Not Rosie O'Donnell.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine published its wonderful annual “The Lives They Lived” issue last weekend and Nicholas Davidoff wrote a perfect send-off to the late, briefly great Detroit Tigers pitcher Mark “The Bird” Fidrych. It’s hard to explain the appeal the gangly, eccentric Fidrych held for children of that era. He was athlete, Muppet and rock star all at once. He was the awkward kid who grew to greatness without losing his awkwardness. Because of injuries, his career was sadly brief; because of an accident, his life tragically so. From the article:

“We had sensed how well he understood childhood. I was not the only self-conscious adolescent who on a sad day decided to tell a baseball about it. Seeing an adult acting like a boy also made the promise of growing up seem attractive. That a man could behave strangely and be applauded led you to think that eccentricity might be a virtue.

Any great athlete’s career represents a life span in miniature, an early lesson in mortality. Fidrych’s allotted days were as evanescent as his baseball career. Last spring, at 54, while he was repairing his dump truck, his shirt got caught in the drive shaft and he suffocated. There is something particularly brutal about the pitcher who publicly played with dirt being killed by the vehicle he used to carry it, as there is about a man who died young twice.”

Read the full piece.