By now the Associated Press had the story and was moving it across the country. Someone from my desk at the New York Post called with the news. My reaction was bland. Munson was only thirty-two but he had caused a lot of unrest in the homes of a lot of sports reporters. We try to judge players as men, not as athletes. Munson was a great athlete. He was a sour man.

I suddenly thought of a line we sometimes used in the privacy of the press box when a well-known personality died. Jack Mann, a Long Island, New York, Newsday sports columnist, was the originator of the line. Mann had been called at home when Ty Cobb -- a mean, crusty, bigoted, angry man, and the most successful batter in baseball history -- died in 1961 at the age of seventy-four. He was asked to write Cobb's obituary for his paper. Mann acknowledged the writing assignment, but explained to the desk the kind of man Cobb had been and that he would not soften the obit now that Cobb was gone.

"The only difference now," said Mann, "is that he's a dead prick."

The line popped into my head when I heard about the death of Munson but I set about my chore of getting reaction from Yankee teammates. Reaching a big league baseball player on an off day is no easy task. Few stay home for a barbecue with the family. Most go fishing, sailing, or hunting with teammates, shopping for new cars or appearing at shopping centers signing autographs for big bucks. Lou Piniella was home with his family.

"George was all choked up when he told me," Piniella said. "He could barely talk. He was very emotional."

Marty Appel, Munson's biographer and the former Yankees public relations man, recalled that day that he had told Steinbrenner of manager Joe McCarthy's 1941 pledge at Lou Gehrig's gravesite that no other Yankee would ever be named captain of the team. Steinbrenner had defied that tradition in naming Munson the captain in 1976. Now the irony of the early death of the Yankee captain had struck again.

The Yankees were scheduled against the Baltimore Orioles the Friday night after Munson's death. At game time the Yankees ran out to their positions. Like the riderless horse with inverse stirrups at a presidential funeral, there was no catcher at home plate. Each player stood still at his position as Munson's face was flashed huge on the electronic scoreboard. The fans began applauding and would not cease their farewell to their hero until more than eight minutes had passed. Not a player moved. The entire Stadium paid unique tribute to Munson and testimony to his tragic death. Backup catcher Jerry Narron walked quietly to his position behind the plate seconds before the game began.

The players would not talk to the press before the game but a few were willing to express their emotions when it was over. Lou Piniella leaned back in his locker, his handsome face etched with pain, his eyes red, his skin ashen. "We had this fishing trip planned, me and Thurman and Donnie Gullett and Charlie Lau and we were all going down to the Florida Keys and catch us some fish as soon as the season was over. Thurman was the closest friend I ever had in baseball. If there are eighty-one days on the road that we are together there must have been eighty-one nights we ate dinner together. We just loved being together, having dinner, talking baseball, drinking a beer, sharing good times. And the fishing trip ... now there won't be any fishing trip ... "

Both Piniella and Bobby Murcer later told me that Munson had asked them to join him for the trip to Canton from Chicago. Each admitted privately that the real reason they begged off with manufactured excuses about family obligations was their concern about Munson's ability to handle the complicated and expensive new Cessna he had recently purchased. This would all come back hauntingly to me on July 17, 1999, when John F. Kennedy, Jr., crashed off Martha's Vineyard while flying a Piper Saratoga after only one hundred hours of flying time. Kennedy could fly visually but not by instruments. It was Munson's arrogance and Kennedy's insouciance regarding flying that cost both young men their lives.

On Monday the Yankees were flown by chartered jet to the Canton-Akron airport, in sight of the crash, for a short bus ride to the Canton Memorial Civic Center. Diane Munson sat in a side waiting room and was greeted and hugged by the wives of most of her husband's Yankee teammates. They pledged their love and support through tear-filled eyes. The two small Munson daughters sat quietly with their grandparents while young Michael, dressed in a cut-down Yankee uniform number 15, scampered in and out of the room looking at his father's friends.

Lou Piniella read from the Scriptures and then said, "We don't know why God took Thurman, but as long as we wear a Yankee uniform Thurman won't be far from us. As a baseball player he was one of the best competitors. He played rough but fair. He was also a kind, affectionate, friendly man." His voice choked and he walked off the platform.

Bobby Murcer delivered the main eulogy and said, "He lived, he led, he loved. Whatever he was to each of us, catcher, captain, competitor, husband, father, friend, he should be remembered as a man who valued and followed the basic principles of life ...

"As Lou Gehrig led the Yankees as the captain of the thirties, our Thurman Munson captained the Yankees of the seventies. Someone, someday, shall earn that right to lead this team again, for that is how Thurn -- Tugboat, as I called him -- would want it. No greater honor could be bestowed on one man than to be the successor to this man, Thurman Munson, who wore the pinstripes with number 15. Number 15 on the field, number fifteen for the records, number fifteen for the halls of Cooperstown.

"But in living, loving, and legend, history will record Thurman as number one."

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