Memories of Thurman Munson

In the summer of 1979 I was eight years old and I cried.

I cried because I was a little kid and I loved baseball and even then I knew, in the ways that little kids know, that some things transcended baseball. (And could anything transcend baseball?) So no matter what I heard, some things could not be true. I was riding in my Dad's Blazer and we were on the way to New York and I heard the news -- and I cried and I cried.

Thurmon Munson died in a a plane crash. It came over the news and they kept repeating the story and I cried and I cried because -- and I hated the Yankees even then -- I knew that this was more important than what was the most important debate that ever happened -- Carlton versus Thurman -- because baseball players don't die. They can't die. They do not fucking die. They are Gods and they are what I want to be and this cannot be true it cannot be true it cannot be true and even if it is true I won't, can't, won't, believe it.

I'm older now. I have to believe it if it is true.

Today a young man, Corey Lidle, a Yankees pitcher, died in a plane crash. Like Thurman Munson, he was flying. He was the pilot. He was the boss. Today, and I cannot explain it -- no one can -- he died. We'll hear a lot about paens to an athlete dying young,and I guess for those of us who are or once were athletes we'll be reminded of our own mortality. After all, for reasons we don't know we survived -- we lived. We did not die young. He did. It was caprice or circumstance or just damned bad luck. But Corey Lidle is dead. And I'll be damned if this makes any more sense than the death of Thurman Munson. I'll be damned if it makes any sense at all.