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BOBBY MURCER |
 BOBBY MURCER in the broadcast booth |
Grace, dignity, courage:
Bobby had them all
of TheColumnists.com
This was in the
summer of ’72, a wonderful, clear, perfect early August
evening in suburban New York City when my wife Janet put out
that marvelous spread--burgers, chicken, her historic potato
salad and the best lemon orange cake anyone could make.
And the beer.
Well, there were three baseball couples as guests, Fritz and
Marilyn Peterson, Mike and Suzanne Kekich and Bobby and Kay Murcer.
There were a few other “civilian” guests, neighborhood
friends who just were thrilled to share an evening with these
Yankees.
It became sort of historic later on when the Petersons and the
Kekiches announced that they had decided that night to switch
wives.
Suzanne Kekich and Fritz Peterson have lived together happily
ever after. Mike Kekich and Marilyn Peterson made it for a couple
of weeks.
As reporters sometimes do, I am forced to admit, I missed the
real story.
That was the love and affection shared by the other baseball
couple, Bobby and Kay Murcer.
They had only been married a few years by then and had a couple
of small children. They each looked so young and seemed so incredibly
connected, a rare trait for professional athletes who tend more
to enjoy their fame and fortune than they do their spouses.
Bobby and Kay were together for some 42 years before Bobby Murcer,
who had battled brain cancer for almost two years, slipped away
last week.
In a week when New York newspapers were filled with tales of
the breakup of the marriage of Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez
and his wife, Cynthia, despite two small children, and the other
high profile divorce battle of Christie Brinkley, the love and
affection of the Murcers that lasted until death do they part
was ignored.
It is not easy to be rich, famous and fawned over. I have been
around enough athletes and show biz folks in my newspaper career
to get a good read on that. The Murcers could do it.
Bobby was a skinny, baby faced kid from Oklahoma when he showed
up at 19 at Yankee Stadium in 1965. The other native of Oklahoma,
a guy named Mickey Mantle, helped him through the adjustment
period and remained a good friend instead of an untouchable super
hero.
Bobby was the lone Yankee worth watching in those down years
in the late 1960s and early1970s. He struggled when the Yankees
moved to Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being repaired.
His 316 foot homers at Yankee Stadium were just outs at Shea
and he battled the nickname of Warning Track Bobby.
His real nickname, bestowed by Peterson, was Lemon because his
smiling face seemed chiseled sharply like a lemon. He took it
in stride.
As he aged as a player, 30 or 31, he acquired a big rocking chair
which he set up in the clubhouse and slid on back and forth.
He cried when he was traded away from his beloved Yankees to
San Francisco for Barry Bonds’ papa, Bobby Bonds, and he
struggled in the Windy City of Chicago as a Cub.
Murcer came back to the Yankees in 1979 and actually made it
to the Series with the Yankees in 1981.
Shortly after he returned to the Yankees in 1979, his best pal
on the team, Captain and catcher Thurman Munson, was killed in
a plane crash. Murcer delivered a eulogy that rang forever with
all who heard it.
That night, under the most intense pressure any player ever faced
in a single game, he hit a three run homer and two run single
to win the game for the Yankees 5-4.
Murcer was finished in 1983 and Yankee boss George Steinbrenner,
who simply loved him, made him a broadcaster.
Bobby was as good at that as he was as a player with great insight,
honesty and wonderful tales. He had been a fan favorite ever
since he arrived as a player in 1965 and remained so until his
last day on the broadcasting job this season.
When he was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago on Christmas
Eve he handled that as he handled every strikeout, every error,
every baseball mistake--with courage, pride and dignity. He knew
he would do better the next time. He knew he would never embarrass
himself or his family.
If people are measured not so much by how they live as by how
they die, Bobby Murcer was a first round Hall of Famer. He showed
incredible courage as he went through extensive treatment, including
experimental drugs, for the time he had left on life.
His wife, Kay, who remained as strong as Bobby through all this
family turmoil, never let him down.
I saw them for the last time in January when they came to New
York to receive an honor from the New York Baseball Writers Association.
They seemed as young, smiling and happy as they had been when
I first met them more than four decades ago.
We are all diminished by the loss of a friend.
I won’t think of that now. I will think only of those cheerful
greetings, that smiling face the shape of a lemon and the joys
Bobby Murcer brought the Yankees, the game of baseball and this
diminished sportswriter.
©2008 by Maury Allen.
The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This
column first posted July 14, 2008.
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