Bobby Murcer

By Andy Spear
Love of Sports Correspondent

When he heard of the passing of his close friend and former teammate Bobby Murcer, Cubs manager Lou Piniella said “It’s a sad day. Just a wonderful person and a great teammate and a heck of a baseball player.”

A heck of a baseball player given the unenviable, if not impossible, task of being the “next Mickey Mantle.”

And while his career numbers of .277, 252 home runs and 1,043 RBI wouldn’t put him in the upper echelon of Yankee greats, Murcer did become a beloved player in the hearts of New Yorkers.

Born in Oklahoma, the same state Mantle hailed from, Murcer played Little League baseball and became a Yankee fan because of Mantle’s exploits. Signed by the same scout that signed Mantle, Murcer was thrilled that when he made the jump to the Yankees in 1965, Mickey was still playing.

In his first two years with the Yanks, he played a total of 29 games, all at shortstop where he committed 11 errors. In 1966, he was drafted into the army. When he returned to the Yankees in 1969, not only had Mantle retired, but the Yankees were in a horrible decline. With Gene Michael and Tom Tresh ensconced at short, Murcer was tried at third. Thirty-one games and 14 errors later he was made into an outfielder.

After hitting 26 homers and 82 RBI, with Murcer at just 23 years of age alongside catcher Thurman Munson, the Yankees believed they had some talent to build a team around. The duo became fast friends, and both appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the caption of “Pride of the New Yankees” under the photo.

Murcer never eclipsed the 100 RBI plateau, knocking in a career high of 96 in 1972 along with another career best of 33 homers, the year before he finished second in the league with a .331 average.

Unfortunately, his career with the Yankees began after their dynasty of the ‘60s and he was sent away right before their run in the mid-‘70s. In a trade that shocked their fan base, the team traded Murcer to the Giants straight up for Bobby Bonds in October of 1974. Murcer cried when he was told.

According to Murcer, owner George Steinbrenner had told him during the summer “that as long as I am with the Yankees, you will be the property of the Yankees.”

He played for San Francisco for two seasons, then the Cubs for three before being brought back to the Yankees in 1979. The five-time All-Star was now 33 years old and would play mostly in a platoon role for the remainder of his career.

In his absence the Yankees had improved through free agency and had won three league championships in a row and two World Series. He was part of the team that made the 1980 playoffs and played in the 1981 World Series against the Dodgers, fulfilling his dream of being on a pennant winner.

Playing less and less each year, he finally retired from playing in 1983 finishing his career with the Yankees before taking an announcing job with the team. That’s where his insight and humor became a staple of summer in the Bronx.

On July 12th of this year, as the Yankees sat in their clubhouse in the Rogers Centre in Toronto, the news broke that Bobby Murcer had died at the age of 62. Though people knew he’d been battling brain cancer for some time, the announcement of his passing was still a shock, in part because of the positive way he lived his life.

“Bobby Murcer was a born Yankee, a great guy, very well-liked and a true friend of mine,” George Steinbrenner said in a statement.

Though Murcer never put up Mantle-like stats through the dismal years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bobby Murcer was the face of the Yankees. The Yankees were his life and he was the symbol of what the Yankees stood for - a true champion.