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Munson Over Fisk
by Joseph Schatzle BosuxDUDE@aol.com
Website: Bosux.com (Oct. Website
Spotlight)
No
two catchers in history contested such a personal
rivalry for such combative teams for so long -
nearly eight years. Fisk was ultra-combative, a
slugger whose personality galled the Yankees.
Munson's grooved line-drive swing led the Yankees
back from inferiority all the way to the titles all
New England covets. Fisk grew up in N.H. to be a
Red Sox star. Munson grew up in Ohio to just play
ball. So who was the better ballplayer?
Munson '75-'77: 102, 105, 100
rbi's. Carlton Fisk's fine ribbie numbers for the
same three seasons were made hitting at the
stat-friendly Green Monster: 77, 102, 88.
Munson's home run slugging - like
DiMaggio's - was no doubt handicapped by Death
Valley in Yankee Stadium. Those who saw Munson on
the road saw him slug plenty of tape measure
homers. He was no #5, but his power was
considerable. Who could forget his post-season
blast against the back wall of the left field
bullpen in the Stadium? Going deep, however, in the
Stadium was not for Munson all it would have been
in an inviting ballpark. Even so, he was a more
productive hitter than Fisk - and the definition of
clutch.
Fisk had four seasons in Boston in
which he hit 20-plus homers - one of those included
39 doubles. But he averaged just 16 home runs in
Fenway Park over ten seasons. That's with "The
Green Monster," a 315-375 foot power alley. Munson
faced 457 feet in left center early in his career,
deep fences at a horrible hitters' park (old Shea
Stadium) in '74-'75, and the far reaches of new
Yankee Stadium from '76 on. Still, he averaged 12,
and he bopped highs of 20, 18, and 17. Fisk
averaged 18 doubles career, Munson 23.
CARLTON FISK - GREAT PLAYER, BUT NO
MUNSON
.292 career, Munson hit .300 five
times! Fisk hit .300 once in a full season.
(Thurman also hit .297 one year.) .269 career, Fisk
twice drove in 100-plus - once during a fine season
in which he hit 37 homers but batted a mere.231 for
the White Sox: Ribbie totals atypical of the usual
in his long career - he averaged 57 ribbies. Munson
averaged 69.2 rbis, including the season of his
August death.
Both could stretch a hit but Munson
was faster. As a rookie Fisk legged-out nine
triples, and he was always a guileful base stealer
- twice he stole 17. Munson swiped a high of 14
bases, but from first to third only Rivers and
Randolph on the Yankees were faster. For all the
jokes about his body, Munson was really fleet
running the bases: 10 full seasons - 32 triples.
Fisk in 24 seasons - 47 triples.
Green Monster = Silver Platter.
Yet, Fisk recorded just two seasons ('77-'78) that
compare to four of the five seasons Munson chalked
up '73-'77. Fisk's consecutive big seasons: .315,
26, 102; .284, 20, 88. The prime stretch of
offensive heat in his 24-year career. Munson had
three consecutive such seasons, and all three
exceeded Fisk's '78 productivity. You can look it
up!
Prime to prime it's no contest.
Fisk was set back in '74. And in the 80 games he
played in '75 he had a way-hot bat. Then in '77 he
rang up an awesome full season. But Munson posted
consecutive awesome years '75-'77 after coming into
his own in '73 super numbers: .301, 20, and 74.
Fisk went on to be productive through a long career
in which he clobbered more homers than any catcher
- but with averages like .231, .238, .221, .256 in
four of his best six seasons in Chi-town. Slugging
.518, he hit .286, 26 homers and 86 rbis in '83
when the Chisox were a division winner. He also hit
72 dingers after 40, which is awesome, too. However
- in the intense Yankee-Red Sox seasons of their
offensive primes - Fisk was no Munson.
A
legit Hall of Famer, Fisk never won A.L. MVP. Hard
core Yankee fans will point to Munson's MVP season
and tell you Fisk couldn't carry Munson's
jock.
The
objective will admit Fisk never guided a world
championship pitching staff. "Tugboat" did so
twice.
The
two catchers - two different kinds of hitters. But
only DiMag in Yankee history might have boosted his
offensive numbers more than Munson with "The Green
Monster." Fisk had his ballpark. "Death Valley" -
why manager Ralph Houk fostered Munson's natural
ability to hit to the opposite field. Announcer
Bill White always characterized Munson as the best
clutch hitter in the game, and often remarked on
his incomparable ability to wait on a pitch. Munson
hitting full seasons in Fenway, pulling the ball -
that's a rich scenario considering his strength.
It's not a stretch to suggest he could have added
substantially to his doubles and home run outputs,
and increased his batting average from .292 to over
.300 lifetime.
In
the Action: In what George Steinbrenner called "the
best game ever played" Fisk went to sleep, while
Munson drove an RBI double to the fence in deep
left. And, it was the job Munson did at catcher
that day - with Lou Piniella in right field - that
made the dif.
Munson and Piniella saw that Guidry
didn't have his best stuff - Yaz pulled a homer.
They agreed in the dugout that Munson would flash
the right fielder a sign when a slider was coming
to the left-handed hitters. How Piniella put
himself "twenty feet out of position" - and robbed
Freddy Lynn. Then Boston manager Don Zimmer called
it "the play of the game" - Lynn wasn't a pull
hitter versus lefties, and had his solid shot with
runners aboard gone to the bullpen fence Boston
would have blown the game open.
Zimmer in the locker room after the
game: "That's what makes Lou Piniella the
ballplayer he is." That defensive rally killer was
just as much to the big catcher's credit.
Boston loves to rank on Bucky
Dent's "cheap" home run of that day, even though
Dent's dinger was a four-bagger in any ballpark.
Fisk's drifting floater came in a World Series his
team lost. For all the fanfare about Fisk in that
World Series, he hit.240.
Unstoppable in the '76 Series,
Munson hit.529 against a pitching staf that snuffed
out the rest of the Yankee batting order. Then, he
hit.320 in each of the '77 and '78 Series.
.529 = Munson's Batting Average in
the '76 Fall Classic - Second Highest Series BA of
All-Time!
Fisk was the best ballplayer ever
to come out of N.H., and vowed to sit out if any
club besides Boston drafted him. Pure New England
like lobster. Boston always cheered him, as it
never did Williams or Yaz during their prime years.
When Red Sox management screwed up
Fisk's contract and lost him to the free agent
market, 'The Boston Globe' and 'The Boston Herald'
published wicked editorials excoriating management.
When Babe Ruth was traded to NY - the Globe
actually applauded Harry Frazee. Fisk might be the
most popular player ever to play for the BoFlops.
Munson was a star when Fisk
arrived. The Yankees in the early-'70s were much a
group of ambitious journeymen battlers. But in the
second biggest brawl in rivalry history in 1973,
Fisk was the antagonist. "Stick" Michael failed to
make contact on a suicide squeeze, whereupon Fisk
flung him aside, and got set for Munson, who was
coming full-tilt from third. Like Pete Rose, Munson
crashed into Fisk and then tried to smother him so
Felipe Alou could advance on the bases. Fisk
furiously kicked Munson off, and then landed a
bare-fisted punch. Michael grabbed Fisk and
punched; the Sox pitcher grabbed Munson. When Fisk
flung Michael down, he fell. Munson pounced atop
Fisk and pummeled him with a succession of
rapid-fire shots to the face and body. It was
all-exciting as hell!
Munson remarked afterwards in the
clubhouse "Ask him who won the fight, he knows."
Later - in '77 - it's reported he magnanimously
approached Fisk before a big series - scuffles and
brawls were just part of the game to Munson. It's
also reported that Fisk rebuffed him - ever the
anti-Yankee New Englander. The vicious'76 brawl
which Bostonians still resent - that was mainly
Piniella, Nettles, and Rivers.
Munson's personality was perfect
copy for the press. The accepted characterization
of Munson as surly - "one of Billy Martin's thugs"
as he was labeled in Boston - was overblown. George
Brett tells the story of Thurman thinking fast and
jumping atop him in a pile-up during a vicious
K.C.-Yankee brawl in which most of the Yankee bench
wanted a piece of the Royal third-sacker. "Don't
worry, Georgie, I wouldn't let anything happen to
you," Brett says Thurman said to him.
When Reggie spouted off about being
"the straw that stirs the drink, not Munson,"
Munson shrugged it off. And Reggie had said:
"Thurman thinks he stirs it, but he stirs it bad."
The press built it up the two hated one another. No
doubt it pissed Munson off when Reggie got the big
bucks while his '77 salary was $445,000. But hate?
All accounts by now have ousted that as back page
fill.
More than once Munson took an
opposing pitchers' best fastball on the shoulder
and trotted to first glancing up/down at the spot,
w/o rubbing. He was the biggest player between the
lines in any game, that's all. Jerk reporters
painted him as portly and un-athletic,
psycho-babbled that he was surly and irascible
because Fisk got the headlines as handsome heir to
Johnny Bench. Even now, baseball-almanac.com
incorrectly lists his nicknames, including
"Squatty." It was "Tugboat" in the
clubhouse.
The
legendary jealousy was as much crapola to fill
papers as the Reggie stuff. Munson had to know he
was a much better hitter than Fisk, and after '78 -
when Guidry went 25-3 and Catfish came back from
the dead and won 8 straight - he knew he could call
as good a game as any receiver in history. Munson
insecure, jealous of Fisk? Bullshit.
If
you asked Billy Martin in his latter days for his
all-time Yankee team, it was Munson-Guidry he'd
always choose for the battery, not Berra-Ford.
Billy Martin's regard for Thurman - picking him
over Yogi! Somehow, that seems worth more than any
old HOF plaque they gave out to Fisk.
The Pinstripe Press:
https://www.angelfire.com/ny5/pinstripepress
The Highlander:
https://www.angelfire.com/ny5/thehighlander
Copyright © 2002-2003
Pinstripe Press. All Rights Reserved.
This online newsletter is not affiliated with the
New York Yankees.
The opinions expressed solely represent the
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