May 15, 1976: Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych flies during his first major-league start for Tigers

The Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Indians matchup on May 15, 1976 at Tiger Stadium was an early-season game between two middling teams on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, but the fans attending this game were unknowingly at the start of one of the greatest phenomena baseball has ever seen.

The starting pitchers were Cleveland’s Pat Dobson, a former 20-game winner and former Tiger, and for Detroit, a 21-year-old making his first major-league start. He had a name that many had trouble pronouncing: Mark Fidrych.1  The game was televised, as usual for a Saturday afternoon, on the Tiger network with broadcasters George Kell and Al Kaline; it was also the NBC Game of the Week backup game, with Jack Buck and Maury Wills.2

It surprised many people when Fidrych made the club out of spring training over Dave Lemanczyk, who had pitched regularly for the Tigers in 1974 and 1975.3 In his season preview, Detroit Free Press writer Jim Hawkins noted some of the rookies who were hoping to help the Tigers improve on their worst-in-baseball 57-105 record in 1975 and made an observation that would be funny in a few months: “No one is claiming Mark Fidrych is going to be another Dennis Eckersley.”4

Manager Ralph Houk said, “He needs a lot of work but if everything works out right, he can move into that fifth starting spot when we need him.” Fidrych got into a couple of games in relief as well as starting two in-season exhibition games the Tigers played against the Cincinnati Reds.5 Fidrych was supposed to have started a game, but a rainout had shuffled the rotation and he did not get his chance.6

Fidrych’s first big-league start began after a 26-minute rain delay and continued through a persistent drizzle.7 His batterymate was third-string catcher Bruce Kimm, who got the assignment because he had caught Fidrych in the minors.8 Fidrych got Cleveland out 1-2-3 on his first major-league strikeout, of John Lowenstein, and groundouts by Buddy Bell and Rick Manning.

There was some anticipation for this game, but it had nothing to do with the rookie hurler. Detroit’s Ron LeFlore started the season with a 17-game hitting streak, the longest for a Tiger since Kaline’s 22-game streak in 1961.9 The drama did not last long as LeFlore started the bottom of the first with a single to center.10 Alex Johnson’s single moved LeFlore to third before Willie Horton’s sacrifice fly put the Tigers up, 1-0.

Fidrych dispensed with the Indians in the second on three groundouts. He was attacking the hitters at the bottom of the strike zone with his fastball and a late-breaking slider that aimed for the corners.11 Cleveland went down in order in the third, again without a ball leaving the infield.  Bell—the Indians’ 11th batter of the game—was the first hitter to get the ball to the outfield against Fidrych with a flyout to center for the second out in the fourth inning.

After another 1-2-3 inning from the visitors in the fourth, the Tigers tacked on a second run on another sacrifice fly, this time off the bat of Tom Veryzer to knock in Jason Thompson, who had doubled and reached third on an Aurelio Rodríguez sacrifice.  Houk had Rodríguez bunt because he really wanted that second run, “The way [Fidrych] was pitching I figured two runs would be sweet and I had John Hiller and Bill Laxton available [in the bullpen].”12 The play at the plate was close with Thompson reaching to barely touch home plate before the tag.13

Cleveland got its first baserunner in the fifth on a walk by the 15th batter, catcher Alan Ashby. The no-hitter continued through the sixth. At that point Fidrych had gotten 12 groundouts, two infield line drive outs, three flyouts to the outfield, two strikeouts, and one walk.

The magic ended with the first batter in the seventh. Bell’s groundball to third snuck under Rodríguez’s glove for the first Cleveland hit.14 Manning’s groundball single up the middle15 sent Bell to third and suddenly the lead run was at the plate.

Rico Carty hit Cleveland’s third straight grounder, but the high hopper to second base was slow enough to allow Bell to score to cut Detroit’s lead to 2-1. Manning stole third to put the tying run 90 feet from home plate, but Fidrych struck out George Hendrick and induced a flyout by Ashby to quell the rally.

After the game, Fidrych said, “When I walked that guy in the fifth, I said to myself, ‘There goes my perfect game.’ And when that guy got that hit in the seventh I said, ‘Well, you lost the no-hitter, but you’ve still got the shutout.’  But when I lost that, too, I said, ‘Now all you’ve got left is the win and you’d better get it.’”16

Fidrych did just that. He did not allow another baserunner, getting a strikeout and two groundouts in the eighth and two groundouts and a strikeout in the ninth.  The game was over three minutes shy of two hours. The Tigers won, 2-1, with all three runs scoring on outs. Dobson, who worked a seven-hit complete game, took the loss.

Fidrych was the big story, but not just for his dazzling pitching performance. The mannerisms that Fidrych would be known for were a big part of this first start.  Home plate umpire Marty Springstead was told by fellow umpire Dale Ford about Fidrych, who had seen him in the minors.  That was good because otherwise Springstead might have ejected him for his behavior.17

In the Detroit Free Press the next day, Hawkins wrote about Fidrych’s actions as much as his pitching, “He gestures toward the plate, pointing out the path he wants the ball to take. He struts in a circle around the mound after every out, applauding his teammates and asking for the ball back. And he’s forever chewing gum and tugging at the bill of his cap.”18

The pictures accompanying the game story showed Fidrych on the mound, arm extended and talking to the ball and leaning over on the mound patting the dirt down. Fidrych had waved away the ground crew that attempted to come out and fix the mound on this rainy Saturday, stating later that when pitching, “the mound belongs to me.”19  The article’s headline mentioned “Fidgety Fidrych,” the same phrase used by the headline writer for the Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer and News. On the Tiger network telecast, Kell said, “You know, Al, that guy is kind of goofy out there.”20

Fidrych’s mannerisms seemed to affect the Indians’ hitters. Carty, Ashby, Bell, and Lowenstein all talked about it after the game.

“All of the things he does, like talking to the ball and aiming it and things like that, psyches you out.  It is like he hypnotizes you.  The more he does it the more you want to hit him, and the more you want to hit him, the worse you get.  I’m telling you, whatever he does, whatever he says, drives a batter crazy,” Carty said.21

“He really messes up your concentration,” Bell added.  “He’s always talking to himself—even up until when he’s getting ready to throw the ball.”22

Indians manager Frank Robinson was impressed by Fidrych: “I thought all the way we’d get to him but we never did.  We hit only one all really hard off him—Ashby’s liner to center that ended the seventh inning.”23

The Massachusetts native’s next start came against his hometown Red Sox in Fenway Park, and though he lost, Fidrych limited the high-powered Boston offense to two runs. He won his next eight starts, all but one a complete game, including two that went 11 innings. The streak included the famous Monday Night Baseball game on June 28 when he beat the Yankees, 5-1, which introduced Fidrych to a national audience.

Fidrych started the All-Star Game for the American League in Philadelphia and became the story of the baseball season, a legend that began in the rain on an early-season Saturday afternoon.

Author’s Note

I was 13 years old and attended the game with a church group. We sat in the back row of the upper deck between home and third. It was also the first time I smelled marijuana, as someone was smoking a joint near our seats.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Photo credit: Mark Fidrych (Trading Card Database)

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. for box scores/play-by-play information, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other data.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET197605150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1976/B05150DET1976.htm

Notes

1 Jim Hawkins, Go Bird Go! (New York:  Dell, 1976), 26-27.

2 “The 1976 MLB Season,” the 506 Archive, https://archive.506sports.com/wiki/1976_MLB_Season, accessed August 18, 2026.

3 Jim Hawkins, “Tigers Pull Surprise, Keep Mark Fidrych,” Detroit Free Press, April 6, 1976: 1D-2D.

4 Jim Hawkins, “Do Tigers Have a Future MVP?,” Detroit Free Press, April 9, 1976: 1 of 1976 Baseball Special.  Note that while Eckersley had a very good rookie year (34 games, 24 starts, 186⅔ innings, a 13-7 record, a 2.60 ERA, and a 5.3 bWAR), Fidrych was significantly better (31 games, 29 starts, 250⅓ innings, a 19-9 record, a 2.34 ERA and a 9.6 bWAR.)  Fidrych won the American League Rookie of the Year Award, finished second in the American League Cy Young voting, and 11th in the American League MVP balloting.

5 Associated Press, “Reds Nip Tigers in Exhibition,” Detroit Free Press, April 30, 1976: 4D; Hal Schram, “Tigers Beat Reds in Exhibition, 10-8,” Detroit Free Press, May 11, 1976: 1D.

6 Hawkins, Go Bird Go!, 25-26.

7 Hawkins, Go Bird Go!: 27.

8 Doug Wilson, The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych (Thomas Dunne Books, 2013), 84.

9 Jim Hawkins, “Look out DiMag…Here Comes LeFlore,” Detroit Free Press, May 16, 1976: 4D.

10 The hitting streak eventually hit 30 games before being stopped on May 28 by the Yankees.

11 Wilson, The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych, 87.

12 Tom Loomis, Tiger Rookie Hypnotizes Indian Bats on Two Hits,” Toledo Blade, May 16, 1976: C1

13 Loomis, “Tiger Rookie Hypnotizes Indian Bats on Two Hits.”

14 Wilson, The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych, 87.

15 Larry Paladino, “Fidgety Fidrych Puts Frees on Tribe, 2-1,” Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer and News, May 16, 1976: C1.

16 Jim Hawkins, “The Bird Two-Hits Cleveland, 2-1,”  Detroit Free Press, May 16, 1976: 4D.

17 Hawkins, Go Bird Go!: 30.

18 Hawkins, “The Bird Two-Hits Cleveland, 2-1.”

19 Hawkins, Go Bird Go!: 28.

20 Wilson, The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych, 87.

21 Russell Schnieder, “Schnieder Says,” Cleveland Plain-Dealer, May 16, 1976: 3-5.

22 Hawkins, Go Bird Go!: 30-31.

23 Russell Schnieder, “Tigers Outduel Tribe—Rookie Hurls 2-Hitter,”, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, May 16, 1976: 3-1