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Bobby Murcer-The Most Popular of Yankees

Bobby Murcer was supposed to fill the shoes of Mickey Mantle, an impossible task, but he still won the hearts of the Yankee faithful, especially when he won a game for his departed pal.

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1946, the same state Mantle hailed from, Bobby Murcer played Little League baseball as Mickey was becoming a Bronx icon. Murcer became a New York fan because of Mantle, and was signed in 1964 by the same scout that inked Mantle to a New York contract, Tom Greenwade. Murcer began his professional career in the infield, as had Mantle. Bobby was named the Most Valuable Player of the Greensboro squad in the Yankee farm system, and the big club called him up in 1965. Murcer played shortstop for the Yankees for a total of 29 games before being drafted into the army in 1966, but in that short time he committed 11 errors, mostly of the throwing variety. Although he played with Mantle during that audition, when he returned Mickey would be retired and the Yankees would be trying to recover from a horrible decline.

Murcer was still just 23 when he came back to the team in 1969, but he had gained some much needed maturity. Along with catcher Thurman Munson, Bobby gave the Yankees some talent to build around. Munson and he were fast friends, and Murcer had a strong season in '69 as the Yanks went 80-81. He and Thurman appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the caption of "Pride of the New Yankees" under the photo. Bobby hit .259 with 26 homers and 82 runs batted in, and was made into an outfielder after an aborted experiment of playing third resulted in 14 miscues.

On June 24th, 1970, Murcer hit a homer in his last at bat in the front end of a twin bill at the Stadium against the Indians. He then proceeded to belt three in his first trio of times up in the nightcap to tie Lou Gehrig's Yankee record of four round trippers in a row. 1971 may have been Murcer's finest year, as he hit .331, second in the circuit, and knocked in 94 runs. Bobby never eclipsed the one hundred plateau in runs batted in for a single campaign, but he did have more than 78 nine times, from 1969 through 1977. On August 29th, 1972, Murcer hit for the cycle against the Rangers; it would be 23 years before a Yankee did this again. In July of 1973, Murcer clobbered three homers in a game versus the Royals.

When the Yankees had to play their home games at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being renovated, nobody's numbers suffered more than the left-handed hitting Murcer. His swing was well suited to the short porch in right in the Bronx, but Shea's longer fences and windy conditions made his life miserable in 1974, but he manager 88 runs batted in despite just 11 home runs. The Yankees shocked their fan base and Murcer, who cried when he was told he had been traded to the Giants straight up for Bobby Bonds, in October of 1974.

If he thought Shea was windy, what could Bobby Murcer have thought when he played in the swirling gales of Candlestick Park? Murcer hated being in San Francisco, but still had two years of 90 and 91 RBI. He made it clear he did not want to be there, and when he made a comment that "Patty Hearst could be hiding in Candlestick's upper deck and nobody would ever find her", he was dealt to the Cubs in 1977. This was another venue where the winds would hurt his numbers, but he still had his last solid year in '77, when he knocked in 89 men.

Meanwhile, the Yankees had improved through all their free agent moves and had won three flags in a row and two World Series in Bobby's absence. Murcer was reacquired by New York in 1979, but the five-time All-Star was now 33 years old and would be platooned for the majority of the remainder of his career, hitting mostly against right-handed pitching. Early in August of that season, Munson was killed when he crashed the small jet he was piloting in Canton, Ohio. Murcer had lost his best friend, and on August 6th, he delivered one of the eulogies at Thurman's emotional funeral.

The Yankees had to play a contest that night against the Orioles, who were leading the division and would go on to the World Series. Murcer was told by a drained Billy Martin that he didn't have to play, but Bobby told his skipper that something was telling him he needed to. The Yankees were down 4-0 in the late inning when Murcer cracked a three run homer to right to make things closer. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth in the nationally televised game, Murcer came up with two men on; New York still was behind by the 4-3 score. Normally he would have been pinch-hit for, as a tough lefty, Tippy Martinez, was on the mound. But Martin let him hit, and Murcer ripped an opposite field double to win the game. As he came off the field, he openly wept, as the crowd went wild. He later gave the bat he used that evening to Munson's widow, Diane.

Playing less and less each year, Murcer finally retired in 1983, when Yankee owner George Steinbrenner offered him an announcing job with the team. Bobby Murcer has been in the booth ever since, now working Yankee games for their YES Network, his self denigrating humor a staple of the summertime in the Bronx.. He never put up Mantle-type stats, but he did hit 252 home runs with over a thousand runs batted in, numbers that would have been considerably higher had he stayed in New York for the four and a half years he "lost" in the National League. But Bobby Murcer has no regrets, nor should he, as no Yankee as been so well liked by the fans as the former shortstop from Oklahoma, who once won a game for his friend with two swings of his bat.