I don't think I have to explain why this was so devastating. Even if you're not old enough to remember, you can see the results on the field: No more World Series wins until 1996.
Thurman Lee Munson was born on June 7, 1947 in Akron, Ohio, and grew up in nearby Canton, outside Cleveland. A catcher, he attended nearby Kent State University, debuted with the Yankees on August 8, 1969. In 1970, he was named the American League's Rookie of the Year. He was named to the AL All-Star Team 7 times: 1971, '73, '74, '75, '76, '77 and '78. He won Gold Gloves in 1973, '74 and '75.
In 1976, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, with his fascination with all things military, appointed Munson to be the new Yankees captain. The role had been vacant since the retirement of Lou Gehrig in 1939, but George told the media, "If Lou Gehrig knew about Thurman Munson, he'd approve."
The Yankees won the Pennant that season, for the 1st time in 12 years, and Thurman was named AL Most Valuable Player. He remains the only Yankee to win the Rookie of the Year and the MVP. The ROY wasn't available until 1947, so Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio were never eligible for it. Mickey Mantle had a troubled rookie season in 1951. Derek Jeter was ROY in 1996, but was never awarded the MVP.
Injuries began to catch up with Thurman, but he helped the Yankees win the World Series in 1977 and 1978, catching the last out in the latter on a pop-up by Ron Cey of the Los Angeles Dodgers behind a plate in Game 6.
He had previously asked Steinbrenner the trade him to the Cleveland Indians, so that he could be close to home. He was willing to go from the best team in baseball to one of the worst, if it meant being closer to his wife Diana, his daughters Tracy and Kelly, and his son Michael.
That's why he learned how to fly and bought the planes, so that he could fly home on days off, and then rejoin the team in whatever city they were in the next day. That's why he went from Chicago to Canton on the morning of August 2, while the rest of the Yankees flew back to New York.
You've no doubt seen the YES Network's Yankees Classics showing of the ABC Monday Night Baseball broadcast of the game played on August 6, after the Yankees got back from Munson's funeral -- a broadcast that made even Howard Cosell seem like a comforting figure. You've almost certainly seen YES' Yankeeography of Thurman, and you may even have read Marty Appel's excellent biography Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain.
You may even be old enough to remember all this happening at the time. I am old enough to remember. I heard the news on TV, delivered at 6:28 PM on Channel 9, then WOR, by Sara Lee Kessler in a news brief. She looked very grim as she faced the camera, and, even at age 9, I knew that something bad had happened.
"Good evening," she said, as a courtesy rather than as a statement of sincere opinion. "Yankee catcher Thurman Munson was killed today, in a plane crash... "
I fell out of my seat. Literally. I still feel like slumping down in my seat as I type this.
Bill Gallo, a cartoonist for the New York Daily News for 65 years, drew his most famous cartoon that night, published the next day. That's it, above. ("Yuchie," pronounced YOO-chee, was a representation of a childhood friend of Gallo's, real name Eugene, who, unlike him, didn't make it back from World War II.) It does rather look like it was raining. Or maybe it was the tears of Heaven.
George Steinbrenner immediately announced that Munson's uniform Number 15 would be retired. Before the next game, an epitaph that George wrote was put on the scoreboard, and it would grace Thurman's Plaque in Monument Park.
When the new Yankee Stadium was built, with larger lockers, a new locker with set aside for Thurman. A copy was placed inside the new Yankees Museum, and his original locker was donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame, a nod to the perception that he didn't quite have the career statistics to earn election on his own.
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But... what if Thurman Munson had lived?
Suppose he had been able to land the plane safely. Or suppose a problem with it was found before he could go up. Or suppose it rained in Canton that day, and Thurman had lived to see August 3...
It might not have made a competitive difference, for the Yankees or anyone else, given his injuries. The fact that 1979 with a transition year for the Yankees means that it might still have been his last season with the team. After all, starters Chris Chambliss and Mickey Rivers were also traded.
So it could be that the trade the Yankees made after the 1979 season, sending Chambliss to the Toronto Blue Jays for catcher Rick Cerone, might have been made anyway, and Thurman would then has been a 1st baseman and designated hitter, until 1983, when Don Mattingly arrived, and that would have been the writing on the wall, and then he would have retired, if he had not done so by that point anyway, at age 36.
It's easier to imagine Thurman asking to be accommodated at the end of the 1979 season, and George finally giving in, sending him and maybe a prospect or two to the Indians for a pitcher.
It's easy to imagine George looking at Rick Waits, a lefthander who tended to beat the Yankees, and I think, "If he's on our team, at least he won't be beating us." Then again, it's also not hard to imagine George trading for Wayne Garland, the big free-agent bust due to his injuries, and thinking that the Yankees and their doctors could fix him, and such things rarely worked out.
It's not hard to imagine Thurman playing the 1980 and 81 seasons with the Indians, and then, at age 34, deciding that even road trips away from Cleveland and Canton were now too much, and retiring.
It might not be easy to imagine him, with his gruff personality, becoming a media figure. But it's not that hard to imagine him negotiating a deal with NBC for Saturdays, or ABC for Mondays, where he would only have to broadcast one game a week, and that one game in the Midwest, making it easy to spend 6 days a week at home.
Maybe, by 1990, with his kids older and not needing him around so much, he could have been invited to come back and broadcast for the Yankees, alongside Phil Rizzuto and his old friend and teammate Bobby Murcer. And Thurman could then have been, if only as an observer and commentator, a part of the next Yankee Dynasty.
Or maybe he wouldn't only have been an observer and a commentator. Both Reggie Jackson and Lou Piniella have publicly said that Thurman would have been hired as manager of the Yankees at one point. Maybe at more than one point. You know how George went through managers.
In 2001, on the 25th Anniversary of his MVP and Pennant season, he could have gotten his Plaque and his number retired. Although I'm not sure who would have worn 15 from 1980 to 2000. And Thurman would have been just 61 when the old Stadium closed in 2008, so he likely would have been in the closing ceremony, instead of his son Michael standing in for him, wearing a Number 15 uniform.
Thurman Munson would be 72 years old now. As high-strung as he was, it's possible that he would be dead now, anyway, along with 1977 and/or 1978 World Championship teammates Catfish Hunter, Paul Blair, Dock Ellis, Elrod Hendricks, Dave Bergman, Jim Spencer and Paul Lindblad.
But he should have had the chance to get this far.
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On August 2, 1999, still in the glow from my trip to see the Yankees beat the Red Sox in Boston, I decided to go to Yankee Stadium and watch that night's game.
They were playing the Blue Jays, the team that had beaten the Yankees in my 1st-ever live game, in 1978, with Thurman in the lineup. I'd still never seen the Yankees beat them.
I knew it was the 20th Anniversary of Munson's death, and Andy Pettite started against David Wells, whom the Yankees had traded away to get Roger Clemens. Everything seemed to to be set up for me to be there.
For the game, the video board showed a tribute to Munson, and Diana was on hand to throw out the ceremonial first ball. She got a wonderful hand.
The game turned out to be one of the best I've ever seen live, with both Pettitte and Wells pitching into the 8th inning. Derek Jeter hit a home run off Wells in that inning, and the Yankees won 3-1.
George Steinbrenner was pleased. Thurman Munson would have been pleased, too.