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Munson & Fisk:
Rivals To The
Bitter End
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It would seem to be a natural rivalry: Thurman Munson of the New York Yankees and Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox. After all, their respective teams were heated rivals, why not them?
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For starters, Munson would blame play-by-play announcer Curt Gowdy for any extra attention Fisk might get on national television because Gowdy himself was from New England.
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Former Yankees PR man Marty Appel said that Munson didn’t like being compared to Fisk. According to a story published in Rob Neyer’s book, “Big Book of Baseball Legends”, Appel listed the American League’s leaders in assists by position in one of his 1976 press releases. The rankings showed Fisk slightly ahead of Munson in that category. Munson was furious, saying it was a ‘dumb’ statistic.
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During the next Yankees game, Munson would occasionally drop a third strike, pick up the ball and throw to the first baseman to register an ‘assist’. This he would do sparingly so as not to make it obvious.
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Quickly and quietly, Munson surpassed Fisk in the season’s running total of ‘assists by catchers’. Whatever remained of the rivalry ended with the tragic death of Munson in a plane wreck in 1979.
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