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Friday, September 23, 2005
Murphy’s law: Everything in moderation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Not that it should come as such a surprise that Dale Murphy has surfaced as an author, but it seems that his text has, apparently, been somewhat misinterpreted. “The Scouting Report” is the title, directed mainly at professional athletes and those athletes who have their eyes aimed at playing professionally.
“It’s not about being a team leader. That’s just not my personality. It’s aimed at things that I wish I had known when I became a professional player,” Muphy said from his home in Utah. “In athletics terms, this is a scouting report for your career, balancing your career, your marriage and your family.”
There’s a shortage of that among professional athletes, not to mention several of those on the college level, judging by police dockets across the country. What Murphy projects is a recipe for setting your course on the straight and narrow and keeping it there. His is the written word, composed mainly for athletes, not the reading public. He’s not aiming for the New York Times best seller list.
“I lived many years in professional sports and came out in one piece,” he wrote to his audience of athletes, “still happily married, the father of eight great kids. When the time comes and you are standing in my shoes — retired — I want you to feel the same contentment.”
That’s the theme, not training clubhouse spokesmen. I’m not sure that such unsolicited advice delivered to teammates is always warmly received. Henry Aaron never logged a lot of hours on the clubhouse podium. That was not his style. He lived a long and successful career as a teammate, but going his own way, not directing traffic.
When Murphy was a developing Brave, he recalls, the players he looked up to were Phil Niekro, Gary Mathews, and during one spring training, Tom Paciorek, the outfielder now heard in our area broadcasting Braves games. When Murphy needed to locate an agent, it was Niekro he turned to, but other than that, it wasn’t often that he sought advice in the clubhouse.
Murphy didn’t grow up a Mormon. He was converted, mainly through his relationship with another Braves minor league teammate, Barry Bonnell, later a Braves contemporary. That faith became the backbone of his life, even to the point that after his career as a player was done, he served as the head of a mission in Massachusetts. You’ll be impressed by the cast of stars that recommend his point of view, as expressed in the book: Bobby Bowden, Cal Ripken, Steve Young, Jason Kidd among them.
One athlete that Murphy holds high in his heart and esteem is Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinal who turned his back on a big contract to join the Army Rangers, then lost his life in Afghanistan. “No fanfare, no one patting him on the back, a noble man who who slipped away in virtual anonymity.”
There are so few.
“The Scouting Report,” is full of a lot of good old earthy sayings, and familiar cliches, all appropriately applied. Nancy Murphy was particularly active in producing the text, Dale will hastily tell you. It is she who was the centerpiece of the household and was often called upon to perform both parental roles.
“I’d be gone to the ball park by the time the kids got home from school. They’d be in bed when I got home from the game. They’d be gone to school by the time I got up the next morning,” Murphy said. “It was Nancy who was my anchor. No matter how I excelled on the field, she was the real hero.”
It’s a wise man who puts his wife on a pedestal.
Success didn’t come like a genie out of a bottle to Murphy. His first season in Little League he made only one hit. He stumbled twice with the Braves, as a catcher and first baseman, before Bobby Cox directed him to center field.
“Now my career has come and gone. I retired in 1993. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he wrote. “I believe that we are given experiences to share, taught lessons so we will teach others. That is the reason for this book.
And the reason for this column.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Questions about Bonds won’t go away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
He missed more than five months of the season, but Barry Bonds keeps doing the impossible, and he keeps doing so dramatically. One moment, the 41-year-old outfielder with the damaged knee is looking ready to retire. The next, pitchers are wishing he did. He returned to homer in four consecutive games prior to Friday night’s action, and his Louisville Slugger will rip more shots toward the stratosphere this weekend with his San Francisco Giants in the thin air of the Rockies.
Thus the question: Should we cheer or boo with Nos. 755 and 714 threatening to become yesterday’s news courtesy of Bonds’ otherworldly ways?
We should respond with silence. Just observe and nod and let history deal with the rest. The only person who really knows about the legitimacy of Bonds’ shattering of ancient records at such an advanced age for a pro athlete is Bonds. As for the rest of us, consider this: Whenever you wish to believe that we’re all wrong about a relationship between Bonds and anabolic steroids, you see that jumbo head above that Herman Munster body - you know, compared to how Bonds looked earlier in his career as a skinny line drive hitter.
What a mess for baseball, for the Giants, for the fans and for anybody who wishes to know the truth here. In the meantime, Bonds keeps turning this mess into a dilemma with every swing that pulls his artificially enhanced body closer to Babe Ruth’s ghost and Hank Aaron’s shadow.
Let’s start with this: Is Bonds artificially enhanced?
We don’t know. Well, not officially, even though Bonds allegedly told a grand jury before the season that he accidentally rubbed a bunch of steroid-related cream on his legs. This was sort of like Rafael Palmeiro allegedly informing baseball officials that he didn’t knowingly use steroids and that his positive test earlier this season probably resulted from a vitamin he received from a teammate. I mean, if you’re Palmeiro and Bonds in this situation, you have to say SOMETHING to authorities, especially since perjury can send your lying lips to the slammer. So, until you’re proven wrong (assuming that you weren’t telling the truth), you’re going to exist as Bonds in baseball purgatory.
Such is the plight of a slugger who is performing so many unprecedented feats, and who continues to prosper despite all of those steroid rumors, and who technically is “clean” when it comes to doing what he is being accused of doing.
That’s right. Although Bonds sat on the disabled list through most of the season, he still was subject to baseball’s new drug testing system for steroids and other substances. He has yet to test positive for anything, by the way. If he would have done so, somebody would have leaked it, and the news would have reached the print media and the airways in a hurry from here to whatever distant planet that receives the bulk of his home runs.
It’s just that, even without Bonds testing positive for steroids, you have so many other plausible reasons for his ongoing greatness.
Many claim that Bonds isn’t using anabolic steroids, but that he is on growth hormones, which can make you look like Herman Munster while slamming a bunch of home runs. In case you’re wondering, baseball doesn’t test for growth hormones.
Some claim that Bonds and his people discovered something better to take than anabolic steroids or growth hormones, something that is undetectable by any drug tests. Remember: According to leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO investigation, those high-tech trainers that Bonds knew had more stuff to work with than that of, say, Grandpa Munster in the corner of his dungeon.
Others claim that Bonds was taking various things through the years to become artificially enhanced, but that he stopped when baseball began hinting of tougher drug testing. They add that Bonds was so big and strong and focused when he ended his drug use that he was able to continue his assault on Ruth and Aaron.
The point is, Bonds can slam 900 home runs, and he still won’t shake the doubters from now through forever. That’s really a shame. For everybody.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
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