Bob Cook

When hearing the news that Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle died in a small-plane crash, no doubt many Yankees fans instantly thought of Thurman Munson.

Like Lidle, Munson was a veteran major leaguer in his 30s and playing for the Yankees when his 1979 crash stunned the baseball world. But that’s where the similarities end.

Munson’s death generated a genuine outpouring of grief not only with the Yankees, but through all of baseball. Lidle’s death — sad and tragic as it is — will not. It’s not because of the difference between a player who appeared headed for a Hall of Fame career, and one who wasn’t.

The difference comes in one word — scab.

For pitching one inning in a 1995 spring training game filled with replacements for locked-out major leaguers, Lidle wore a scarlet “S” wherever he went in a well-traveled career that included stops with the Mets, Devil Rays, Athletics, Blue Jays, Reds, Phillies and Yankees. Munson was a revered team captain when he died for being seen as devoted to other players as much or more than himself; Lidle’s relationship with his teammates usually ranged from cordial to hostile for being seen as devoted to himself more than he was other players.

The legacy of Lidle’s career is a lesson in how the slightest violation of unwritten locker room codes can make a player a pariah, no matter how long ago that violation might have occurred. Lidle was known as an outspoken player — he was among the most vocal in saying Barry Bonds’ records wouldn’t be legitimate because of steroids — and a free spirit in an environment where being just one or the other is not always appreciated. Even his recently found passion for being a pilot flouted the rule against verboten activity in about every major-leaguer’s contract. But you wonder if that scarlet “S” encouraged those traits — and whether, on the flip side that “S” also prompted him to defend or backtrack from his comments once it became clear they upset his teammates.

If Lidle’s death allows baseball to be introspective, it might be wise to think about not only the wisdom of piloting your own plane, but also the wisdom of making a teammate an outcast. The question is, when do you forgive and forget a player’s transgressions? And if you have committed such a transgression, how can you meet your teammates in the middle and settle your differences? The other bit of introspection might be, is baseball ever really going to get over the ghastly, short-sighted, repulsive, doomed decision owners made, in the depths of baseball’s worst labor crisis, to consign players to replace the true major leaguers?

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Lidle once said he had a knack for making decisions that, in hindsight, he wished he had thought through better, starting with his decision to cross the picket line. That was when owners thought, as if canceling the 1994 World Series because of a labor dispute wasn’t enough, that they could pressure the players’ union into a deal by bringing in replacement players.

The replacements were mostly low-level minor-leaguers or veteran high-level minor-leaguers, who often were pressured with being released or sent down a minor-league black hole if they didn’t cross the line. Not every player got this treatment — one who didn’t was Lidle’s twin brother, Kevin, then with the Tigers. But Lidle said his then-employer Brewers told him to show up or ship out — a scary thought for a player who had been released by one organization already in his young career.

Slide show   Remembering Lidle's career A look back at the baseball career of Cory Lidle, who was killed in a small plane crash in New York City.

He sat in the dugout for two games, pitching one inning. But the damage was done. Like 39 other future major-leaguers, he got the scarlet “S.”

Lidle said he was “naïve” in believing the Brewers, and regretted the decision. It came back to haunt him often, and not just because he could never join the union, or collect licensing fees, or have his name appear in video or card games (he went by “Felix Berger” in the MLB2K6 video game and “Fuller Starr” in the APBA dice baseball game).