By Elaine Thompson | Worcester Telegram & Gazette | April 15, 2009

Northboro, MA
Tom Marino remembers the time when a man came into the American Legion and asked Mark Fidrych if he would autograph his American League Rookie of the Year baseball card for the man’s son, who was having an operation the next day.

“Mark looked at the card and said, ‘No.’ We were all shocked because Mark does everything for anybody,” recalled Marino, the bar manager at the Legion post. “Then Mark said, ‘But I’ll be there at 10 o’clock in the morning, and I’ll bring it.’ And he showed up in uniform and visited the kid two hours before he had his operation. That’s the kind of guy Mark was.”

People throughout Northboro who knew Fidrych were in somber moods yesterday after their hometown major league baseball celebrity died Monday in an apparent accident at his 107-acre West Street farm. A family friend found Fidrych’s body underneath his 10-wheel dump truck that he had apparently been working on at the time of the accident.

Scott Forbes, 70, of Shrewsbury, who knew Fidrych for 30 years and taught him how to shift the gears on his Mack truck, took half a day off from work yesterday to remember his friend. He said when he met his wife, Peggy, at the American Legion Monday night, he found everybody there in tears.

“He was different,” Forbes recalled. “Anything you wanted, he would give to you. He was just a super guy who always had a smile, always had kind words. He was the salt of the earth.”

Kathy A. Lowe, who with her husband, Tom, owns Lowe’s Market, and others recalled Fidrych as humble, unpretentious, polite, fun and always willing to help.

She said Fidrych recently gave free baseball clinics to youths in town. He and his wife, Ann Pantazis, co-owner of Chet’s Diner, also got special foods for Hailey, the Lowes’ diabetic 8-year-old daughter, for her visits to the diner. In October, Fidrych not only donated money to the diabetes walkathon, but gave copies of a coloring book about his baseball career to all the walkers.

Lowe said Fidrych recently helped their older daughter, Emily, 12, by donating to a fundraiser for the Special Olympics. She said Hailey got a kick out of throwing paper airplanes to Fidrych when she went to Chet’s.

“I have to admit my girls don’t quite realize the famousness of Mark. They just think he’s a lot of fun,” she said. “If you ask him to do anything, he would do it. He was not the pretentious famous person, but just the regular down-to-earth guy, and he will be sorely missed by many, many people. It’s just a horrible thing to happen to a great family.”

A sign on the door at Chet’s Diner, 191 Main St., informed customers that the diner will be closed for a week. The flag outside was at half mast and one of two balloons designed to look like baseballs that hung from a pole had “The Bird” written on it.

In addition to his wife and others, Fidrych, a Worcester native, is survived by his daughter, Jessica, and three sisters. Calling hours will be from 4 to 8 p.m. tomorrow at First Parish Unitarian Church, 40 Church St. The funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Friday at the church. Burial will be private.

Originally published online here: http://www.telegram.com/article/20090415/FRONTPAGENEWS/904150455