Thurman Munson, D-backs coach Jerry Narron forever linked by 1979 tragedy
Todd Walsh recounts the tragic death of Thurman Munson on Sunday's D-backs Live pre-game show, starting at 9:30 a.m. on FOX Sports Arizona
I've been waiting a lifetime to interview Jerry Narron.
He was the first catcher that replaced my favorite player on my favorite team when I was a kid.
He replaced Thurman Munson.
As I say in the piece that hopefully you will get a chance to watch, I remember that day in August of 1979 like it was yesterday. We were playing the perpetual summer backyard baseball game when my mom opened the kitchen window which overlooked our make believe Major League Baseball field. I can still see her standing there, apron on as she prepared dinner, choking back tears as she called me in to watch the 6 o'clock network news. I knew something was wrong.
She yelled something about "Thurman Munster." She led all leagues in malapropisms. This the same woman who one year later would wake me up on December 9th asking out loud, "Who would want to shoot Jack Lemmon?"
It took me three Beatles songs on my snooze alarm to realize what she was talking about.
Jerry Narron had the monumental task of catching for the New York Yankees the night after Munson died. You might recall that he fancied flying his own plane back to his native state of Ohio as often as possible so he could spend more time with his family. That day was an off day for the Yankees. Munson would perish just shy of the runway in Canton. Narron's memory of the pre-game ceremony and of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner telling him not to take the field during the lengthy and emotional moment of silence gave me chills as he explained it to us almost 40 years later. The very same goosebumps that I felt as a teenager, watching alongside my dad, a lifelong Yankee fan from the Ruth/Gehrig era, who like my mom struggled to find the right words to explain what this feeling of epic grief and loss was all about.
It was, as producer/friend/shoulder Josh Kelman said while we edited this piece, "this was your first, wasn't it?"
Yes, it was. My first taste of the pain that you simply can't wrap your head around. It didn't stop hurting, and I didn't know to make it go away. I guess it never did.
As I have chronicled many times before, I was rather obsessed with baseball and memorabilia and getting autographs back then: Hence the volume in @toddsgarage. I remember asking Yankee prospect Brad Gulden a year or so later to sign the index card you see here when his AAA Columbus Clippers came through my hometown of Rochester, N.Y., to play the Red Wings of the International League. I remember thinking that he was the "other" catcher that had the unenviable task of replacing Munson. He started the game the night of the funeral, the night Bobby Murcer reached out and laced a double into the corner while reaching out and touching the heavens, driving in the game-winning runs in memory of his best friend and the captain of his team.
Howard Cosell's description that Monday night I would argue is as good of a live call that I've ever heard in television sports history. A snippet of it is in this piece. It lives forever in Yankee lore and on Youtube.
http://youtu.be/6fSyD2TfV-Y
But Jerry Narron and I never crossed paths. He wound up in Rochester as a Red Wing in the late '80s, but I was already in Arizona, starting my broadcast career on the radio, having migrated to the Pacific Coast League to call Tucson Toros and Phoenix Firebirds games.
I'm sure we were in the same major league ballpark a handful of times over the years, but I never had the opportunity like the one that I had one Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago in Denver.
The D-backs and the Rockies were in the ninth inning of the final game of a road trip. As my friend Jody Jackson will no doubt concur, at that point in your head, you are already on the tarmac heading for home. And that's when the rains came. That's when the tarp came on the field. And that's when I saw Jerry Narron.
He was sitting next to traveling secretary Roger Riley at the far end of the dugout. He wasn't miffed at the sudden turn of events that sent the players, umpires and fans running for cover. He wasn't damning the thunder and lightening.
And I was soon to find out why he had that specific countenance.
He explained for us on camera the same story he told me inside the D-backs dugout that Sunday afternoon at Coors Field.
For many years now rain delays have never been a bother for Jerry Narron. Here's why:
So thank you, Jerry Narron, for letting me go there. I know you haven't for many years, and I can imagine why. I saw how moved you were, I felt it from a few feet away. Your smile was clear and evident as you remembered your mentor, your Captain, your friend, and like me, your favorite player.
I didn't carry this 1971 Topps Card All Star Rookie card in my wallet like you did. I didn't even have a wallet yet. But I have a place for it still, and like the memory of Thurman Munson, it's still close to my heart.
