![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/munson-front.jpg\" "\\"munson-front\\"")
<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m only twenty-nine,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Munson said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No one does an autobiography at twenty-nine.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\nAppel explained to Munson that twenty-nine wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t especially young in the celebrity world, and that winning an MVP award \u00e2\u20ac\u0153almost guaranteed that someone<\/em> [Appel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s italics] would be pitching a book idea to a publisher.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, Appel continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it yourself, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll hate whatever is done without you- you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make any money, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all wrong, and it will just aggravate you.”<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not that interested in the money,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Munson countered. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want it to be a paperback so kids could buy it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Eventually, with a little more prodding from Appel, Munson agreed to the project, yet with one reservation.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does it have to get personal?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Munson asked, and Appel thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What a strange question from a man considering an autobiography.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n That book, Thurman Munson: An Autobiography, <\/em>published in 1978, <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153sold a lot more copies after [Munson} died than before,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Appel remembered thirty-one years later. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve received a lot of compliments on it over the years, particularly from Munson fans.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In fact, the writer continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s] wife, Diana, was especially admiring. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThank you for writing it, thank god we have this,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 she said to me on the eve of his funeral.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n In the ensuing years, Appel has written many more books. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But as I have reread that book over the years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he explained, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always felt that Thurman held back too much, skirting over personal matters, as was his right. The publisher was pleased with the final product,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Appel continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so I felt I had met my obligation to give them both the book they wanted. But I was never really satisfied with it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n And so, to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, in 2009 Appel wrote Munson<\/em>: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain. <\/em>If the 1978 book was, as Appel wrote, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a traditional baseball life story with little controversy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d this book, he explained, was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an attempt to fill in the gaps that Thurman left in telling his own story\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in 1977-78.<\/p>\n It succeeds superbly.<\/p>\n What makes this version of Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story so appealing is the sheer volume of people Appel interviewed to tell the catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. Whereas the original autobiography was drawn from many hours of transcribed tapes Munson had recorded, resulting in a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153traditional baseball bio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that largely revealed only those aspects of his personality that Munson chose to convey, in writing the new version Appel relied on the thoughts and memories of those who were closest to Munson throughout various periods of his life. It is their candor and honesty that animates the Yankee legend and lays bare both the good and darker aspects of his seemingly complex personality.<\/p>\n Much of what made Munson the man he eventually became can be traced to his childhood. During his lifetime, though, and certainly in his autobiography, Munson was reticent to share details of his youth. Indeed, when Appel worked on the first book with him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Diana,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as the writer relates in the new book, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153had asked me whether [Munson] brought up much about his childhood.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d When Appel explained that he had broached the subject but hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gotten very far, he sensed that Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just curious to know how much [her husband] had opened up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aversion to talking about his childhood is certainly understandable. The youngest of four children, he grew up in Canton, Ohio, the town which he never left and which is today his final resting place, in a very difficult family atmosphere. His father, Darrell, the single most villainous character in the book, was a truck driver and a very intimidating, angry man. Sports became for Thurman an escape from a hostile home life. In relating these years, Appel tracked down two of Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s siblings, Darla, the eldest child, and also Thurman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brother, Duane, and the two maintain a presence throughout the book. Their memories of this formative period of Thurman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life and their insight into their brother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with his parents provides a glimpse into the dynamics that drove Munson not just to excel in athletics but also to later pull away from his own family in favor of Diana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. (Their father would come home after a week away, Darla volunteered, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just start hitting us. A fist across the head. Scary. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d throw things too, if that was convenient. And I remember Mom off to the side crying and saying, Stop! Enough!) Beyond contributing her memories of those years, Darla also provided Appel with a guided tour to all the homes, schools and landmarks in Canton that were integral to Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s youth.<\/p>\n Perhaps none of those sites was as important as Lehman high School. It was there, as captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams, that Munson became, states Appel, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the greatest athletes the school had ever known.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In all, he earned nine varsity letters, as well as all-city and all-state recognition in each sport. When, despite receiving letters of interest from over 80 football programs, Kent State became the only school to offer Munson a full scholarship to play baseball, his decision about where to play became easy, and he went on to achieve legendary status at the school (the only player in school history to have his number retired), earning first-team All-American honors following his junior year in 1968. In June of that year the New York Yankees selected him with the fourth pick of the amateur draft, and by the following year, after just 99 minor league games, Munson was in the major leagues to stay.<\/p>\n Those pre-Yankees years are vividly brought to life by many who played and coached with and against Munson at every level of competition, and are often done so with wildly visual anecdotes- like the time Munson and some of his Cape Cod League teammates were driving in a convertible to a road game and he threw a ball over an underpass from about 100 yards away, only to catch it on the other side after the car sped up. In his sources Appel lists almost 30 people, some famous, some not, whose recollections portray not only Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s abundant physical skills, but also the athlete\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tremendous confidence and will-to-win. From Lehman teammates like the flame-throwing Jerome Pruett, whose fastball only Munson could handle, to future major leaguers Steve Stone, Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kent State roommate and battery mate, and Bobby Valentine, his Cape Cod League teammate, \u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00ad\u00c2\u00adeach person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contribution is helpful to the reader in understanding the uniqueness of Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talent.<\/p>\n His life with Diana, of course, permeates Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thurman would always call her Diane,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Appel writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153almost as though he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard the name right or just wanted to save a syllable.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Munson and Diana Dominick met at school when he was twelve, and from then until the end of his life, they were inseparable. Although Appel did not interview Diana for this book, they have corresponded, he explains, for almost forty years, and her singular contributions illuminate Munson the father as no one else could. (Diana loved when Thurman was home, offers Appel, because four-year old Michael would finally sleep through the night; and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153when the girls needed their hair brushed, they wanted their Daddy to do it… Daddy does it so gently.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) It was a side of his personality Munson rarely let the public see.<\/p>\n About Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s years in the Bronx Zoo, including his often-stormy relationship with the press, Appel covers little new ground. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not his fault; over the past thirty years, that era has been well-chronicled in other books, and seemingly every story that can be told has been (although the fact that Munson stubbornly insisted that George Steinbrenner remove the clause in his contract forbidding flying is eerily ironic). Still, Appel offers a unique perspective. Given that the author joined the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 front office in 1968 (the year Munson was drafted) and left early in \u00e2\u20ac\u212277, and that he had unique access to events that took place in the clubhouse, in Steinbrenner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office and on team flights, Appel observed first-hand most of the interactions Munson had with his teammates and reporters. Many of the scenes, Appel explains in his sources, are re-created from memory, although he also conducted twenty-two new interviews with Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teammates, including Chris Chambliss, Ed Figueroa, Ron Guidry and Reggie Jackson, as well as fifty-seven baseball officials and media personalities.<\/p>\n Also, while Appel effectively depicts Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgrumpy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 side by detailing the catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s infamous battles with the press , it was refreshing to learn that he could also be gracious at times: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I was a rookie reporter in spring training, he saw me waiting forlornly at the ballpark for a taxi,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Marty Noble, then of the Bergen Record<\/em>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So he offered me a ride to my hotel, which was out of his way. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make a big deal of it. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter that I was a writer. He had an inherently good side.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Munson also once offered to pay to bring Daily News<\/em> writer Phil Pepe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family to spring training.<\/p>\n Finally, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the accident- August 2, 1979. As the book progresses, Appel masterfully builds to the plane crash by detailing how Munson had become increasingly torn between continuing his career in New York and the desire for the life he had built in Canton, including his burgeoning real estate ventures; in order to get home as fast as possible Munson took up flying, and his growing obsession with aviation led to the purchase and piloting of bigger and more powerful aircraft. Compiled from a multitude of contemporary sources, including the National Transportation and Safety Board\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accident report and a verbatim transcript of a 2004 ESPN interview given by Munson friend and business associate Jerry Anderson, who survived the crash, the last third of the 355-page book is a meticulous description of both the aircraft (a Cessna Citation) and the fateful decisions Munson made that day. The account is vivid and stark, and it left me feeling the same sad way I did when I was seventeen years old and heard about the untimely death of one of my favorite players. Appel then finishes the historical perspective by faithfully recounting Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funeral and the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outpouring of affection, and he concludes by bringing us up to date on Diana and the rest of Munson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family.<\/p>\n For anyone who is a baseball fan or a fan of good biography, I recommend you read Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain. <\/em>It reminds us all of just what a legend we lost.<\/p>\n When not reading and writing about baseball, Chip is a management consultant. A lifelong resident of the Washington, DC, metro area, in the summer of 2008 he moved to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, still close enough to retain his lifelong enthusiasm for the Baltimore Orioles. Chip is a member of SABR and writes for the BioProject website, as well as contributing to several upcoming SABR book projects. He also writes for Yankees Annual magazine. Chip\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest in baseball history is fed by a continuous fascination with the career of his grandfather, Nelson Greene, who briefly pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In January 1977, shortly before resigning as Director of Public Relations for the New York Yankees, Marty Appel approached team captain Thurman Munson about collaborating on the catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s autobiography. Initially, Munson, who had recently been named the American League\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Most Valuable Player, was reluctant. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m only twenty-nine,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Munson said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No one does an autobiography at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":694,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,9],"tags":[10570,10569,10567,10574,4894,10576,10572,10563,10565,2240,2894,444,10192,10573,10575,10568,10571,746,10566,424],"class_list":["post-7845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-general","tag-autobiography","tag-book-idea","tag-celebrity-world","tag-compliments","tag-eve","tag-god","tag-italics","tag-life-and-death","tag-marty-appel","tag-money","tag-mvp-award","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-personal-matters","tag-prodding","tag-public-relations","tag-strange-question","tag-team-captain","tag-thurman-munson","tag-wife-diana","tag-yankee"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/694"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}