. Torre, McGregor, and Dempsey flew on the Yankees’ charter.

The Yankee teammates and staff present that day included manager Billy Martin; coaches Yogi Berra, Mike Ferraro, Art Fowler, Jim Hegan, Elston Howard, Charley Lau, and Jeff Torborg; bullpen
catcher Dom Scala; batting practice pitcher Doug Melvin; trainers Gene Monahan and Barry Weinberg; traveling secretary Bill Kane; clubhouse men Pete Sheehy and Nick Priore; PR men Mickey Morabito, Larry Wahl, and Marsh Samuel; general manager Cedric Tallis; administrative assistant Gerry Murphy; broadcasters Fran Healy, Frank Messer, and Phil Rizzuto; and players Jim Beattie, Juan Beniquez, Bobby Brown, Ray Burris, Chris Chambliss, Ken Clay, Ron Davis, Bucky Dent, Ed Figueroa, Oscar Gamble, Goose Gossage, Ron Guidry, Brad Gulden, Don Gullett, Don Hood, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Bobby Murcer, Jerry Narron, Graig Nettles, Lou Piniella, Lenny Randle, Willie Randolph, Jim Spencer, Fred Stanley, Luis Tiant, Dick Tidrow, and Roy White. Gamble, Randle, Beattie, Brown, and Gulden had been added to the roster just days earlier, as had Torborg as a coach.

Rizzuto was, of course, the “senior Yankee” present. It was during his rookie season of 1941 that Lou Gehrig had died. He hadn’t attended that funeral; the Yankee team was playing in Detroit and didn’t come home to New York for it. Only Bill Dickey and manager Joe McCarthy had left the team and come back.

For Brad Gulden, a squatty catcher nine years younger than Thurman, it was more painful to be there than most people knew. Most people didn’t even know him. But Thurman had called him the “Little Midget” and told him to hang in there because he was going to be the next Yankee catcher.

“I only knew him less than a year, but he really got to me,” says Gulden. “‘C’mon, Stumps,’ he’d say, ‘Just watch me.’ He told me I looked just like him when he was young. We talked baseball and business and flying and spent more time together than a rookie and a big star should. I really loved him.”

He had played his first big-league game on Saturday night. He didn’t want it to be this way, not under these circumstances.

Nettles, who had flown with Munson twenty-five days earlier, said,
“I thought we’d be friends for life.” Nettles was now weeks shy of turning thirty-five, and attending his first funeral.

Off to the side stood a forlorn, slim figure in an out-of-place straw hat, a small version of a Mexican sombrero. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt, brown pants, brown shoes, and a brown-and-black-striped tie. He had no jacket.

It was Darrell Munson. He had last been seen around the time that Michael was born, four years earlier.

“He saw my mom and went over and said, ‘Hi, Mama, how the hell are you,’” recalls Darla. “Then I heard him say, ‘This is a fucking zoo!’”

Several reporters made their way to him, and when I pointed him out to Dave Anderson of the
Times
, he discovered his column for the next day. All the New York papers had sent reporters and columnists to Canton. TV stations from New York had crews there as well.

“When was the last time you saw Thurman?” Darrell was asked.

“Quite a while,” he said. “Thurman never found himself.”

“Why did you leave Canton?”

“The idiosyncrasies of life” was his reply.

“What do you do in Tucson?”

“I work in the parking lot at the University of Arizona.”

“Were you hoping he’d get traded to Cleveland, since they train in Tucson?”

“No, he belonged with the Yankees.”

The questioning began to cause an embarrassing disturbance in the crowded room. Darrell was speaking too loudly and showing no respect. He finally sat down by himself, near the back.

The media representatives sat near the back as well, behind the players. There was audio from the room that was played to those outside. It was estimated that seven hundred people were in the room, with an additional thousand waiting outside in the summer morning.

After the Neil Diamond selections on the organ came the entrance hymn, “Amazing Grace.”

Mayor Cmich, whom Thurman knew, made some opening remarks and then turned it over to the pastor of St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church. The Reverend J. Robert Coleman had married Thurman and Diana eleven years earlier.

There was a reading from the Old Testament, from Ecclesiastes and a Psalm, and a New Testament reading from Matthew.

Michael Munson, in his little Yankee uniform, was restless now, and Diana’s mother took him outside for a walk. If there was a focal point for the grief everyone in the room was feeling, it was seeing Thurman’s young son scampering around, unaware of what was happening.

Many telegrams had arrived, and Diana selected four for Reverend Coleman to read.

“I want to express my sincere sympathy. Thurman was a credit to baseball and to the All-American way of life. My prayers will be with you.” Muhammad Ali.

“Deepest sympathy to you and the children.” Eleanor Gehrig.

“My deepest sympathy and prayers. Please let me know if there is anything I can do. Give me a phone call.” Reggie Jackson.

“Diana, we are grief-stricken and our hearts ache for you. We know how you loved each other.” Anita and Lou Piniella.

The fact that Diana selected Reggie’s telegram from the many to read indicated a desire in her heart to show that her husband and Jackson had come to peace with each other. This was, of course, a day for peace.

“Thurman Munson was someone special,” said Reverend Cole-man. “He was not just an ordinary Lehman High School graduate. He was not just an ordinary ballplayer. He was not just an ordinary card-playing buddy. He was not just an ordinary husband or father.

“He spent quality time with Diana and the children. He loved his wife. He built her a castle, a large home in Plain Township. He learned how to fly for her because he loved to be with her and share all that they had in common.

“Thurman loved his Yankee teammates too,” said the pastor. “In the last three years, while they were winning their championships, the Yankees grew to love one another as persons. They loved one another despite, and perhaps because of, the pressure cooker they were in.”

He even touched on Thurman’s stormy relationship with the press. “The media and Thurman didn’t always get along,” he said, mentioning Jim Bouton by name. “How many times can you answer the same questions? And beyond that, how many times can you give up time with your family to answer these questions for the sake of a headline that by cheap sensationalism causes the other ballplayers grief?”

Reverend Coleman mentioned that Thurman liked to read, and that
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
was a favorite of his. He noted his friendship with Wayne Newton, who also flew a Cessna Citation, and who may have helped influence his decision to get one. He mentioned Roberto Clemente and noted that “he went right into the Hall of Fame. Perhaps for Thurman Munson an exception can be made also.

“Thurman Munson died because he loved his family. He loved to fly. He was fascinated by how he could move home so quickly, saving precious time to be spent with his family. He also loved flying because he could be alone with himself… alone with God.

“Thurman Munson was proud to be a Yankee.”

The organist, Bill Roden, played Neil Diamond’s “Holly Holy” as Reverend Coleman took a seat. He had spoken for twenty-five minutes. He said that the St. Paul’s Day Care Center on Fourteenth Street NE would be renamed the Thurman Munson Center.

Kuhn, stiff-lipped, towered over me on my right, but now I was filling with tears. I had spent nine great seasons with the team, and although I now was working in the commissioner’s office, where the daily attendance indicated in the box scores seemed to be the most important thing, I felt reconnected to my organization and proud to have been a part of it. The events since the Friday night “moment” of silence had sent me to tears several times. This was going to be another one.

Piniella walked to the front, taking a last drag on his cigarette. He’d been nervous about this, chain-smoking and pacing. He read the passage from Ecclesiastes that begins “To every thing there is a season.”

“I knew him better than most,” he began in his own words, tears already visible on his cheeks. “He played hard. He played tough. He played fierce. He played to win. Thurman was unselfish. He was a winner. As a baseball player he was one of the best competitors.

“I found Thurman affectionate, very friendly. He was my friend. We don’t know why God took Thurman away. We’ll remember him
as long as we live. Diane and the children, I hope God gives you the strength and conviction to carry on. I hope you have the strength to carry on the way Thurman would have wanted you to.”

Now it was Murcer’s turn. He’d worked a little longer on his remarks and the Lindstroms had helped craft them.

Murcer, now tearful, his voice breaking over the final sentences, was glad it was over. He took his seat next to Kay.

The Lord’s Prayer was sung. Two verses of “America the Beautiful” were sung. “Let There Be Peace on Earth” was sung. The service had taken an hour. The room was slowly cleared except for family and teammates.

The six pallbearers were local friends: John Biskup, Bill Crocker, Jim Althouse, Dick Lombardi, Paul Scurre, and Dave Teitel. Biskup had told the
Repository
, “He was a true friend in the truest sense of the word. And Thurm was a realist. We talked of the risks of flying. It was his turn to go and he went. We’ll really miss him.”

They escorted the casket out to the waiting hearse, elegant in silver with a black top. Diana hugged her father and led her daughters by the hand to the waiting black Cadillac limousine. She herself had to be helped in. She wept and bit her fingers as she headed for Sunset Hills Burial Park in nearby Jackson Township.

I was wiping my eyes during the service. I was now supposed to drive the commissioner back to the airport. But he leaned over to me and said, “Do you want to go to the cemetery? It’s all right if you do.”

I thanked him. Yes, I needed to go.

But so too did the entire Yankee team. That had not been the plan. They were supposed to attend only the funeral service in order to get back on the charter and make it to Yankee Stadium in time for the game. Reggie Jackson was seen wiping his eyes as the players exited. He hugged Jody Anderson, Jerry’s wife. Martin, though, became inconsolable, and was comforted and led by Paul Blair, his former player. Rivers, White, and Dell Alston held on to one another, openly crying, forming a triangle, letting free their emotions.