This one hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. Bobby Murcer was one of my favorite people. I have so many happy memories of watching him play and, especially, spending summer nights listening to him broadcast. Losing Bobby is like losing a huge, happy part of my childhood.
Bobby Murcer, the Yankees’ All-Star outfielder and longtime broadcaster who never became another Mickey Mantle but endeared himself to Yankee fans in a baseball career of more than four decades, died Saturday. He was 62.
The Yankees said that Murcer died because of complications from brain cancer. He was surrounded by family members at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City, the team said.
Murcer had surgery for a cancerous brain tumor at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in December 2006 and had received an experimental vaccine in a clinical trial there.
For those of you who are not familiar with Bobby Murcer, here’s some bio:
When he made his Yankee debut in September 1965 as a teenage shortstop, Murcer evoked images in the press of a young Mantle. Murcer batted left-handed while Mantle was a switch-hitter, but both were Oklahomans, both had been signed by the Yankee scout Tom Greenwade, both possessed speed on the bases, and both had played at shortstop in the minor leagues.
But Murcer, at 5 feet 11 inches and 160 pounds, had a slighter build than Mantle. “Both of us were power hitters, the only difference being that Mickey’s power took the ball over the fence a lot more often than mine did,” Murcer said in his memoir.
Murcer eventually succeeded Mantle, his boyhood hero, in center field. He never approached a Hall of Fame career, but he proved an outstanding hitter and a fine fielder in his 17 major league seasons.
Playing mostly for the Yankees, Murcer hit 252 home runs and had 1,862 hits and a .277 career batting average. In 1971, he hit a career-high .331 and was the runner-up for the American League batting title, and he became adept at bunting. The next year, Murcer won a Gold Glove award.
He was named to five All-Star teams, from 1971 to 1974 while with the Yankees and in 1975 while with the San Francisco Giants. A memorable career moment came on June 24, 1970, when he hit four consecutive home runs in a doubleheader against the Cleveland Indians.
Murcer moved to the Yankee broadcast booth, as a commentator, the night of June 20, 1983, hours after George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner, offered him the job during his second stint with the Yankees, when he was playing infrequently. He teamed at the outset with Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White and remained a Yankee broadcaster most of the time after that until his death.
If you want to make me smile, all you have to do is mention Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer, Bill White…or Bobby Murcer. All of them were broadcasting greats, and they’re all great, wonderful people.
