Two days before he died, Sean Murphy sent his mother a birthday card.
The A's minor league pitcher inscribed it with a sweet note about their long-ago conversations, told her that he loved her and shipped it via overnight mail from Arizona to Philadelphia.
They spoke briefly the next day because she wanted to know why he spent $7.85 to mail a $2.99 card. He wanted to be sure it arrived in time, he told her.
"The last words he said to me before I hung up with him were 'Mom, I'll call you in the morning and I'll sing Happy Birthday to you,' " Lorraine Murphy said.
That night Sean was found unresponsive inside his car in the parking lot of a Phoenix fast-food restaurant. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. He was 27.
His April 25 death remains a mystery. No one was with him in the car. There were no reports of obvious trauma. Police told Murphy's parents that there were no signs of drug paraphernalia in the car. Still, his parents are bracing for the possibility that drugs are the cause of death. Final results of a toxicology screen will be released within a few weeks, and Lorraine and Ray Murphy are keenly aware that Sean was facing a 50-game suspension for testing positive for marijuana. That is the only instance of drug use his parents are aware of.
"If it was drugs, it had to be a mistake, it had to be an accident," Lorraine Murphy said. "It had to be something he wasn't aware of. So we're not going to think about it until we hear. And when we hear, it doesn't matter. Was he at the wrong place at the wrong time and do the wrong thing? We don't know. We have to wait."
Murphy died before reaching his dream of pitching in the majors. Instead, he spent five seasons in the A's system, eking his way from the Burlington Bees to the Stockton Ports to the Midland RockHounds before his big break: a half-season at Triple-A Sacramento in 2014.
Still, he kept hope. Playing baseball was the only thing he ever wanted to do.
In interviews with this paper since the pitcher's death, Murphy's parents and his fiancee, Araseli Montano, say this was the year the pitcher hoped to finally make the big leagues. At 27, Sean was a bit old for a rookie. But he was driven.
"If he wasn't playing baseball, he was watching baseball, he was reading about baseball, he was on his phone studying about baseball," said Montano, who met him four years ago when he was pitching for the Stockton Ports.
Murphy's supporters extended to the Oakland clubhouse. A's reliever Sean Doolittle, an All-Star in 2014, was one of Murphy's mentors. Doolittle spent almost all of last season with a shoulder injury. Murphy was sidelined, too, the result of a 2014 Tommy John surgery. And in the often tedious netherworld of the disabled list, they got to know each other during the downtime.
But even Doolittle struggles for clues.
"If there was something wrong, he hid it from a lot of people, because this has been a sad shock for a lot of us," Doolittle said. "The guys I've talked to, no one knows anything. The ones I feel for the most are his family. He was a good guy. What a tragedy. I can't imagine what they are going through."
Doolittle, Sonny Gray and Ryan Dull were among the A's pitchers who knew Murphy. They liked him a lot. John Wasdin, the pitching coach at Double-A Midland, described Murphy as having "an infectious smile that lit up the room."
Although Murphy came from Philadelphia, he always identified himself by neighborhood, not the city. He told people he was from Fishtown.
"People in California don't know about Fishtown," Ray Murphy said. "It's an area in Philadelphia, it's been here for hundreds of years, Irish and Polish immigrants. He put us on the map. And everyone one of his teammates knew about Fishtown. They knew about it after they met Sean Murphy."
Since his passing, Murphy has been memorialized in a mural painted at his old Little League field. A Sean Murphy Fall Classic will debut this year, with proceeds being used to help fix local baseball fields. A 'Sean Murphy, Fishtown Ace,' T-shirt is being sold to raise money for local youth teams.
"For everyone in this neighborhood, he was their great hope," Lorraine Murphy said. "You know, for the Major Leagues. They were so proud of him, because Fishtown is a blue-collar neighborhood. He was one of them."
There were challenges. Murphy tested positive for marijuana and was handed a 50-game suspension on Feb. 4, 2016. The suspension would have kicked in with his return to active status in April.
"I was so mad at him, like what the hell is going on?" Ray Murphy said of the positive test. "He said 'Dad, I can't afford that stuff, but I smoked it with somebody that had it, and that's what happened.'
"It just killed me. I couldn't sleep for three days after that. Coincidentally, they told him a little after that, 'Sean, you're going to have to do a urine sample, get ready.' And he was just sick over it. He knew."
Murphy vowed to come back both from the lengthy suspension as well as reconstructive elbow surgery. Several weeks before his death, in an interview with the Fishtown-area newspaper, Murphy said he was optimistic about reviving his career. He said his "plans for this upcoming season is to have a clear mind, believe in myself and just let my hard work speak for itself."
The 33rd-round pick had already clawed his way through the Oakland farm system and finally caught the A's eye on March 24, 2014. He made a spring training start against the Texas Rangers, throwing 4 1/3 innings and allowing one infield hit and one walk.
But midway through that season he began to feel pain in his elbow. He needed Tommy John surgery.
The expected recovery time is about 18 months. So last year, while rehabbing his right arm, he worked with a high school baseball team in Phoenix.
"He couldn't play baseball because of the surgery, but he felt like he wanted to give back to the kids," Montano, the fiancee, said. "We lived near a high school. We would take our dog out for a walk and he would see how these kids practice, and he said, 'they need help.'
"So one day he went over during practice and introduced himself to the coach and gave him his background. They brought him on board. And he started coaching these kids at Camelback Mountain High and teaching them a thing or two about baseball. And he loved it."
Sean Murphy's funeral at a Fishtown church was packed. A's general manager David Forst gave a eulogy. Some of Murphy's former minor league and college teammates attended, as did Wasdin and another of his pitching coaches in the Oakland system, Craig Lefferts.
It made no sense to any of them. Sean was progressing well from the arm surgery. His suspension might have been over by now. Things appeared to be going well. "For me, what is most shocking is that the day before, everything was so normal," Montano said. "The day before, we had gone to the lake. We went with our dog, we went with some close friends, and we had a blast. We were listening to music. Sean swam all the way out to the little island, he looked back and was like 'I made it.' Everything was just so normal."
So they wait for the answer that to their question. What happened?
The only consolation is that as an organ donor, Sean Murphy's eyes live on in a transplant recipient.
His heart lives in the words of that birthday card.
"Mom, you are the best. I always stop to think about what you used to say to me: 'Who's the best?' You always made me reply, 'I'm the best. You are and will always be the best mom and my best friend. I love you. Enjoy your B-Day and I will talk to you tomorrow.' "
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