This Day in Yankee History (Bobby Murcer Retires, Just Short of Greatness)

June 20, 1983— Bobby Murcer, saddled with the burden of succeeding superstar Mickey Mantle as the great hope of the New York Yankees—and one of the few bright spots in the Bronx during the wilderness years out of the postseason from 1965 to 1974—was released by the team and took up duties in the broadcast booth.

As a youngster in the late Sixties and early Seventies, I was just a little too young to experience the Yankees in the golden era of Mantle, Maris, and Ford. I became interested in the team when a trio of young players gave them a glimmer of hope of a return to glory: Thurman Munson, Roy White, and Bobby Murcer. It was Murcer, above all, who became my childhood baseball idol.

I listened breathlessly on the radio on June 24, 1970, when he tied a major league record by clubbing four consecutive home runs in a doubleheader against the Cleveland Indians. I thrilled when, during his first two full seasons with the team (not shortened by injury or military service) in 1969 and 1970, he took advantage of the short rightfield fence at Yankee Stadium by swatting 49 homers.

I imitated that slight crouch at the plate that helped earn Murcer five All-Star berths. In my greatest delusions, I dreamed that, like him, I would win a Gold Glove and succeed him in centerfield at Yankee Stadium, in the same hallowed ground once also patrolled by Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Earle Combs—all Baseball Hall of Famers.

And I mourned in late October 1974, when Murcer was traded straight up for another star saddled with outsized expectations: Bobby Bonds, who had been hailed as the next Willie Mays for the San Francisco Giants.

No matter the electrifying all-around play that Bonds flashed in his single season with the Yankees, he could never replace Murcer for me. I was angry with the Yankees for exiling this leader who sparked the club on the field and won over teammates in the clubhouse with his easygoing manner.

And I was absolutely delighted 4½ years later when the Yankees arranged a trade that brought him back to the team he had dreamed of joining as a child and never wanted to leave. As much as he gave all to the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs in his time away, it was obvious he never really felt at home away from the Bronx.

The three words that may have best defined Murcer’s career were “just short of.” In the first, most substantial part of his career, he fell just short of the postseason, as the team continually lost to the more powerful Baltimore Orioles. In his return, now as a part-time role player with eroding skills, he made it only once to the World Series, recording just one hit in 11 at-bats over two postseasons.

Ultimately, missing out on the postseason in his prime may have meant Murcer fell short of overall greatness. His career statistics over 17 years—252 homeruns, 1,043 RBIs, .277 batting average, .802 OPS—could not match Mantle’s stellar 536 homeruns, 1,509 RBIs, .298 batting average, and .977 OPS. But repeated, excellent play in the postseason during his best years might have earned him more serious consideration as a Hall of Fame candidate.

Comparisons with Mantle cropped up from the moment Murcer arrived at the Yankees’ training camp in 1965, as they both:

*hailed from Oklahoma;

*were signed by the great scout Tom Greenwade;

*started as shortstops before their erratic arms convinced the team they were better suited for center field;

*earned the affection of teammates through their country-boy charm.

Yet, though these comparisons were inevitable, they were also superficial because they obscured significant differences during their careers in the game and afterward. Murcer lacked Mantle’s gasp-inducing natural skills, especially his almost unparalleled power-speed explosiveness.

On the other hand, once their playing days ended, Murcer was not dogged by Mantle’s inner demons. Wondering if he could have been even better if he’d taken care of himself, unsure what to do in retirement, Mantle took refuge in womanizing and alcoholism that depressed those who knew him, while Murcer earned three Emmy Awards as live broadcaster for the Yankees and enjoyed a stable, happy family life.

Murcer’s return to the Bronx in 1979 came during a lost season for the Bombers: not just the only time that the club would miss the playoffs from 1976 through 1981, but one darkened by the tragic death of Munson in a plane crash.

It was a season painful for the Yankees and their fans alike except for August 6, when, after delivering a stirring eulogy at Munson’s funeral, Murcer flew back to the Bronx for a nationally televised game against the Baltimore Orioles. With the Yankees down 4-0 in the seventh inning, he brought the crowd to its feet with a three-run homer, then won the game with a two-run single in the ninth. (See this YouTube clip for footage of his heroics.)

With other lefty-hitting outfielders on the squad in Reggie Jackson, Oscar Gamble, and Ruppert Jones, Murcer found his playing time limited, and after the 1980 season he never played a position again, finding himself confined to pinch hitting. The emergence of the smooth-hitting 22-year-old first baseman-outfielder Don Mattingly meant that the Yankees needed to clear space on the roster for him, and Murcer accepted George Steinbrenner’s offer to become a broadcaster.

The title of Murcer’s memoir, Yankee for Life, testified to his steadfast loyalty to the team. It also proved sadly prophetic, as he died of complications from brain cancer only two months after publication.

Former Yankee publicist Marty Appel spoke for many in explaining how gracefully Murcer adjusted to the mantle of greatness thrust upon him:

"He had an easy, Oklahoma politeness and a modesty that isn't normally associated with elite athletes. He was a fans' player and he was a players' player.

"He was just a terrific kid who was handed an oversized assignment and he handled it with grace and honesty and dignity, as he did everything until the very end....He made you a better person just to know him. No man ever wore the New York Yankee uniform better.”

Flashback, July 1980: Bench Sets All-Time HR Mark for Catchers

Johnny Bench set a record for most career home runs by a catcher with his shot off Montreal’s David Palmer. The 314th round-tripper for the Cincinnati Red slugger on July 14, 1980, also gave rise to one of the great congratulatory telegrams of all time, from the man whose mark he surpassed, the New York Yankees’ Yogi Berra: “Congratulations, John. I knew my record would stand until it was broken.”

Bench had a few other things in common with Yogi, besides power: both were multiple-MVP Hall of Famers (Berra with three, Bench with two); both were winners when it counted, in the World Series; and both were at the heart of the most feared lineups of their age, with Berra eventually gaining 10 World Series rings and Bench two.

Over the decades, certain positions have produced rather good-humored arguments about which of a trio of contemporaries happened to be the greatest. In the early part of this decade, discussions revolved around shortstops Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra; in the Fifties, they involved New York centerfielders Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snider; in the Seventies, the fights raged over catchers Bench, Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk.

The centerfielder argument was resolved, in its way, as amicably as you can get: all three men eventually won World Series rings and plaques in Cooperstown. Even the shortstop arguments of this past decade have abated, as Garciaparra’s career declined after he left the Red Sox and A-Rod switched to third in deference to Jeter’s place with the Yankees.

But the ‘70s catcher dispute still left its share of bitterness, largely because of the player whose career was shortened the most, in a tragic plane accident: Munson.

If pressed, I would cede primacy among catchers to Bench, who not only possessed awesome power but one of the most blistering arms in the business. (Brooks Robinson, a foe in the 1970s World Series, later observed that the first time he saw Bench throw out a runner heading for second, the ball “stayed at a level of about two feet off the ground all the way. It was like a bullet. He zipped it right out there.”) And, Yankee fan that I am, I still have to tip my cap to Fisk for his extraordinary durability.

But the fiercely proud Munson bristled over comparisons to his great rivals not just for position bragging rights but for championships. Munson—who, like virtually all Yankees worth their salt, hated, just hated, all things Red Sox—had an additional reason to hate Fisk: he felt sportswriters preferred his league rival because of his smoother image.

Munson was also miffed at how the media treated Reds manager Sparky Anderson’s comment after his star became the 1976 World Series MVP: “Don’t ever compare anyone to Johnny Bench.”

Munson had a right to feel annoyed. His team might have been swept in the Series that year, but it was in no way due to their catcher, who batted .529 over the four games—a performance that, under different circumstances, would have netted him the championship MVP.

Nevertheless, Munson might have done well to pay attention to the truth expressed so vividly in Berra’s famous telegram. Records are meant to be broken. Twenty-four years after Bench surpassed Yogi’s mark, the two men—along with Fisk and Gary Carter—showed up at a tribute to Mike Piazza after the Mets catcher surpassed not just Berra and Bench, but now Fisk, with the 352nd homer of his career.

That night in 2004, Piazza spoke with a true sense of history and wonder about “the catching fraternity.” Indeed—I’m not sure even the most knowledgeable of baseball fans can appreciate viscerally the game awareness, pride and toughness it takes to squat behind the plate, day after day, absorbing every kind of physical punishment—then get up and smack home runs. In that light, it’s difficult to imagine where the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry of the past decade would have been without their stalwart backstops, Jorge Posada and Jason Varitek.

This Day in Yankee History (Thurman Munson Dies in Plane Crash)

August 2, 1979—When New York Yankee captain Thurman Munson died a little after 4 pm in a plane crash, the motive behind the fatal flight surprised sportswriters, fans and opponents who knew him principally as the prickly sparkplug of the crew who returned the sports world’s greatest franchise to glory.

Munson, homesick for his family, had only recently purchased a plane so he could fly home more often to Ohio. He was practicing a run at the Akron-Canton Airport when his Cessna-Citation began to lose altitude. 

Two friends were able to extricate themselves but unable to save Munson. A later inquiry found the accident to be a result of pilot error.

Before his death, the 32-year-old Munson had hoped for a few more years to play, not only so that his four-year-old son would have the opportunity to see him in action but to improve his chances of making the Baseball Hall of Fame. His tragic accident certainly eliminated the first opportunity and, at least at this juncture, the second.

This is unfortunate, as is the pigheadedness poormouthing of his qualifications for Cooperstown. I lost much respect for baseball historian Bill James, for instance, after learning that he’d ranked Munson as only the 14th–best catcher in baseball history, preceded by, among others, Ivan Rodriguez and Ted Simmons.

(The latter came close to being the best catcher offensively of his generation, but he was, by virtually all accounts, subpar behind the plate; as for I-Rod, his qualifications should be looked at far more closely now in the wake of the Ortiz-Ramirez steroids revelations. Asked whether his name was among the now-infamous list of 104 positive-testing juicers, I-Rod’s pathetic response was: “God only knows.”)

In the 1950s, New York fans argued about who was the best centerfielder: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider. Nowadays, few question whether all three belong in the Hall of Fame. No such certainty exists about Munson, however, even though he rightly belongs with Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk among the great triumvirate of catchers of their generation.

To some extent, politics obtains in the Hall of Fame balloting by the sportswriters, much as they might deny it. True, they don’t make themselves silly by failing to vote for someone who, over a long career, notches the accomplishments deemed worthy of Cooperstown admission: 3,000 hits, 500 hits, 300 victories, and the like. (Except, of course, if the individual was involved with steroids or gambling.)

But for the vast majority of other cases, such as Munson’s—those who either didn’t enjoy a long career or fell just short of the above magic numbers—other factors come into play. In Munson’s case, the Yankee catcher’s sometimes rough-around-the-edges personality didn’t help.

I mean, just look at pictures of Munson and his Red Sox rival (in every sense of the word) Fisk. If he’d been able to act a lick, I don’t see why Rod Shelton might not have wanted to cast him as the catcher in his great comedy Bull Durham.

Now Munson, on the other hand—well, check out that moustache. 

Remember, as often as not when a scribe was around in the Yankee clubhouse during the early Steinbrenner era, asking if he felt dissed about Reggie Jackson surpassing his salary, that facial hair would be twisted in a scowl. 

It reminds you of some western where a cowpoke, at the end of a long, hot day in the saddle, swishing flies and smelling cowdung, has just entered a bar, only to be insulted. That’s the kind of look Munson leveled at guys with notebooks and pens.

Sure, Munson aficionados have summoned awards and statistics to bolster their case (Rookie of the Year, 1970; MVP, 1976; seven All-Star appearances; three straight .300 batting average, 100-RBI seasons). 

But his detractors are ready to compare him with others using statistics—which, in the modern era, can not only be wrenched out of context by steroids, but even by ballpark disparities.

The unfairness of this is compounded by the fact that only offensive statistics are used—otherwise, how in the world could Bill James rank Ted Simmons ahead of Munson?

It’s harder to measure defense but it can be just as important—particularly in the case of a catcher, a position player who not merely catches the ball but must also throw out runners attempting to steal (actions that, more often than not, occur because pitchers don’t know how to keep them close to the base) and call a game in which near-encyclopedic knowledge of opposing batters' strengths and weaknesses is required.

In the case of the latter function, think of Yankee pitchers who had some of their best seasons with Munson behind the plate: Mel Stottlemyre, Fritz Peterson, Catfish Hunter, Ed Figueroa, Ron Guidry, Sparky Lyle, and Goose Gossage.

How about some different ways of looking at the Yankee legend?

Just as it’s inconceivable to think about the Yankee championship teams from the Twenties through the Sixties without invoking Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, and Mantle, so it is impossible to imagine the team that survived an insane owner and a ravenous press in the Seventies without calling to mind the tough leader who always found a way—a clutch hit, a goading challenge to a struggling pitcher (the tough-love treatment Munson delivered to Goose Gossage in May ’78), or a block of the plate that prevented a run—to win games.

The other night, one of the Yankee announcers (I believe Ken Singleton), in discussing Cooperstown, said it should be reserved for those that you as a player hated to face. I can think of nobody who better fulfilled that criterion than Munson.

Take, for instance, October 6, 1978—the same night that George Brett clubbed three homers against the Yankees—when the Bronx captain belted a Doug Bird fastball over the fence to clinch a 6-5 victory over the Kansas City Royals, putting them in the driver’s seat as they won another of their hard-fought playoff series against their Western Division rivals.

No greater tribute to his importance to the team could have been rendered than when the Yankees made him the first Bomber captain since Lou Gehrig. Years ago, he was recognized with a plaque in Monument Park, but he should also be honored in Cooperstown.