Onetime Brave discusses baseball, relationships at HVA
Dale Murphy posted some gaudy numbers during his career in Major League Baseball. Moreover, his reputation as a fierce competitor on the diamond and a good guy off of it made him a fan favorite during his days with the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies.
He hasn’t been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown despite being a two-time National League MVP (1982, ‘83), winning five consecutive Gold Gloves, four consecutive Silver Slugger awards, belting 398 home runs, driving in 1,266 runs and batting .265 in a career that lasted nearly two decades. He is, however, a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame, and he shared thoughts on his career recently at Knoxville’s Hardin Valley Academy.
His Cooperstown credentials have long been a subject for debate but there’s no doubt that he had a solid big-league career. Baseball is sometimes a cruel mistress, though, and the game almost didn’t pan out for Murphy, one of the most enduring players of a generation.
He was the No. 5 pick in the 1974 MLB Entry Draft, entering pro baseball as a catcher who was touted as the “next Johnny Bench.” Murphy didn’t live up to that hype behind the plate, though, as he endured multiple injuries and actually wounded one of his own pitchers while playing Triple-A ball with Atlanta’s International League affiliate in Richmond, Virginia.
“I was playing in Triple-A, and my manager told me, ‘Murph, just throw the ball as hard as you can,’” said Murphy, who began his professional career in Kingsport in 1974.
Murphy did as he was instructed, but the results weren’t good. In fact, they were nearly disastrous.
“A guy broke for second, and I threw the ball as hard as I could,” Murphy said. “But it didn’t get to second. It hit my pitcher, his name was Al, in the hip and he went down.
“I think he thought he got shot. It was embarrassing, and I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t find a way to quit, so I kept coming back.”
He may have kept going to the ballpark, but his troubles continued, as he was moved to first base.
“It wasn’t working out, and I was making a lot of errors at first,” Murphy said. “Then I got a phone call from my manager, Bobby Cox, asking me what I thought of a position change.
“He moved me to the outfield, and that was the year that I made my first All-Star team. Bobby Cox believed in me, he saw something in me.”
The rest is baseball history, as Murphy became a fan favorite in Atlanta and around the country thanks to the Braves’ games being nationally broadcast on cable television.
Murphy, a seven-time All-Star, made five starts in the Midsummer Classic. He’s been retired from the game for nearly two decades, but baseball remains his passion.
“I love baseball,” Murphy said. “I love it because it’s like life: You get up every day and you go to work, and you aren’t always at your best.
“Some days you strike out. Some days you pop up. Sometimes you hit into a double play, and some days you get a single. But on your best day, you hit a home run.”
Murphy continues sharing his love for baseball as he conducts youth camps. He teaches fundamentals, but he also knows that baseball is predicated on failure and that sometimes players attempt to do too much, especially when they’re slumping. It’s then that Murphy shares his secret of how to hit a baseball.
“I tell them, ‘Swing hard in case you hit it,’” he said. “I’m not saying that you don’t use your fundamentals, but you have to relax to be able to hit the ball.”
