In 1971 and 1972, Bobby Murcer had two of the most notable seasons in New York Yankees history. They were notable precisely because nobody noticed them. Those two seasons featured a couple of the least interesting Yankees teams ever — they were not any good, and they were not comically bad, and so nobody really cared about them.
In ‘71, the Yankees moved into fourth place a day before Independence Day when Fritz Peterson outdueled Boston Luis Tiant, and they stayed in fourth place every single day for the rest of the season. They barely drew a million that year. In ‘72, they did manage to get within a half game of first place in September, but nobody believed they were good enough to finish the job, and they didn’t, they dropped back to the safety of fourth place, and along the way drew fewer than a million fans for the only time since the end of the World War II. These weren’t the best teams to be the star.
True, years later, Don Mattingly would become a Bronx folk hero playing for some bad and uninteresting Yankees teams, but that was different. Mattingly stood out as a heroic figure on those teams — those Yankees were loaded down with aging Jesse Barfields and Claudell Washingtons and Jack Clarks and Ron Kittles and Butch Wynegers, along with a few briefly interesting kids with names like Pagliarulo and Pasqua. In other words, Mattingly was the whole show in the late 1980s, everyone’s favorite player, the one guy even card-carrying Yankee loathers like myself could like.
Murcer’s situation was different. He was the Yankees star, sure, the highest paid guy (he was, in fact, the highest paid Yankees player EVER, a point made a few times in the papers when he struck out with men on base). But he wasn’t alone, there were quite a few good players on the Yankees team in 71 and ‘72 — good and underrated and worth rooting for. Roy White was on those teams … the quintessential underrated player. He posted a 149 OPS+ in ‘71, and a 130 OPS+ in ‘72. Thurman Munson was on those teams, appealing to all those old-time Yankees fans who believed that what the team lacked was some old-fashioned Yankees arrogance and rage. Ron Blomberg actually crushed the ball in limited at-bats both years. He had his fans. Sparky Lyle was on the club in ‘72. He had his fans. There were a few others — Mel Stottlemyre, the aforementioned Fritz — no, the Yankees weren’t good but they did not lack for fan favorites.
And so Murcer did not really stand out. He had other disadvantages too. It just so happened that 1971 and 1972 were huge pitcher years in the American League. The league ERA was 3.46 in ‘71 and 3.06 in ‘72. It was in fact the lack offense those two years that motivated the designated hitter rule in January of ‘73.
So nobody could appreciate just how good he was those two years. Murcer’s core numbers didn’t look that special. Still don’t.
1971: .331/.427/.543, 25 homers, 94 RBIs, 94 runs.
1982: .292/.361/.537, 33 homers, 96 RBIs, 102 runs.
Of course, nowadays we can hit one button on Baseball Reference and neutralize those numbers to see how they would look in an average run scoring environment. Hint: They look at lot better.
1971: .362/.462/.596, 29 homers, 114 RBIs, 114 runs.
1972: .329/.401/.605, 41 homers, 132 RBIs, 140 runs.
We can go to Baseball Prospectus, take a look at their translated stats, which places everyone in the same run-scoring environment. Hint: These numbers also look a lot better.
1971: .362/.449/.648, 35 homers, 111 RBIs, 110 runs.
1972: .326/.392/.684, 54 homers, 133 RBIs, 139 runs.
Nobody did those sorts of calculations then, and I suspect nobody really cared to do them. It would not have meant anything but gibberish if you had said to fans then that he finished first in the league in OPS+ in ‘71 and second in ‘72. They would countered that he did not drive in 100 runs either season, so how good could have been anyway?
Anyway, Murcer wasn’t entirely ignored. He did win a Gold Glove in ‘72, and he made the All-Star team, and he did place in the Top 10 in the MVP balloting both years (though he did not receive a first-place vote), and he did get paid a lot of money for the time. But, my sense, is that he was not viewed as as GREAT player, and here’s a final reason why: He was one of those players cursed with the power of pushing imagination. No matter how good he was, people imagined he could have been better. He came from Oklahoma, just like the Mick. He played center field at Yankee Stadium, same position at DiMag. He had a sweet left-handed swing — seems that there was a fairly famous Yankees somewhere who had a sweet left-handed swing.
So, even though Bobby Murcer was probably the best all-around player in the American League in ‘71 and ‘72 (if you prefer Win Shares, he led the American League in ‘71 and was second to Dick Allen in ‘72), I get the sense that Yankees fans thought he could be better.* He took a little bit of a step back in ‘73, though a 134 OPS+ is hardly a criminal offense.
*The guy today who I sense has the Murcer Syndrome is Carlos Beltran. In Beltran’s career — and he’s only 31 now — he has scored 100 runs and driven in 100 six times. He’s on pace to do it again this year. He’s won two Gold Gloves as a centerfielder. He’s perhaps the greatest percentage base stealer in baseball history — he’s tried to steal a base 300 times and been caught just 35, which is just sick. He has scored more runs than Pete Rose at his age, and he hit 41 homers in that crummy hitting ballpark at Shea in ‘06, and of course he put on one of the greatest postseason performances ever in 2004. And people are disappointed in him. I’m not passing judgment here — hell, I’M DISAPPOINTED in him — because Beltran always gives the impression and sense that he could be better, he should be better, why in the heck isn’t he better? And that’s the thing about the Murcer Syndrome. Along the way, you can miss how good he is.
In ‘74, he got moved to right field once the Yankees brought in Elliott Maddox. Yes, in those days the Yankees would move players around to find a place for Elliott Maddox. From what I gather, the outfield move haunted Murcer. It’s pretty easy to understand. In New York, especially in the early 1970s, there was still an overwhelming power to being a centerfielder in New York — it was a bit like being heavyweight champ of the world. Memories of Willie Mickey and the Duke were still fresh and alive, and DiMaggio cast a giant shadow on the town … that was the place, centerfield, Yankee Stadium, that was center stage, it was like having your name above the title. Suddenly, though, with Maddox in center, Murcer because just a Yankees OUTFIELDER, one of three, not the CENTERFIELDER. It was different.
There was another thing about ‘74 — the Yankees moved into depressing Shea Stadium for two years while Yankee Stadium was renovated. And Shea was most definitely not like Yankee Stadium. Queens was not the Bronx. He meandered through a mediocre 1974 season — hit only 10 homers, slugged just .378. Then according to his own story, he had a conversation with Yankees GM Gabe Paul about how he had come to grips with playing right field — whatever the team needed. He just wanted to stay with the Yankees. He saw himself as a Yankee. He was traded three days later.
* * *
In 1973, Bobby Bonds was one home run away from a 40-40 season. I have absolutely no idea why that did not jolt the baseball community. Fifteen years later, Jose Canseco would go 40-40, and it would win him a unanimous MVP award, it would send him rookie card price skyrocketing, it would make him one of the most marketable stars in the game. In ‘73, Bonds hit 39 homers and stole 43 bases, and it got him one first place MVP vote and one of those T-shirts that said, “I almost had a 40-40 season and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”*
*Remember when that T-shirt trend was hot. Yeah. We were all dumber then.
What would happen in the game that would make us treasure those power-speed guys in the 1980s? Hard to say. But Bobby Bonds never seemed to have the ability to win fans. When Bonds was first called up, he was often compared to his teammate Willie Mays, which was of course an impossible comparison, but even more than that it was unfair because Bonds really wasn’t like Mays. He was unique. In Bonds first full year, 1969, he hit 32 homers, stole 45 bases (in 49 attempts) and struck out a record 187 times. What do you make of a force of nature like that? He was, in many ways, the offensive version of Nolan Ryan, an uncompromising ballplayer who flowed with talent and was entirely unwilling to shorten his swing or make any other concessions to mortality. In 1970, he broke his own record and struck out 189 times.
Still … nobody had ever seen anything quite like him. This is not to say that he was BETTER than others, no. He was different. Between 1969 and 1973, five years when pitching ruled, he never hit fewer than 26 homers, he stole 40+ bases four times, he slugged .493, he had the league’s best power/speed number every year, and he was either first or second in runs scored each season. He also won two Gold Gloves in those years and could have won more … he had a powerful arm (much stronger than Barry’s) and he covered ground … Bill James wrote that he ran so much like Willie Mays that when they crossed in the outfield you could sometimes confuse them.
Feelings about Bonds were decidedly mixed, of course. Just like his son. Bobby wasn’t always easy to understand or appreciate. Surliness seemed to emanate from him. One former Giants player told me that Bobby Bonds was without a doubt that worst teammate he ever had. And yet, it wasn’t all like that, George Foster, who began in San Francisco, will say that Bonds took care of him in the early years and basically saved his career. There was a lot going on in the early-to-mid 1970s with money and shifting race relations and Vietnam raging — and nothing was easy. It seemed like people judged Bobby Bonds, and he did not like that.
In any case, Bonds also had some of the same issues that Murcer had in New York. He was not Willie Mays and he never could be … and yet, he was awfully good. In 1971, he drove in 102 runs despite spending more than half the season in the leadoff spot. In 1973, he drove in 96 despite spending the whole year in the leadoff spot.
And Bonds too had a down year in ‘74, though probably it was a lot better than people realized. His batting average plummeted to .256, and he only hit 22 home runs. No one noticed, of course, that he walked 95 times or that he played hurt much of that year or that the Giants, after years of contention, fell apart. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Bonds had worn out his welcome.
* * *
Three decades earlier, there had been rumors that the Yankees and Red Sox were about to make the trade of the ages … DiMaggio for Williams. Thing about it. Imagine DiMaggio in Fenway Park with the monster in left. Imagine Williams at Yankee Stadium, with the short porch in left. Imagine. It never happened, of course, but people constantly talked about how much SENSE it would have made.
Well, trade talks began for what had a chance to be one of the most overwhelming one-for-one deal in baseball history — a swap of two $100,000 players — Murcer for Bonds. On a level, it too made sense. Here was a chance to get Murcer away from New York, away from the shadow of Mantle, away from the fans who could not love him unconditionally. Here was a chance to send him to the other side of the country, to San Francisco, where he could see more fastballs, where the fans might appreciate his talents, his hard-charging style, his Oklahoma charm. Sure. Made sense.
And here was a chance to get Bonds away from San Francisco, where he could never be Mays, where so many of the fans had come to notice the strikeouts more than he home runs and the stolen bases and the rifle throws. Sure, they could send him to New York, the Big Apple, where his big and overwhelming talents could win over Metropolis and give him the stardom that (maybe) he wanted.
Yes, it made sense … only it didn’t, not at all. Murcer loved Yankee Stadium. It fit his game. It fit his personality. He loved wearing the pinstripes — he’d signed with the legendary scout Tom Greenwade (who had signed Mantle) and had only wanted to be a Yankee. In ‘71, he hit 35 points higher at Yankee Stadium. In ‘72, he slugged .599 there. In ‘73 he hit .332 with 19 homers in the Bronx, .277 with three homers away. It wasn’t just the dimensions, though of course those helped. It was the atmosphere, Bobby Murcer felt like he belonged at Yankee Stadium. Even Shea felt wrong
And Bobby Bonds was precisely the wrong guy to send to New York. Shea Stadium was a nightmare for him as it was for many hitters through the years. He hit .239 his one season there with nine homers (he still had skills; he hit .294 with 23 homers on the road). He heard the fans boo him mercilessly. He did not like the American League, where pitchers tended to throw more junk. He obviously did not fit in with Billy Martin, the fiery new Yankees manager who wanted players to LOOK like they cared even more, perhaps, than he wanted them to actually care.
So the trade was really doomed … but both men had good years in ‘75. Murcer did not hit with power (he made the famous quote, repeated in many places, that Patty Hearst could hide in the Candlestick Park bleachers and nobody would ever find her). But he did hit .298/.396./.432, drove in 91 runs, punched up a 127 OPS+. And Bonds was his incredible self once he got out of New York; all in all he hit .270/.375/.512 with 32 homers, 30 stolen bases (the record third time he’d put up a 30-30 season) and a career high 151 OPS+.
But, of course, both were widely viewed as major disappointments. It was just that sort of trade. Looking back, the biggest one-for-one trade of the 1970s was a setup. Neither guy really had a chance.
Bonds was traded at the end of that year to California for Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa. And, instantly, he went from superstar to journeyman. He still put up some big numbers — he had two more 30-30 seasons, but the way he was viewed was never the same. It was remarkable really … Bonds had played with San Francisco for seven years, and he was putting up Hall of Fame numbers, and then he got traded to the Yankees and in the next four years he would be traded four more times. Then released. Then released again. Then released again. People started to think of him this way, as a player who couldn’t get along anywhere, who kept moving from team to team, and many stopped thinking of the young original who played baseball with abandon and brilliance.
Murcer managed one more year in San Francisco in 1976, a pretty good year considering, but it wasn’t working. He got traded to Chicago for Bill Madlock. He hit 27 homers for the Cubs one year, then battled injuries. He always saw himself as a Yankee — he spoke the beautiful eulogy for his old teammate Thurman Munson after the plane crash. In 1979, Murcer got traded back to the Yankees, where he finished his career as a beloved part-time player, beloved because the young promise was long gone, and now he was just an old Yankee.
* * *
When Bobby Murcer died young due to complications of cancer, I immediately thought about Bobby Bonds, who also died young, five years ago, due to similar complications. Baseball can do this, it can connect people in your mind. I’ve thought before that if San Francisco had not traded Bobby Bonds, he might be in the Hall of Fame today. I’ve thought before that if Bobby Murcer had come along at a slightly different time, he might be there with him. I’ve thought that in some ways they were both cheated a little bit by the baseball fates.
But maybe not. Baseball, like life, overflows with what might have been, and in the end it’s interesting to think about but it’s not much use. They both were something else when they were young, then they both got traded, and they had a few moments left. When Bobby Bonds finished playing, he became known as the father of Barry. And when Bobby Murcer finished, he became a Yankees announcer and as a true Yankee, which I suspect was what he always wanted.
I’ve spent the last day or so reading people’s memories of Bobby Murcer, and it sure seems like he was loved. A lot of the stories call him underrated, which I think is probably right. Anyway, it figures. Someone once told me that underrated people have large funerals.
Loading ...
39 Comments, Comment or Ping
B.E. Earl
Very nicely done!
Bobby Murcer was always one of my favorite Yankees. I never realized until just recently how good of a player he was as well.
I saw him play in his first go-round with the Yankees, but I remember him more as the player he was when he came back to the Yankees in 1979. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that he was only 33 at the time. He seemed so much older. But he was still well loved. Adored even.
I’ll never forget the first game after Munson’s death. From the tributes I’ve seen all over TV and the web, it looks like no one will ever forget.
RIP Bobby
Jul 13th, 2008
Joplin Miner
For new tshirt trends, check out shirt.woot.com…but of course, if you’re already checking out woot.com daily (and if you’re not, you should be), then you probably already know about it.
Jul 13th, 2008
Wade
This post is the #1 reason why I’ll buy every book you write. Great stuff Joe.
Jul 13th, 2008
Wade
This post is an example of the #1 reason why I’ll buy every book you write. Insightful and entertaining. Baseball stats filled with life stories. Great stuff Joe.
Jul 13th, 2008
Ron
I became a baseball fan in the ’70’s, as a young kid. For some reason, Murcer and Bonds were two guys I always admired. I still have about 8 baseball cards of each of them. With the Yankees and the Cubs.
Great article. It took me back to a different time.
Jul 13th, 2008
Curtis
FYI: FJM absolutely rips Flanagan. And deservedly so. They praise the Star though.
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/07/turdclump.html
Jul 13th, 2008
jjf3
Amen.
Jul 13th, 2008
Wade
I bet it gets mentioned on Over the Top. He linked to FJM a little while ago.
Jul 13th, 2008
pokerpeaker
You mentioned George Foster. Did you mention this book you’re writing about a team that Foster played on?
Jul 13th, 2008
Alex
Here in NYC he’s been called a “Yankee Great,” a term that I find inappropriate. There well could have been two dozen or more Yankees with better careers as Yankees. That seems too many to be on of the franchise’s Greats.
But I concede that he was at least a little more than “Longtime Yankee.”
I think that Joe has hit it on the nose with “True Yankee.”
Jul 13th, 2008
BRM
True. All of it. Especially the part about even die-hard Royals fans like myself LOVED getting an ‘84 Topps Donny Ballgame rookie card - or the elusive 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly. Ohhhhhh, wow.
I couldn’t NOT like the guy - even though he was so much better than anyone (EXCEPT George) on the Royals. Yes, even Frank.
Jul 13th, 2008
Jhohnny
Mustache Rides - 5 cents.
Jul 13th, 2008
Rob
Bonds was one of the first guys I noticed as a kid who’s stats just POPPED off the back of his baseball card. My Dad would tell me about his speed and power combo and how he was such a force as a player, it would lead me to make silly trades for his cards with my fellow card collecting neighbors. I never really understood the trade back then the way I do now, always believing the Giants got hosed in the deal, but unfortunately the baseball Gods weren’t kind enough to Bonds for him to prove that he was a player who deserved more attention than he ever got. The one time I met his Son, while everyone in the hotel was trying to get his auto and rub up against him, all I told him was that I was a huge BOBBY Bonds fan, which got me a “NOW you’re talking!” from Barry and a big smile, a pretty cool memory, which was followed the next day by hanging out in the San Diego Airport bar with umpire Joe West until both of our connecting flights came (he was getting out for the All-Star break after a 3 game set in Joe Murphy), with West telling me a bunch of cool stories starting way back to his first year in Spring Training, and him actually paying for the majority of my beers.
Jul 13th, 2008
Mike
Me and my friends would always make fun of Murcer’s homerun call, “Looking up and, IT’S GONE!”
It was so alienating to not hear his voice on telecasts the past couple years.
All the old timers days he played and called at the same time.
His role and words with Thurman Munson’s eulogy. Or Don Mattingly day.
He was a classy guy and when I had the fortune of bumping into Michael Kay in Skydome a few years ago, he said he had the most fun working with Bobby Murcer.
He was a classy guy and he was a Yankee.
Jul 14th, 2008
Steve
It’s unfortunate that Bobby never quite got to 40/40. A 40/40 father/son combo would be quite a feat; unmatchable, I’d think, unless A-Rod has a son who’s tearing up little league right now?
Jul 14th, 2008
Steve
Also, Murcer was a hell of a player, but Neyer’s article about him exaggerated a bit in saying he was ‘every bit as good as Andre Dawson.’
If you run the WARP3 numbers, it’s not even close: Hawk wins in peak value and career value by a good margin.
However, Murcer was probably just as good as Oliva and better than Maris.
Jul 14th, 2008
Steve M
Going away from the post topic — as I read this, the poll between Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise is in a dead heat, 565 votes apiece.
Jul 14th, 2008
Dan
I also agree that when Murcer came up I thought what a great player he was. But he played in New York and I was moving along as a teenager and probably wasn’t following as closely as I once did. He wasn’t generating many headlines back in KC. I always liked him, but felt like he must be another Tom Tresh who didn’t get the accolades he probably should have simply because he followed other great Yankees. I enjoyed your story a lot.
Jul 14th, 2008
Brent
Great article Joe. Bobby Murcer’s career reminds me of another New York phenom about 15 years later, name of Strawberry. What I always found amazing about Daryl was that he could be overrated and underrated all at the same time. He was a highly paid, much publicized New York based player, so people were always talking about him much more than comparable players in other venues, thus overrated. But whatever he did was never enough for the fans, so ever a great season was seen as not good enough, thus underrated.
Jul 14th, 2008
Eric
The Mantle comparisons were also fueled by the fact that Murcer, like mantle, started out at SS, then moved to CF.
He may also be one of the last players about whom it can be said that he “lost years to a war.” He came up at 19 in ‘65 (SS), and played a bit in 66(SS), then not again til 1969 (mostly OF for good).
He did not play anywhere (as far as I can tell, and from hazy memory) in either ‘67 or ‘68 due to what was referred to as “military obligations.”
Jul 14th, 2008
Rob
Joe,
I grew up in Pittsburgh (mostly), but my mom’s from Long Island and most of her extended family still lives out there. I can still hear my cousin Tom affectionately yelling “Hey Moicer, ya bum!” at the TV whenever he would do anything memorable (good or bad) when I’d spend the summers with them in the early ’80s.
I couldn’t pick Bobby Murcer out of a police lineup, but your article now makes it clear why Tom would have that kind of reaction to him–he remembered the promise from his first go-round, and the ‘failure’ to perform at Micky Mantle levels. Perhaps a subconcious realization of how stupid that comparison was contributed to his becoming ‘beloved’ in his second career.
I asked Tom once why he always yelledat Murcer, and the answer I got was “Because he’s a bum,” which although it may have been true wasn’t really helpful. Your article was a lot more helpful. Thanks for the context.
Jul 14th, 2008
Tom
I read
“…he was not viewed as as GREAT player, and here’s a final reason why: He was one of those players cursed with the power of pushing imagination. No matter how good he was, people imagined he could have been better. ”
and thought, “hey, JD Drew!” He must be trying really hard to make it look like he’s hardly trying. Beltran’s a good fit too.
Jul 14th, 2008
J Rod
Eric:
Murcer was drafted (one of the very few baseball players) into the Vietnam War in ‘67 and ‘68. He worked as a radio man and missed both of those seasons because of this.
Jul 14th, 2008
G Young
This is a great day.
My vote just broke a 590 to 590 tie between Cruise and Costner.
I cannot, in good conscience, support Tom Cruise. He is short. He is all too eager to foist Valkyrie upon us, which is obviously going to be awful. Most of all, he is short.
I’ll take the one-note performances of Costner any day of the week.
Jul 14th, 2008
G Young
edit - it is 10:36 CDT. A great day.
Jul 14th, 2008
Greg
There’s a popular concept in marketing now called “moving the free line.” Meaning, you give away valuable stuff for free so people will buy your other stuff. Blog columns like this are like giving away the bank for free. So, yeah, I’m a Joe P book buyer.
As a kid I was a Bobby B fan, but not even remotely a Bobby M fan, precisely because he played for NY and I live in KC. Anybody who wants to truly understand this should read Bill James excellent essay in the 1986 Abstract called “A History of Baseball in Kansas City.”
Jul 14th, 2008
Johnny
Cruise has inched “ahead” by 610-608. This is truly the question for our times.
Jul 14th, 2008
Mikey
What a fabulous post. One of the best things I’ve read on this blog and the best thing I’ve read anywhere since Murcer’s passing.
Jul 14th, 2008
Pat D
You’re forgetting that another of the reasons that Mattingly was so loved is because the only other offensive players who did really anything of consequence on the teams he played were guys who didn’t come up as Yankees. Guys like Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Ken Griffey, Don Baylor, Jack Clark, etc.
And it really helped Mattingly that Winfield was already not liked by a bunch of Yankee fans who didn’t get over his ‘81 WS performance and the fact that they didn’t re-sign Reggie Jackson because they had Winfield and didn’t think they needed both.
Personally, I grew up a Yankee fan and I gravitated toward Winfield. He was and still is and always will be my favorite all time player. I kind of resented Mattingly for that because he was more popular, but I never disliked Mattingly. I still remember crying when Seattle beat the Yankees in the ‘95 ALDS since I knew he was going to retire.
It is very sad to know that I will never hear Bobby Murcer on a telecast again. While I like all the current Yankees announcers since they analyze the game and what a player tries to do with each at-bat/pitch, Murcer just had that easy, relaxed style that felt genuine. Jim Kaat had that, too, and I miss hearing him now that he’s retired as well. RIP, Bobby.
Jul 14th, 2008
Jon
This is a great article, Joe, combining stats with heart and an historical perspective. Now that I’ve read it, I plan to look up the rest of your work.
Jul 14th, 2008
Creston
The problem with Beltran is that he plays effortlessly. Really, that’s all it is. He doesn’t show any kind of strain or effort when he does anything in baseball, and that just really annoys people.
People in general don’t like the idea that someone is much much much much much better at something than they are. If we see a professional baseball player, we like to think we could do that too, if only [fill in favorite excuse du jour.]
So when Beltran clubs a 400 foot homer and it looks like he swung at a whiffle ball thrown by your neighbor’s two year old girl, that wrinkles us. He’ll chase down a fly ball in the gap while running ~ 47mph, and his face has the same slightly bored/slightly disbelieving look on it that I had when I learned that toilet paper now costs $7.75 for 12 Giant rolls.
We don’t want to see that. When a guy chases a gapper down, we want to see his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his face distorted in a deathlike grimace and a giant, pulsing vein sticking out in his forehead. When he crashes to earth, we want him to roll around and act like he just had Mount Rushmore collapse on him. Not just get up, toss the ball to Jose Reyes and casually jog back as if he just walked his dog.
I mean, let’s face it, Eric Byrnes’ “effort” (read : fall over forward when throwing a ball, so it looks cooler) got him a 40+ million dollar contract, when nothing he does deserves even 1/10th of that money. Everyone still loves David Eckstein and Darin Erstad because, by God, when they play baseball you can SEE how much effort they have to put in it. (because they suck, but that’s not here or there.)
And it’s easier to imagine us competing with those guys. Hell, if they have to practically kill themselves to get a single, or throw the ball across the infield, then hey, I could do so too, if only I [insert excuse du jour].
When you watch Carlos Beltran, there is no effort. So you know you can never compete. That makes people angry. And then it becomes a matter of “Well, if the game is so easy for you, Mr Perfecto, how come you’re not hitting 87 homeruns with a 1.700 OPS+, HUH?!”
Jul 14th, 2008
Creston
FWIW, if Carlos Beltran were short and white, he’d be the guttiest, grittiest cat that ever played baseball, and the BBWAA would write 987,316 articles per year glorifying and annointing him, calling him the Jesus of Baseball and making funny jokes about how they wished their daughters would marry the guy.
Jul 14th, 2008
Kyle K
As a Mets fan, one of my early litmus tests of other Mets fans is what they think of Beltran. If they are the kind of “fan” who thinks Beltran is “not clutch” or “doesn’t care” or “doesn’t work hard enough”, it’s a farily safe bet that I won’t think much of that “fan”.
Jul 14th, 2008
David Purcell
Your analysis of the trade was excellent and the only point to speculate on would be where Bobby Bonds should have traded instead of New York to help his career. I agree that Bobby Murcer should have stayed in New York. Bobby was and still remains my favorite player and I was devastated when he was traded. I stopped following the Yankees and switched to the Giants and then the Cubs. My first thing after I got out of the Army was to see a Cubs game. On game day I got a seat directly behind home plate(the Cubs attendance was pretty bad then) and I got to watch Bobby Murcer hit. In the bottom of the 7th of a tie game against Gary Lavelle and the Giants, Bobby hit a solo homer that wound up winning the game. They say Billy Williams had a sweet swing, well, so did Bobby Murcer. I can still follow every inch of that swing in slow motion and it seems so controlled and effortless. It seemed to me that, as in the game following Munson’s funeral, that Bobby was nearly always getting a clutch hit or sacrifice fly or moving the runner over when it was needed. Always helping the team in some way. That and his sense of humor were what made him my favorite player. I was always disappointed that he never became a regular after returning to the Yankees. It seemed that Billy Martin was the only manager who played him and who appreciated his hitting. I longed for him to do well and the occasional game winning pinch hit home runs were unsatisfying because he seemed to still be able to contribute full time, particularly as a dh. I don’t even recall a period where he was the regular lefty dh in the final years. His career will always remain bittersweet because there were moments of true greatness and undeniably, the failed expectations and the stats that don’t truly indicate the impact that he had in his prime.
Jul 15th, 2008
JO'C
Going to HS in NJ in the early 70’s I used to have endless arguments with my best friend over just how good Murcer was. My buddy was a Yankee fan and thought Murcer was the greatest thing going. I was a Met fan and thought Murcer was over rated and a product of Yankee Stadium. It was apparent to me that Murcer’s home park was a major reason for his success. I watched plenty of Yankee games and it seemed as if every Murcer HR was 5-10 rows into the short RF porch. I used to tell my buddy that if Murcer played in Shea he wouldn’t hit 20 HR’s. Lo and behold I got my wish when the Yankees had to play their home games in Shea in 1974. Murcer only hit 10 HR’s that year with 2 at Shea! Now if only I could get my buddy to pay up.
Jul 15th, 2008
Mark Armour
I am guessing you are in your early 40s or so. I think your are wrong about the whole Bonds/Murcer thing, mainly because
(according to my guess) your are too young to remember when they were star players.
Bobby Murcer was not underrated. He was a great player, for a couple of years, and everyone knew he was a great player (especially if you lived in the northeast). For the rest of his career he was a good player, and in the middle of his career he was probably overrated. You diss the Yankees for moving Murcer to RF for Elliott Maddox, and also disses Maddox. Maddox was a far better outfielder than Murcer, and a pretty damned good hitter too (who I believer broke his leg in early 1975 and never really got it back together.) This is largely a history gleaned from baseball-reference.com, rather than what you would get from either from living through the time or studying the time.
Bobby Bonds was not underrated at all. Before the 1973 All-Star game there was a pregame show largely devoted the asking the question: who is the greatest player in baseball. The consensus was that it was either Bonds or Cedeno. Bonds was the game’s MVP which kept the stories alive for a while. Bonds got traded not because he was unappreciated, but because his managers
thought he was lazy and a pain in the ass. I expect the teams knew what they were doing.
Murcer and Bonds are just like Vern Stephens or Cesar Cedeno or Albert Belle. They were not at all unappreciated when they played–they were very much appreciated. But because they did not have the career length to mount the counting stats they are not remembered by the casual fans.
Jul 16th, 2008
Keith R
What you said about Bobby Bonds explains much about his son Barry’s nature. He knew his dad had received a raw deal and was always suspicious of the motives of baseball’s executives and fans.
Jul 16th, 2008
Roger
Great article about both players, and as a Giants fan I have many memories of Bobby Bonds but as the article might have implied, few of Bobby Murcer.
First time I saw Bobby he was playing center field no less for the Giants’ then-Class C Fresno farm team. He played in the second game of a “double header” at Candlestick, with the first game featuring the major league team and the nightcap featuring Fresno. Given how few fans the Giants drew at the time, you can imagine how few stuck around for the minor league game.
I wish I could tell you that Bobby showed of the skills that made him such an exciting major leaguer, but all I can remember of the game is the he dropped not one, but TWO fly balls.
I remember watching Bobby’s debut game on TV, a game in which he hit a grand slam homer. As a teammate of Willie Mays, he was by then playing right field, of course. With his head held high, the former high school sprinter looked like a great thoroughbred when he ran.
I believe that the season Bobby fell one home run short of 40/40, he actually had more home runs than steals over most of the season, but fell into a power drought at the end of the season. I think if he had made 40/40, it would have received the applause it deserved. But the world didn’t really reward falling short much in those days, even if it was just short of an earth-shattering achievement. The importance of 40/40 WAS recognized in the Bay Area.
I remember seeing Bobby down at San Jose watching the Class A Giants play during the lockout of 1994. He seemed to be warmly received by those around him.
Perhaps the most poignant memory of Bobby comes from 2003, the year he passed away. Apparently Barry visited his dad for long periods after games, actually sleeping on the floor of Bobby’s hospital room. Barry had a great season in 2003, but it was the least of his four great seasons from 2001 through 2004. Given the physical and emotional circumstances, it is remarkable he performed as well as he did that season.
And my final memory of Bobby came when he was brought in a wheel chair to watch the Giants play from the ramp in back of the dugout. It was obvious to all at that point what Bobby’s fate soon would be, but I’ll bet that was the greatest night of his life, as short as it soon was to be.
Jul 16th, 2008
Reply to “The rare trade that hurts both players”