Podcast series tells full story of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, Northborough’s own who shot to national stardom 50 years ago

No reason should be required to celebrate the late Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, the down-to-earth yet larger-than-life Northborough native, who became a national phenomenon as a rookie pitcher for the Tigers in the summer of 1976.

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But Andy Baron has found a compelling way of telling the beloved Fidrych’s full story, and with perfectly fitting timing.

Baron, a Leominster native and former Boston-area reporter and editor, is the producer and narrator of “The Bird: The Spirit of ’76,” a nine-part podcast that launched June 28 — exactly 50 years after Fidrych rocketed to coast-to-coast stardom with a sensational and impossibly charismatic performance against the Yankees on ABC’s “Monday Night Baseball.”

“The podcast really attempts to give listeners insight into how he came to be this magical and almost mythical figure,” said Baron, who was 9 years old when the affable, curly-haired, quick-to-grin Fidrych became “perhaps the most famous man in America during its bicentennial summer,” according to a retrospective by then-Sports Illustrated writer Steve Rushin in 2001.

“He’s someone who was beloved even though his career was fleeting. He has never really been forgotten, but this anniversary, particularly in regard to that game, felt like the perfect way to do it.”

Fidrych pitched a complete-game seven-hitter against the eventual American League champion Yankees in that game. Fidrych, just 21 years old at the time, captured the nation’s fancy with quirks that were both endearing and authentic: talking to the ball, landscaping the mound with his hands, and shaking hands with his infielders after a fine defensive play.

He was irresistible to ABC’s cameras, which Dan Durbin, founder and director of the Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media and Society at the University of Southern California, notes on one episode fit perfectly into the network’s mission at the time to identify or create new stars.

“One thing I was trying to really get at in this podcast was trying to understand why and how fans were so rabid for him,” said Baron. “I really felt it went beyond the quirks, and the podcast gets into some of the whys. Dan made a very interesting point that ABC was very much looking for heroes, and in this case, someone to bring color to their baseball broadcasts. Fidrych gave them a winner they could not have imagined.”

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Fidrych’s magical ride continued through the season. He started the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, and was named AL Rookie of the Year after winning 19 games with a league-leading 2.34 ERA while packing ballparks across the country whenever he started. He was such a cultural phenomenon that he became the first — and still only — baseball player to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone.

The podcast, which will release a new episode weekly through mid-August, doesn’t limit its focus solely on Fidrych’s baseball career, which proved fleeting due to injuries. He finished his career with 29 victories, retiring in 1983 as a member of the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox, and returned to Northborough with uncertainty about what the next phase of his life would bring.

The series traces Fidrych’s early childhood learning challenges and being bullied, his rise to national stardom and becoming a crossover cultural phenomenon, and his enduring impact on those with special needs.

Baron, who was inspired to do the podcast in part by a chance meeting with Fidrych in 1996, interviewed more than 50 people, including: Fidrych’s widow, Ann; daughter, Jessica; sisters Paula Grogan and Carol Duda; and former Tigers teammates Willie Horton, Jerry Manuel, Bruce Kimm, and Ron LeFlore.

Fidrych died in 2009 at the age of 54 in an accident while working underneath his Mack truck.

“He was someone who cared deeply about making a difference in people’s lives,” said Baron. “I think listeners will learn just how great his impact was during his lifetime and is still being felt today.”

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Gotta admit, I’m still stunned that the immediate, consensus local media reaction to the Celtics’ decision to trade Jaylen Brown teetered on the histrionic. President of basketball operations Brad Stevens’s track record is well beyond decent, people. It got so ridiculous I half-expected the hosts of the two Boston sports-radio midday shows to end up in the background of one of Brown’s Twitch streams … Sticking with the apparent podcast theme this week, I highly recommend Rich Eisen’s “This Was SportsCenter,” during which he is joined by one of his fellow former anchors to take a candid look back at the heyday of ESPN’s seminal highlights program. His most recent guest was Craig Kilborn, who may have delivered my favorite line ever by a “SportsCenter” anchor when he introduced a highlight by saying, “Ah, baseball. The game you play in the backyard with your dad. [Pause.] Or your mom’s boyfriend.”

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