Bobby Murcer, A Class Act

News of Bobby Murcer’s brain tumor started up my Movies of the Mind machine this week.
If being a class act in life has anything to do with beating this cancer, I am betting on Murcer.
It was 1985 when I met this Yankee.
The Yankees had not taken over ownership of their fantasy camp as yet and an entrepreneur with the entrepreneurial name Max Shapiro, had put a week long camp together headed by the likes of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer, Tom Tresh, Tom Sturdivant, Moose Skowron and Murcer.
At the hotel at check in, sixty excited overage campers were gossiping in the lobby of our Deerfield Beach Hotel, when a buzz comes through the crowd. A Yankee bluish black steamer trunk came bustling into the lobby, the white “NY” logo leaving no doubt that a legend was about to enter the room.
It wasn’t Mantle.
It wasn’t Ford.
An average looking man, youthful and smiling, appeared behind the crash of bellhops and bags.
He might not have been the royalty we were waiting for, but he was still Bobby Murcer and we welcomed him warmly.
Murcer, unlike Mantle, was comfortable with the adulation and the banter.
Over the next several days, I got to know this gentle man. He always had a smile on his face and he made time for anyone who asked.
Unlike many of the campers, I never rushed for pictures with the stars of the week, Mantle and Ford.
Two of my favorite pictures are with Hank Bauer and Bobby Murcer.
Both Murcer and I are standing with our bats on our shoulders, the November sun at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, former winter home of the Yankees, lighting up the backdrop.
One afternoon during this amazing week in my life, my dad visited the clubhouse as my guest.
Dad opened his mouth and these words flew out. They were directed to Bobby Murcer.
“We had high hopes for you. Your career was such a disappointment.”
Talk about disappointment.
If there was a hole in the ground in the Yankees clubhouse, I would have volunteered to be swallowed up and taken my dad along with me.
Yet, Murcer kept that class. He smiled, excused himself and sought out another, more uplifting conversation.
In the Yankees versus the Campers game over the weekend, I found myself on the mound facing my boyhood heroes. I was doing pretty well and then up came Murcer.
He took my first pitch and almost removed an ear. The ball came back so quickly, I didn’t even have time to duck.
It whistled past my ear and that buzzing remained with me for a hour or so.
I glanced at Murcer, classy as ever, standing over at first base and grinning.
He mouthed some words at me, but my hearing hadn’t returned thanks to the buzz from his bat.
He might have said.
“How’s your dad?”
My thoughts and the thoughts of everyone who bleeds Yankees are with the Murcer family.
When George Steinbrenner dealt Bobby away in the 1970’s, he realized his mistake and brought him back to the Yankees in order that he could end his playing career with the team he most identified with.
And in the past 20 years, George has kept Bobby close.
As an assistant general manager and as a broadcaster, Bobby continues to this day as part of the Yankee family.
Bobby Murcer is one class act.
There are 60 former campers and millions of Yankee fans rooting for Bobby just as hard now as we did when he was playing center field and hitting home runs.
He might not have been what some fans were expecting when he was encumbered with the Ruth-DiMaggio-Mantle-Murcer succession.
But he was Bobby Murcer.
And that was pretty damn good.