#3 Dale Murphy

Big J moved your grandmother and me from Chattanooga, TN back home to Columbia in 1977 to work with Papa in the Family business.  Your grandparents had lived all over the country while he was on active duty in the Navy, and after I was born they were ready to settle down for a while.  When Aunt M.C. was born in '78, Big J converted a big, screened-in porch on the back of the new house on Dalloz Rd. into a family room and rewarded himself and the family with a new, color TV and cable service.  The year was 1981, and I was eight.

That season, Dad and I started watching TBS games, and manager Bobby Cox moved a struggling catcher named Dale Murphy into center field.  Murphy had a great bat, but his confidence (and 6 foot 5 knees) had suffered as a catcher.  Dad said Murph led the league in "throwing out center field." In 1982, Joe Torre took over Cox's team, named Bob Gibson as his pitching coach, and they won the division.  That's the year Dad took me to my first game so I could see Murph hit a homer in person.  I remember it well.  Several friends and I were begging to go so he loaded us up in our Datsun stationwagon and took every kid in the neighborhood.  We lugged our entire baseball card collections and gloves along to get autographed.  At The Varsity restaurant in Atlanta, it became apparent that the game against the Mets was gonna be rained out.  So we headed on out and toured Fulton County Stadium in the rain and then drove home to Columbia in the middle of the night.   From 1982-1987, Dale Murphy hit between 36 and 44 HRs a season and was named to the NL All-Star team every year.  Dad watched all the games in his new family room on his new color TV with his new cable service, and I missed fewer and fewer the older I grew. I owe a great deal of my love for baseball to Dale Murphy, my first hero.  It seemed like every time I saw him at bat, he hit it over the fence.  I practiced his pigeon-toed batting stance and unique bat-waggle in backyard pickup games with neighbors Scott and Chuck, T.W., and R.S.  We played two on two, taking turns at all-time pitcher. 

#3 Dale Murphy. 6'5", 215.  Bats right.  Throws right.  Center Field.  Murph was a natural lefty, but his folks made him learn to hit and field right-handed.  Dale Murphy was best known in baseball for being Mr. Clean.  He didn't drink, smoke, or cuss--or use steroids as they gained prominence in the league.  With a .265 career batting average and 398 HRs, he's not a Hall of Famer--yet, but he'll always be one of the best in my book.  Seven-time All-Star. Twice voted the NL MVP. Best player in the 80's?  Great human being on and off the field.  If only-if only he coulda laid-off the curve ball down and away...   

--MJF