Dale Murphy

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The best baseball columnist in the country throws his weight behind Murphy’s HOF candidacy

January 12th, 2009 by Dwight Jaynes | 2 Comments | Filed in Baseball

Joe Posnanski is an incredibly talented columnist and blogger and he makes his case for Murphy so effectively here that you wonder how anyone could ever argue with it. You have to wonder, too, if Joe wasn’t among that generation in this country who grew up with TBS and all those Braves games. If you were among that group that rooted for “America’s Team,” there was nobody like Murph.

But there has been relative silence for Murphy. I have never felt like I should be Dale Murphy’s Paul Revere, shouting his accomplishments as I ride from town to town. I see his flaws too clearly. He absolutely fell off the map after he turned 31 — he hit a miserable .234 the last 2,658 plate appearances of his career. He tried desperately to get to 400 home runs but, tellingly, ended up two homers short. He probably was not the best player in the National League either year that he won the MVP awards. And he, like Rice, relied heavily on a good hitters home park.

Still, Murphy does have a case, a real case. The trouble is, few make that case, and now that Jim Rice has been elected, well, I guess I should speak up. I have very little doubt in my mind that Dale Murphy was a better player than Jim Rice. And there’s also this: Remember what it says … Voting shall be based on:

1. The player’s record (statistical record, I’m sure)
2. Playing ability
3. Integrity
4. Sportsmanship
5. Character
6. Contribution to his team(s)

This is not to say that Jim Rice did not represent these qualities. But I’m not sure anyone of his era better represented those six things than Dale Murphy.

Please go to the link and read the whole thing, which is backed up by enough statistics it would take you days just to fact-check them. And I’m happy to see Joe extend the argument to character and integrity — two legitimate qualifications for the Hall where Dale at the very least ties for No. 1 of all time. Seriously — they’re keeping Pete Rose and Mark McGwire out of the Hall of Fame for character reasons, why shouldn’t the same criteria be an advantage for a guy like Murph?

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