1 Day Until Spring Training: Bobby Murcer

One day. One more day until one of my favorite sentences in the English language will be uttered: "Pitchers and catchers report". I know it's cliched. I know unofficial workouts have been taking place in earnest for a few days now. But there's something special about having an official date when we know the offseason is over. A date when we know we'll soon be talking about real baseball stories instead of speculating about where Johnny Damon or Chien-Ming Wang will sign. A date when we can stop speculating about if and when Derek Jeter will re-sign, and for how long and how much, and who will eventually replace him next year, or in 2014, or whenever.

I would hate to be the guy to replace Derek Jeter. The burden of expectations might be too much to bear. Last year we saw Mark Teixeira struggle somewhat early on in replacing Jason Giambi, who in turn had struggled in replacing Tino Martinez, who had struggled in replacing a Yankee legend in Don Mattingly. In Derek Jeter we're on a different level. We're talking about a Yankee icon with a grip on the psyche of the fanbase that goes beyond what even Donnie Baseball had. A sure first ballot Hall of Famer. A five time (at least) World Series champion. The Captain of the Yankees. One of the top two or three shortstops ever to play the game.

Yankee history has had more than its share of legends. And for every legend to hang up his cleats some poor soul has had the unenviable taks of replacing him. Some have done so with great success; others were not so fortunate. Babe Dahlgren begged Lou Gehrig not to take himself out of the line up. Yogi Berra succeeded Bill Dickey with aplomb, as did Mickey Mantle in replacing Joe DiMaggio. Thurman Munson was worthy heir to the Dickey-Berra-Howard line of catchers, then poor Jerry Narron and Brad Gulden had the unthinkably difficult job of taking the Captain's place just days after his untimely death. But perhaps no one in Yankee history was saddled with greater expectations than Bobby Murcer.

Bobby Murcer was supposed to be the next Mickey Mantle. Murcer, like Mantle, was from Oklahoma. Murcer, like Mantle, was a baseball and football star in high school. Murcer, like Mantle, came up through the Yankees system as a shortstop. Murcer so badly wanted to follow in the foot steps of his hero Mantle that he signed with the Yankees in 1964 for $10,000, half of what the Dodgers offered him. The scout that inked him to that deal was Tom Greenwade, the same man who had signed Mantle fifteen years earlier. When Murcer made his Major League debut in late 1965 at 19 years old, the same age at which Mantle debuted, The Mick still had three full seasons of his career ahead of him. It didn't matter. The press and the fans were hungry to anoint the next chosen one, and it was Murcer. Hitting a game winning home run in just his second Major League game only increased the level of expectation.

Entering the following season, Murcer was considered the favorite to win the starting shortstop job, the position vacated with the retirement of Tony Kubek. The Yankees broke camp with Murcer platooning with veteran Ruben Amaro, but through seven games, and just three starts, Murcer had struggled to a .071/.071/.071 batting line and had made three errors in just 31 defensive innings. Manager Johnny Keane buried him on the bench, and eventually he was sent to AAA. He returned when rosters expanded in September, but struggled through the season's final month.

Unlike Mantle, Murcer did not have a 4F exemption from military service, and he lost the entirety of the 1967 and '68 seasons while in the Army. He returned for the 1969 season, just as Mantle announced his retirement during Spring Training. Murcer won the third base job and was htting the tar out of the ball. But after committing fourteen errors through just thirty one games, Murcer was moved to right field, the same position where Mantle began his Major League career. He spent the next three and half months there, and by the end of August, he had inherited the same center field that Mantle and DiMaggio patrolled before him.

Murcer spent the next four plus years as the Yankee center fielder. Though the team languished around .500 (save for a surprising 93 win season in '70), Murcer thrived. Through the first five full years of his career he hit .287/.362/.482, good for 143 OPS+ and averaging 26 HR per season. He won a Gold Glove, started three consecutive All-Star Games, and had three consecutive top ten MVP finishes. He led the AL in OBP, OPS, and OPS+ in '71, then followed that by leading the League in runs and total bases the following year. He had several top ten finishes on the League Leader board for average, on base, hits, walks, times on base, total bases, doubles, home runs, and RBI. He might not have been the next Mantle, but as Joe Posnanski pointed out earlier this year, he was in the discussion for best player in the game during this stretch.

Things went south for Murcer in 1974. With Yankee Stadium undergoing renovations, the Yankees moved to Shea Stadium. There, without the friendly right field porch, Murcer dropped to .274/.332/.378 (106 OPS+) with only ten home runs, just two of them coming at Shea. By late May, manager Bill Virdon had shifted Murcer to right field, upsetting the veteran who valued his being the successor to Hall of Famers Earle Combs, DiMaggio, and Mantle. After the season, Murcer was traded for Bobby Bonds in a blockbuster deal. While it was surely difficult for the team and the fans to see a homegrown talent shipped away, Bonds turned in an outstanding 1975 for the Yankees and then was flipped for Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa, two key cogs of the teams that went on to win three consecutive pennants and back-to-back World Series.

Murcer's numbers rebounded in San Francisco, but Bobby made no secret of his dislike of windy Candlestick Park, where he hit just 17 home runs over two seasons. From there it was on to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field for the '77 and '78 seasons. Then, in late June of '79, Murcer was traded back to New York, where he had always wanted to be. His return would be bittersweet. Not because he had missed out on the winning of '76-'78, but because he was about to lose his best friend.

Thurman Munson and Bobby Murcer had forged a close friendship during Murcer's first go-round in New York. Munson debuted late in 1969, during Murcer's first full season with the club. In the bottom of the sixth inning of Munson's second career game, Murcer led off with a home run. Munson followed with a long ball of his own for his first Major League homer, then Gene Michael followed with a third straight home run. It was just the third time in club history that the Yankees had gone back-to-back-to-back. Murcer and Munson became sort of a next generation of the M&M boys, and the two young superstars were amongst the few bright spots as the Yankees emerged from one of the few extended down periods in their history.

Murcer had been back with the Yankees for just over a month when they arrived in Chicago for a three game series on July 30th. Murcer still had a home in the area thanks to his time with the Cubs, and rather than stay at the team hotel, Murcer and his wife Kay hosted Munson and Lou Piniella throughout the series. On Wednesday August 1st, the series concluded with the Yankees taking a 9-1 victory. After the game, Bobby and Kay drove Munson to the airport, where he hopped in his plane and flew home to Canton, Ohio for the off day. It was the last time anyone from the Yankees would see him alive. The next day Munson crashed practicing takeoffs and landings.

On the morning of Monday August 6th, the entire Yankees team, coaching staff, and front office was in Canton. They were scheduled to play the division leading Baltimore Orioles in New York that night. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had advised the team against attending Munson's funeral, but George Steinbrenner would hear nothing of it. The man who once said winning was second to only breathing was prepared to forfeit the game if the Yankees couldn't get back in time. But there was no way his club wouldn't be attending their Captain's funeral.

There, Piniella and Murcer, Munson's roommates for the last few nights of his life, eulogized him. Murcer broke down during his and on the flight home manager Billy Martin told the emotionally drained Murcer he would have the night off. Murcer refused, saying he felt he needed to play. So Martin penciled Murcer in as the left fielder, and batted him second. He would go on to have his signature night as a Yankee.

In the seventh inning, Murcer stepped to the plate with two outs. The Yankees were down 4-0; Bucky Dent was on third, Willie Randolph on second. Murcer was 0 for 3 on the night, having fanned, flown out to right, and lined to short. This time his luck changed, as he yanked a Dennis Martinez offering into the right field stands to cut the O's lead to one.

In the ninth, Murcer came to the plate again. Again Dent was on third, Randolph on second. The score was still 4-3. There were no outs, and now left handed Tippy Martinez was on the mound. Under normal circumstances the lefty swinging veteran would have been lifted for a pinch hitter. But Martin let him hit, and Murcer delivered with a base hit to left, giving the Yankees the game. Murcer drove in all five Yankee runs in the 5-4 win. He and fellow eulogist shared a hug in the dugout and Murcer saw to it that Munson's widow Diane received the bat.

Murcer remained with the Yankees for three more years, posting great numbers in part time duty in '80 and '81. He finally reached the World Series in '81, but went 0 for 4 in limited duty as the Yankees blew a 2-0 lead and fell to the Dodgers in six games. His numbers slipped a bit in '82, and after getting off to a slow start in '83, Murcer retired to make room on the roster for a young player named Don Mattingly.

The end of his playing career marked the start of Bobby Murcer's second career with the Yankees. He proceeded immediately to the broadcast booth, and worked there for the '83 and '84 seasons. He became an assistant general manager in '85 and briefly attempted a comeback that year, abandoning it after four minor league games. He served as a coach in '87, and in '88 he returned to the broadcast booth for the Yankees' final season on SportsChannel. In '89 he was part of the original Yankees' crew for their first season on MSG, then reunited with Phil Rizzuto on WPIX in '90. Murcer remained with WPIX until they lost the Yankees' broadcast rights following the 1998 season. He spent the next three seasons doing Yankee games for FOX5, and then joined the YES Network for its launch in 2002. Murcer also became part owner of his the AAA club in his hometown of Oklahoma City in 1989, and served as the club president for a few years. He was a regular at Old Timers Day throughout his retirement. In later years, Murcer was miked up and would announce from the field. He also took to employing current Yankees as his personal hitting coach for the Old Timers game, as Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, and others unsuccessfully attempted to coax one more homer out of Murcer.

On Christmas Eve 2006 Murcer was diagnosed with brain cancer. He faced his diagnosis with the same bravery and dignity that marked his playing and broadcast career. He returned to the booth after receiving treatment, but suffered a relapse in 2008. He succumbed to the disease on July 12th.

Bobby Murcer didn't turn out to be the next Mickey Mantle, but he had a full and successful career. For one generation of fans, he was the Yankee superstar as they scuttled through the early 70s. For my generation, he was our Phil Rizzuto, the kindly, entertaining former great in the broadcast booth. Easy to relate to and impossible not to like. But whether one remembers him as a player or as an announcer, for any Yankee fan of the past 45 years, it's impossible not to remember Bobby Murcer. Just as he titled his autobiography, Murcer will always be a Yankee for Life.

Padres' Coleman To Work Limited Schedule

A special Super Bowl Sunday good morning to you Fackers. Today is clearly a day for pigskin, but I'm grateful to know that we're a day closer to pitchers and catchers.

As we continue through our countdown to Spring Training, we're understandably in history mode here as we go back and brush up on some of the old time Yankees we've been profiling. Our countdown doesn't extend all the way back to number 42, so former World Series MVP Jerry Coleman doesn't get his own post, but he did make a cameo in name and in picture in Friday's Gil McDougald post.

Following his playing career, Coleman joined the Yankee broadcast team, working both TV and radio from 1963 through 1969. After spending two years calling games for the Angels, Coleman joined the San Diego Padres booth in 1972. He's been there ever since, save for spending 1980 as their manager.

Sadly, it was announced Thursday that Coleman would work an extremely limited schedule of just twenty to thirty home games this year (h/t BBTF). At 85 years old, I suppose it's only natural that Coleman's workload be reduced, but the Padres had no problem signing the spry 75 year old Dick Enberg to a multi-year deal this off-season, one that will see him call up to 120 games per year.

If Coleman's still up for working a full schedule, I'll pay his moving expenses to come back to New York. There's a couple folks in the Yankees Lowes Broadcast Booth whom I would love for him to replace.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Fackers. Hope you found what you wanted under your tree this morning.

We'll take a page from WPIX, which was home to Yankee games for many years and the yule log every Christmas.

He Came Dancing Across The Water

One of my favorite people in Yankee history is Billy Martin. He was serving his fourth stint as Yankee manager when I attended my first Major League game, and was in his fifth and final go-round when I began following the team in earnest. In between, I can recall watching the ceremony on WPIX when the club retired his number. A few years later, after Martin died in a 1989 Christmas Day drunk driving accident, I began devouring books about the Yankees. Three of my favorites were Number 1, Billyball, and The Last Yankee, all Martin biographies.

These days I might dismiss Martin the player as the over-heralded, "scrappy" underdog that David Eckstein is too often made out to be, or Martin the manager as an irrational martinet, too often trying to put his fingerprints on the game, much the same way that Tony LaRussa is often criticized elsewhere or Joe Girardi was here over the course of the season.

But to the twelve year old me, reading those books, Martin was a captivating character. He was the undersized overachiever who fulfilled his dream by playing for the Yankees, elevated his play to another level in the World Series, stopped at nothing to win, and never backed down from a fight. What characterized Martin above all though, and perhaps what most drew me to him, was that more than anything else, he wanted - he almost needed - to be a Yankee.

While that skill set left Martin with a middling career as a journeyman infielder, it primed him for a mangerial career that was as volatile as it was successful, and now has him under consideration for induction to the Hall of Fame as a manager. Despite his well-documented butting of heads with George Steinbrenner and with his own players, Martin's smarts, daring, and insatiable desire to win made him a continually desirable managerial candidate, even in light of his paranoid and perpetually self-destructive behavior. It's also what kept him coming back to the Yankees over and over and over and over and over again.

Steinbrenner was perhaps the only person who could understand - if not commiserate with - Martin's maniacal obsession with winning at all costs. And while Martin enjoyed successful managerial stints with four other clubs, Steinbrenner needed Martin as his manager just as much Martin needed to be a Yankee. It was a bad relationship, but it was also the reason that Martin and Steinbrenner, both intensely proud individuals, repeatedly forgot their past problems in hopes that, this time, it would work.

I bring all this up because The Hardball Times' Chris Jaffe has a book being released in December: Evaluating Baseball's Managers. THT is publishing excerpts over the next several weeks and yesterday they had a lengthy look at Martin: why he was unique, why he was successful, and why his managerial stints necessarily had short shelf lives. It's a highly worthwhile read on a fascinating and complicated subject:

The man most comparable to Billy Martin was not Herzog, but Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs. In 1519, he landed in Mexico to face the hemisphere’s mightiest warrior nation with only 600 men. Upon arrival, he burnt his boats, giving his men no way to leave. That move was pure Billy Martin. Safe to say, that in the military science version of sabermetrics a general would be poorly regarded for intentionally destroying his communication lines, supply routes and exit strategy. It was possibly even worse than having two men steal home with Killebrew batting.

However, like Martin, Cortes had an underlying rationale. The act was not the important part. All that mattered was the message it sent the men: there was no going back—they needed to win. He cared only about coming out on top and ensured his warriors must think likewise. They might lose and die, but with God as their witness no failure would stem from lack of effort on anyone’s part. That was Billyball, 16th century style.

You could have given me a hundred years and I wouldn't have come up with that comparison. See you tomorrow.

Remembering The Mick and Scooter

August is a tough month. As a kid, August always represented the summer dying - vacation dwindling down, school supplies creeping into stores, the grass burning from green to brown, maybe even the first leaves falling from the trees.

As a fan of both baseball and music, August seems to be a tough month as well. We talked about the anniversaries of the deaths of Thurman Munson and Jerry Garcia earlier this month. Today came the news that guitar legend Les Paul passed away. Later this month the anniversaries of Allen Woody and Stevie Ray Vaughan's deaths will pass as well.

Today marks the 14th anniversary of Mickey Mantle's death. Maybe it was because he had high profile celebrities like Billy Crystal and Bob Costas who worshipped the ground he walked on and romanticized every bit of his legend, but Mantle's death struck me as being just as much as the end of a cultural phenomenon as it was the passing of a baseball legend.

For a generation of American males, Mickey Mantle was an icon. I suppose his death in 1995, as that generation moved into middle age, was not only the passing of their boyhood idol, but also the severing of one of the last remaining connections to their youth. I guess each generation of fans faces this at some stage, but that's not something I even want to consider right now.

Like many of that generation, my father's favorite player from his childhood years was Mantle. The Mick was winding down his career as my father began following the game, but he still had some of his former magic. A yellowed cover of The Daily News from when Mantle hit his 500th homerun still hangs in my parents' basement.

I grew up down the street from a golf course that used to host celebrity tournaments. When I was an infant, Mantle was playing in a tournament there. Mom convinced Dad to take a ride up the hill, and sure enough, there was The Mick. Awestruck, my father was rendered speechless for the entirety of the encounter. My mother was unimpressed enough to get a picture.
Though seperated for a number of years, Mickey and his wife Merlyn never divorced, and she was at his side at the time of his passing. Eerily, she passed away Monday.

Today is also the second anniversary of Phil Rizzuto's passing. Phil Rizzuto Day was the first Major League game I ever attended. It didn't dawn on me until today that Rizzuto and Mantle died on the same date. Oddly, Mantle's death in some way contributed to Rizzuto finally leaving the broadcast booth. WPIX decided that Bobby Murcer, another close friend of Mantle's, would represent the network at Mantle's funeral, forcing the Scooter to stay in Boston to call the Yanks game. The decision upset Rizzuto greatly, causing him to leave the booth mid-game, and announce his retirement shortly thereafter. He was persuaded to return for one final season in 1996. After I mentioned Jerry Remy's return to the Sox booth last night, I guess it's in some way appropriate that today we also remember a beloved Yankee announcer.

1996 World Series: My Look Back

As I mentioned in my Dave Winfield post a couple weeks back, I began following the Yankees closely in 1988. In many ways, it was a watershed season for the Yankees. It was the last of Billy Martin's five tours of duty as Yankee manager and the last time Lou Piniella appeared in a Yankee uniform. It was the swan song for co-captains and longtime Yankees Ron Guidry and Willie Randolph - the last two connections to the glory years of the late 70s and early 80s, and essentially the last hurrah for Winfield as well. It was also Rickey Henderson's final full season in pinstripes.

Don Mattingly had another very good year, but it wasn't quite as good as the lofty standards he had set from 1984-87, and he failed to finish in the top ten in MVP voting for the first time since his rookie year. He would be productive again in 1989, but only show flashes of his former brilliance thereafter.

In the broadcast booth, Bill White was calling his 18th and final season of Yankee baseball with Phil Rizzuto on WPIX, leaving after the season to become President of the National League. On the cable side, it was the Yankees' final season on SportsChannel before moving to MSG Network the following year and ushering in a new era for baseball TV contracts.

On June 13, 1988, the Yankees were 39-21, playing .650 ball and leading the AL East by 3 games. They went 46-55 the rest of the way, finishing at 85-76, only 3.5 games out of first but fifth in the seven team division. For the next several years, that would be the highwater mark of my Yankee fandom, at a time when to me Yankee baseball was most important thing on the face of the planet.

1989 started a string of four consecutive losing seasons for the Yanks, lowlighted by an American League worst 67-95 (.414) season in 1990, the Yankees fifth worst winning percentage in their history and the worst since 1913. The only MLB team worse that year was the Braves at 65-97.

As I touched in the Game 6 recap, things began to change in 1993. General Manager Gene Michael and manager Buck Showalter had changed the culture of the team, bringing in character veterans like Key, O'Neill, Boggs, Mike Stanley, and Mike Gallego and fostering the development of young talent like Bernie Williams, Jim Leyritz, Sterling Hitchcock, and Bob Wickman.

The 1993 team spent a record 21 days tied for first place without ever being able to get ahead of the mighty Blue Jays. In the last season of the two division format, the Yankees finished with the third best record in the league, but were left to watch the postseason on TV.

In 1994 the Yankees were 70-43 with the best record in the AL and second best in baseball when the strike hit and Bud Selig and the recently retired Donald Fehr elected to leave the biggest black mark on the game's history since the Black Sox Scandal.

In 1995 the Yankees won the innaugural Wild Card and jumped out to a commanding 2-0 lead over Seattle in the best of five ALDS. They then lost three straight in Seattle, Games 4 and 5 in heartbreaking fashion.

That offseason the team changed drastically: Showalter and Michael were gone. Mattingly left the game, holding off on official retirement for a year. Stanley was traded to the Rockies. They were replaced by Joe Torre, Bob Watson, Tino Martinez, and Joe Girardi. The roster was peppered with young unproven players like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitte. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this new guard.

But as the 1996 season unfolded, it became apparent that there was something special about the team. By the time the World Series rolled around I had just turned 16. While my suffering certainly wasn't as bad as what fans of other teams have had to endure, I was elated to see my favorite team in the World Series for the first time in my conscious memory. After a rain delay pushed Game 1 back a day, the first two games amounted to a beatdown and stomach punch. Suddenly the luster of just being there had worn off. But the Series was about to change, for the Yankees and for me.

On the morning of Game 3, Tuesday October 22nd, I boarded a plane for Washington, D.C. A teacher had nominated me to attend a leadership conference and my parents were insistent that I go. I was less than enthused about it to begin with, but now, as it interfered with my watching of the Yankees in the World Series, I was postively pissed about it.

Seeing as the conference entailed taking two hundred some horny teenagers and boarding them together for five nights, the organizers figured it best to have every moment of every day planned from roughly 7 AM to 10 PM, so as not to allow any time for extracurriculars. It didn't leave much time for watching baseball either. My memories of Games 3 through 5 are sketchy at best. I was able to catch a bit of the late innings. I remember the Boggs walk. I remember the dramatic catches by Tim Raines and Paul O'Neill to end Games 4 and 5, O'Neill screaming and slapping his hand against the fence in right-center, as his torn hamstring just barely held up. But I missed all of Game 3. I missed the Leyritz home run. My team was charging like a freight train and after waiting nine years for it, I couldn't even enjoy it.

Game 6 fell on Saturday night, my final night in D.C. I phoned my parents numerous times that day, making sure the VCR would be running. Meanwhile, the conference bussed us all off to some hotel in D.C. for a farewell dance. I kept sneaking out. I saw the Girardi triple while hanging out in the hotel bar. The chaperones came and pulled me out of there, but I snuck off again. I found the hotel's weight room. The door was locked, but miraculously the TV was on and it was showing the game. I stood there, peering through the window. I saw Grissom get thrown out at second and Cox get tossed. Shortly thereafter, the power to the weight room went out. As I wandered the hotel searching for another TV, I began considering taking to the streets of D.C., trying to find a bar or someplace where I could watch the game.

It wasn't to be. The pesky chaperones hunted me down again, and this time I was a marked man. Like a prisoner on suicide watch, I was brought back to the dance and placed under constant surveillance. There were no radios there, no TVs, and cell phones had yet to proliferate the earth. I was stranded.

Later in the evening, as Billy Idol's version of "Mony, Mony" played, the DJ dropped the volume and got on the mic. "I have some bad news," he announced, "The Yankees have just won the World Series". I erupted. I don't remember the specifics, but I know that I and a few less dedicated Yankee fans I had befriended over the week spent some time high fiving and yelling and such. To this day I can't hear that song without thinking of that moment. But it was odd, and in some ways sad. It was killing me not to watch; I should have home witnessing it with my father.

I watched the tape as soon as I got home, but it was anticlimactic. In a well-intentioned effort to better me, my parents and former teacher had robbed me of something far more valuable: seeing the Yankees win their first World Series in my lifetime. I was fortunate that just two years later, as I shipped off to college, the Yankees started a run of three consecutive championships, so that helped ease the pain. But they say you never forget your first, unless of course you never remembered it in the first place. To this day the Yankees have never won the World Series with me in my home state of CT. So if any of you would like to take up a collection to set me up with a nice place in Manhattan, let me know.