Bobby revisited
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- July
- 14
When I was a child, Bobby Murcer – who died Saturday of complications from brain cancer — was my favorite ballplayer.
Those who grew up with the New York Yankees of the 1990s — or for that matter, the ‘20s through early ‘60s — tend to see them through the lens of greatness. Whereas I, coming of age in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, can’t help but remember them in part as a reflection of a city that had lost its way. Amid the paltry stadium crowds in a broken-down, crime-ridden neighborhood that was the South Bronx back then, Murcer stood out as a beacon of excellence and old-fashioned gentlemanliness. Perhaps that’s why the misty weekend tributes from fellow broadcasters and ballplayers were so heartfelt. (The CW 11, in particular, did an eloquent job.)The eulogizers knew Murcer had been traded away before the team began another championship run in the mid-’70s; knew, too, that he returned too late to share fully in the fruits of those victories.
But fate — seemingly so cruel and so lately kind — sometimes deprives us of our hearts’ desires only to reward us in ways unexpected.
Yesterday, TV remembered a ballplayer who was one of only three Yankees to hit four home runs in four consecutive at bats.
It remembered a man who on a terrible day — the funeral of beloved teammate Thurman Munson — paid tribute to the departed in word and deed, driving in all five runs to win the game.
It remembered a broadcaster who on another very bad day, as the news of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s death was just sinking in, called David Cone’s perfect game.
Most of all, the tube saluted a man who came back — like the city and the team he loved so much.
Bobby Murcer, once heralded as the next Mickey Mantle, never equaled the Mick’s feats. Yet he bridged the eras of Mantle, Munson, Mattingly and Mariano as no other Yankee could.
He was a good not great ballplayer. And yet as an athlete and a man, he was greatly good.
This entry was posted
on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 10:49 am by Georgette Gouveia.
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