By Pete Williams

I grew up a huge fan of Dale Murphy, the center fielder for the 1980s Atlanta Braves. On Friday night, Murphy was the featured speaker at a Hot Stove banquet on the campus of The Citadel in Charleston, S.C.

The school’s baseball program shares a ballpark with the Class A Chaleston RiverDogs, who co-hosted the banquet. The team’s president (Mike Veeck) and I wrote a business motivational book several years ago and Mike gave me one of my biggest professional thrills by allowing me to introduce Murphy. Here’s what I said:

I might not be here were it not for Dale Murphy. Back in 1993, I was covering my second spring training, for USA Today’s Baseball Weekly. And if you’ve ever been to spring training, you know it’s a laidback time of year. That’s also true for the players and media, who have had a five-month break from each other. Players generally are more open to talking.

Unfortunately, one morning in the Phillies camp in Clearwater, I approached the wrong guy, an intense third baseman named Dave Hollins. It was still two hours before gametime and I asked Hollins if he had a minute. He glared at me, bat in hand, and told me where I could stick my tape recorder. I should add that tape recorders back then were much larger than today’s sleeker digital models.

Before this could escalate, Dale Murphy appeared out of nowhere, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Isn’t it time for us to talk?” There was no pre-arranged interview, of course, and Murph’s gesture may have saved my life. So on behalf of my wife and sons, Murph, I want to say ‘thank you.’

As I kid I’d often hear men of my father’s age talk in reverential terms about Mickey Mantle. They’d bring him up to refer to a more innocent time in baseball, a more innocent time in America. As a kid, I could never relate to those feelings.

My dad wasn’t a Mantle fan but he did grow up in New York – a fan of Gil Hodges, the classy first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1977, we were living in Richmond, Virginia, and Dad took me to my first baseball game, featuring the R-Braves at Parker Field. And there must have been something about a 21-year-old Braves catcher that reminded my dad of Gil Hodges because Dad handed me a pen along with this baseball (holding up ball) and pointed me in the direction of Dale Murphy.

The following season, the man known as The Murph made it to Atlanta for good and there he became the first star of cable television. These were memorable years for Braves owner Ted Turner, who launched TBS and CNN, won the America’s Cup, and was smart enough to send his sons to school here at The Citadel.

But for all of Ted’s success, he struggled with baseball. Within a three-year span, he fired two young managers by the names of Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.

I wonder whatever happened to those guys.

Murph played parts of 18 seasons in the Majors, but only one of his teams reached the playoffs and only three posted winning records. Back then, some Braves fans thought WTBS stood for Where the Braves Struggle.

The exception, of course, was Dale Murphy. He won a pair of National League MVP Awards, five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers and played in seven All-Star Games. He was one of the first members of the 30/30 club and hit 398 home runs back when that still was a huge number AND an honest accomplishment.

He played in 740 consecutive games before the streak was broken in 1986. The guy in second place at the time? Somebody by the name of Ripken.

But those numbers don’t begin to tell the story. Murph won baseball’s two most prestigious awards for community service – The Roberto Clemente and Lou Gehrig Awards – and also was honored with a share of Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year Award.

He set an unofficial Major League record for autographs, which is especially impressive considering he signs with his non-throwing hand. He served as a clean-living role model for a generation of us who grew up watching TBS. He did not smoke, drink, or swear and his only vice appeared to be eating lots of ice cream.

His teammates admired Murphy for his clean living philosophies, though not many shared them. Not long after The Murph was traded to the Phillies, John Kruk was asked to characterize the clubhouse. “It’s simple,” Kruk said. “We’re have twenty-four morons…and a Mormon.”

Like many kids, I wore Murphy’s Number 3 in Little League. Most of us never played beyond high school. Others, like Alex Rodriguez, made it a little further.

Watching The Murph on TV in the ‘80s, he seemed like a huge guy at 6-4 and 215 pounds. Watching that same footage today on ESPN Classic or The MLB Network, he seems almost skinny.

His career ended in 1993, the early days of the Steroid Era. At the time, his 398 home runs ranked among the top twenty-five all-time. Now, just 17 years later, it ranks forty-eighth.

In his second year on the Hall of Fame ballot, he received 23 percent of the vote. For some players, that’s been enough of a base to build upon to reach Cooperstown. Earlier this month, 10 years later, Murphy received less than 12 percent of the vote.

Three years ago, I actually got to see Murph become a Hall of Famer. It was the Ted Williams Hitters Hall of Fame, where Murph was inducted with Fred McGriff, another Braves slugger who did not use steroids.

But rather than campaign for Cooperstown or defend his numbers, Murph has spent his time doing more important work. He and his wife Nancy raised eight children. He oversaw Mormon missionary work in Boston and three years ago he launched the I Won’t Cheat Foundation, encouraging young people to avoid performance enhancing drugs.

At a time when many current and former players refuse to speak out against steroid use – If you believe Mark McGwire, they don’t make much difference anyway – Dale Murphy has campaigned against them. These days, steroid use is epidemic. We’ve grown accustomed to our sports figures cheating on and off the field, from baseball and football to cycling, track – even golf.

It’s tough to have a sports hero or even a sports role model but I’m glad mine has stood the test of time. He’s the same guy I got my first autograph from in 1977.

Even Mickey Mantle proved to be a tragic figure, though he redeemed himself later in life. ““Don’t be like me,” the Mick famously said.

As for me, I still want to be like Dale Murphy.

These days I find myself sounding a lot like those middle-aged guys who talked about Mantle when I was a kid. Like the previous generation, I find myself reminiscing about a more simple time in America, a more simple time in baseball. Now more than ever sports needs Dale Murphy.

Fortunately for us, we have him for this evening. Please join me in welcoming No.3 – Dale Murphy.

By Pete Williams

I’ve always been good with names and faces. It probably comes from collecting baseball cards as a kid, sorting thousands of cardboard photos by name and number. In school, I could hear the roll call on the first day of class and have everyone’s name down cold.

I don’t know if I’ve “monetized” this talent, as we say these days. As a sports journalist, it’s helped me keep the names of thousands of athletes straight. If nothing else I hope it’s saved me the embarrassment of forgetting a name on occasion.

It’s probably just another useless talent, like my encyclopedic knowledge of Richmond Braves baseball and Bob Seger songs.

I recently ran my AOL address book through Facebook, searching for lost friends and contacts. Since I’ve had AOL for 13 years, keeping it through the company’s demise and my move to broadband and a different primary e-mail address, there were hundreds of potential Facebook contacts. I sent friend requests to about two dozen.

One sent back an interesting note:

“Thank you for requesting that I link you as a friend. I’m feeling embarrassed to admit it, but to be honest, I’m having trouble recalling meeting you. It is my personal policy to link as on-line friends only those people that I already know face-to-face in real life. Could you please help me recall our meeting?”

He was right; we had never met in person. But we work in similar fields and have two dozen mutual Facebook friends. Somehow we’ve ended up on each other’s email newsletter lists. I find his newsletter interesting and since he’s never unsubscribed to mine, I assume he reads it on occasion. Since he was in my AOL address book, we must have exchanged personal email at least once over the last 13 years.

But, alas, no face-to-face meeting. I sent back a note summarizing the above and here was his reply:

“Oh, yes, Pete, I do know who you are, but that’s not the same as knowing you personally. We’ve each achieved some level of fame (or infamy) in our own (professional) circles, but since neither of us can recall even meeting one another, it would be too much of a stretch to call us “friends.” Therefore I will respectfully decline your request until we have spent some time getting to know one another face-to-face.”

Fair enough. People use Facebook differently. This guy seems to use Facebook the way many people, myself included, use LinkedIN, accepting only those people as contacts that we’ve done significant business with over the years.

There’s also the danger of stockpiling anonymous friends and creating a “page” that’s not useful for anyone. This is called MySpace.

Admittedly, this is an uncomfortable subject, sort of the professional version of that college quandry where you debate whether to say “hello” to someone in passing. (“Do they remember who I am?”)

But it got me thinking about “face-to-face” friendliness in the modern age. There are people we exchange dozens of e-mails with that we never meet in person. I’ve been a guest on certain radio shows many times and have never met the host or producer in person – even though I’ve spoken to them off air as well.

I’ve sent friend requests to people I’ve heard speak and met afterward, though they no doubt remember me from the flurry of handshakes and brief greetings. Does that count as “face to face?” What about the many people we meet briefly at trade shows and business gatherings?

I get friend requests from people I haven’t met face to face but am thrilled to receive since we have mutual friends and I could benefit professionally from getting to know them. Some are fellow triathletes, runners, or school alumni.

I’ve sent out more than a few of those friend requests, some of which have led to stories I’ve written, guests for my radio show, and helpful training advice.

I went through the first 50 names in my Facebook friends list and found that I had met 44 of them face to face. That’s 88 percent, a figure I thought would be lower. I’d be curious what the ratio is for people with thousands of Facebook friends. I imagine my LinkedIN number would be slightly higher, my Twitter much lower.

This isn’t to say the face-to-face policy of my would-be “friend” is wrong. It’s probably more common than not, though I’ve discovered that people with online platforms like his – or mine – generally are aggressive at building social networks

Then again, with privacy always a concern, it’s amazing so many of us share as much as we do, even with “friends.” There is no right policy for this, of course, other than to wish we could get more face time with our friends

By Pete Williams

Tony Dungy spoke to USF’s embattled football team Monday at the request of athletic director Doug Woolard.

You have to figure Woolard placed a call to Dungy last week and it went something like this:

“Coach, Doug Woolard here. I was wondering if you’d be willing to come speak to the football team.”

“Sure, happy to. How about 3 o’clock on Monday?”

“Great!…Um, while I have you, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in coaching the team?”

(Laughs) “No, but I appreciate the offer. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Alrighty then!”

Has there ever been a better fit for a football coaching vacancy? Right now, USF needs the exact opposite of Jim Leavitt. The school needs a gregarious, respected, accomplished, humble, people-person coach who, by the way, also is the man least likely in the entire coaching profession to strike a player.

They need a guy who can step in just weeks before signing day and retain all of the recruits Leavitt has landed and convince a few undecided blue chippers to come to USF. They need a guy with ties to Tampa who can start yesterday, a guy who can raise the profile of a commuter school, putting the geographically challenged South Florida on the map. They need a guy with the best record in Raymond James Stadium history, a guy who never coached in the building when it had empty seats.

They need a guy who would embrace the challenge of working with young people while delivering tough love to the knuckleheads who get in trouble off the field. They need a man so respected that he could land any job in the state – governor, U.S. Senator – but a man so modest he’d have no delusions of power like so many college coaches.

They need a man who could run a squeaky-clean program and not need to operate, like many BCS programs, in the shady underground of boosters, shoe company middlemen, and other charlatans to land players. They need a man who single-handedly could clean up college football.

They need a man who places family first, a coach who would attract assistants who know they will have to work hard, but not 100-hour weeks as they would for people like Leavitt.

Best of all, they need a man who is worth a $5 million annual salary who would be willing to give a hometown discount and work for the USF going rate of $2.5 million or so.

Is this idea so preposterous? Yes, Dungy retired from NFL coaching so he could spend more time in Tampa with his family. But his son, Eric, already is considering playing football at USF next fall. The Dungy family’s longtime home is only a 15-minute drive from the USF campus.

No matter what people like Urban Meyer say, coaching college is not as stressful and is less time-consuming than the NFL. Why else do college coaches routinely flop in the NFL? Steve Spurrier found he no longer could play golf four times a week in the NFL. Bobby Bowden, meanwhile, never let coaching get in the way of his afternoon nap.

Dungy would inherit a program in terrific shape. If he took the job this week, he could make a flurry of phone calls and end up with one of the better recruiting classes in the nation, if not the best. Who could possibly compete with Dungy on the recruiting front?

The worst part about college coaching is recruiting, but USF already gets 95 percent of its roster from the Sunshine State. Dungy no doubt could land recruits from around the country, but he’d find most of what he needs within a two-hour drive.

Other programs would suffer from Dungy’s presence. If Dungy joined USF, Jimbo Fisher might give the FSU job back to Bowden, Lane Kiffin would finally shut up, and Meyer might literally have a heart attack.

Dungy would not want to be perceived as one of those flip-flop coaches who retire to spend time with family only to resurface a year later. But would anyone blame him for taking the opportunity to coach his son just 15 minutes from home?

As Buccaneers coach, Dungy drove his kids to school and often was home for dinner. Heck, he’s probably going to spend as much time out of town as an NBC analyst than he would as a USF coach.

In recent years, the Big East has become a powerhouse. It owns Thursday nights and, not surprisingly, lands a lot of national recruits who watch the conference on ESPN. Yet, the Big East is wide open enough that Dungy could dominate quickly – and for a long time.

Imagine the staff Dungy could assemble. Herm Edwards finally could be a defensive coordinator, reprising the bad-cop, sergeant-at-arms role he played effectively for Dungy’s late ‘90s Buccaneers. Derrick Brooks could be linebackers coach, assuming he could get over working for a school other than his beloved Florida State. Heck, Lovie Smith might be available, if not this month than a year from now.

Tim Ruskell, the former Buccaneers assistant general manager, was just fired as president of the Seahawks. He’s a USF alum and looking for work.

Dungy could put the entire band back together!

On Monday, Dungy told USF players how the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl a year after making a coaching change. Just as Jon Gruden credited Dungy for putting all of the pieces in place, it’s easy to see Dungy winning a national title and thanking Leavitt.

Dungy is not a guy who would use a term like “unfinished business.” His legacy in Tampa is secure. Even though Gruden won the Super Bowl, Dungy is the Buccaneers most popular coach ever. But how cool would it be to dominate college football in the same stadium, bringing a national title to a town long overshadowed in the college ranks by Gainesville, Tallahassee and Coral Gables?

Dungy came to Tampa in 1996 at a time when Leavitt was preparing USF for the Bulls’ first-ever football season in 1997. Both performed sports miracles, with Dungy turning around the hapless Buccaneers and Leavitt taking a team from start-up to a No.2 BCS ranking in 2007.

As Dungy spoke to USF players on Monday, they had to be wondering what it might be like if he was there next coach. Dungy, who probably had never been in USF’s new football facilities, must have at least been intrigued.

Why not?

By Pete Williams

Some people like to drive around during the holidays and look at Christmas lights.

Not me. I decided to pay a trip to Derek Jeter’s new house. I had seen the photos taken by boat and helicopter but had to get a glimpse for myself.

It’s Ruthian. A 30,875 square foot colossus going up in Tampa’s Davis Islands section. The Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year paid $7.7 million for two adjacent lots and now is putting up one of the biggest homes in the Tampa Bay area.

It’s still under construction. At this point, it looks like small gray college. Jeter’s neighbors will include Vincent Lecavalier, who lives in a modest 7,636-foot home; and someone named David Wright who is not the Mets third baseman.

For the last decade or so, Jeter has lived in the gated Tampa community of Avila. It’s modeled after a walled Spanish city. Virtually every house in Avila is 5,000 square feet or more and it’s a popular place for sports figures. Warren Sapp, Jon Gruden, Tony Dungy, Fred McGriff, Lou Piniella, and Jorge Posada have called Avila home over the years.

A few years back, Jeter got tangled up with the IRS. The Feds took issue with Jeter claiming his Florida home, modest by Avila standards at just 4,493 square feet, as his primary residence and enjoying the tax benefits of the Sunshine State, which has no state income tax. After all, Jeter spends quite a bit of time in New York and traveling around the country with the Yankees.

Jeter, who paid $675,000 for the Avila home in 1997, settled with the IRS. Now he’s extending a middle finger to the Feds by building the type of permanent residence Jerry Jones would envy.

Unlike in Avila, not all of the folks in Jeter’s new neighborhood have mansions. Many of the waterfront homes, like Jeter’s, replaced smaller houses. But just two doors up the street from Jeter sits a 1,620 square foot bungalow built in 1959.

That home sold for $325,000 in October of 2007. Hillsborough County currently values it at $294,500, which might pay for the roof on Casa Jeter. Imagine having a home 20 times larger than yours going up two doors down. You’d feel like Ray Drecker in “Hung.”

Aside from the waterfront homes, the bungalow is typical of this well-maintained, tree-lined section of Davis Islands. Walk a block from the Jeter project along Bahama Drive, away from the army of contractors, and the neighborhood seems sleepy and private.

Still, Jeter has applied for a variance to get a six-foot privacy wall built. Paparazzi apparently will have to come by air and by sea.

When the house if finished, presumably late in 2010, the three biggest homes in the Tampa Bay area will be owned by Jeter, Hulk Hogan, and Matt Geiger.

That’s probably everything you need to know about the Tampa Bay area. Geiger, the 7-foot former NBA stiff who somehow once commanded a $48 million contract from the 76ers, has a 28,000 square foot compound near Tarpon Springs.

The house served as the home of John Travolta’s character in “The Punisher” and was for sale for $19.9 million in 2007. Hogan put his waterfront Clearwater home, which served as the set of “Hogan Knows Best” before his family fell apart, on the market recently.

Like Geiger, he’s found little market for homes in the ten-figure range.

With Geiger and the Hulkster apparently downsizing, it’s nice to see Jeter putting down more permanent roots, at least for tax purposes. He’d better enjoy it.

He won’t find a buyer anytime soon.

By Pete Williams

The Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the results of the 2010 voting on Wednesday. There’s nothing like a HOF vote to inspire passionate arguments.

I don’t have a vote. I worked just eight years as a full-time baseball writer, toiling for a weekly publication. Since votes only go to those who worked 10-plus years for daily publications, I live vicariously through my 1990s contemporaries who now have the honor of casting those precious ballots.

For the most part, I agree with the results. I’ve never understood, however, why Dale Murphy is virtually ignored. I understand the arguments against his candidacy. But for a player of his stature to only receive 10 to 12 percent of the vote a year? That makes no sense.

As Jayson Stark of ESPN points out, there might be no player who receives fewer votes in proportion to his career accomplishments than Murphy.

Jayson votes for Murphy each year, but as far as I can tell he’s one of few scribes who do so consistently. Heck, even in a good year Murph receives only about 60 of the 500 votes cast.

Admittedly, I’m biased. My family lived in Richmond, Virginia, in 1977 when Murphy was a Triple-A catcher for the R-Braves. I was 7 and he became my favorite player, long before he emerged as the first star of cable television, long before a generation of kids (including Alex Rodriguez) began wearing No.3 in Little League, long before Tom Glavine and John Smoltz ushered in a 15-year run of success in Atlanta that began a year after Murphy was traded to the Phillies.

There was no bigger star in baseball in the 1980s than Murphy. He won two National League MVP Awards, five Gold Gloves playing a premier defensive position (center field), and became one of baseball’s first 30/30 players. He appeared in seven All-Star Games, once as the leading vote-getter in all of baseball, and finished his career in 1993 with 398 home runs when that still was a lofty total.

He did it all while playing most of his career with wretched Atlanta Braves teams. How bad were the Braves? Ted Turner appointed himself manager for one game early in his tenure as owner and later fired Bobby Cox and Joe Torre within a four-year span. At one point in the early 1980s, the Braves demoted their entire infield to Triple-A. Some suggested TBS stood for “The Braves Stink.”

There wasn’t much difference between the A-Braves and R-Braves back then. With the exception of Murphy and Bob Horner (who refused a demotion), players shuttled between the cities constantly. I only saw five Major League games growing up. But I saw dozens of contests in Richmond featuring 4-A players.

Murphy played during baseball’s era of recreational drugs and finished his career at the start of the Steroid Era. A devout Mormon, he was the cleanest player in the game, refusing even to touch alcohol.

John Kruk, when asked to describe the Phillies not long after Murphy’s arrival, characterized them as “24 morons and a Mormon.”

Murphy won baseball’s two most prestigious character awards – the Roberto Clemente and Lou Gehrig Awards – and a share of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year honor. He played in 740 consecutive games from 1981 to 1986, leading Cal Ripken at the time it was broken, and had the misfortune of leaving the Braves and Phillies shortly before both reached the World Series.

At the time of his retirement, Murphy looked like a strong Hall of Fame candidate. Not a sure thing, of course, but the type of guy who could build some momentum over time and get in after perhaps a decade of waiting.

That decade has passed and Murphy is light years away. Why is that? If we’ve learned nothing else from the last decade, it’s that athletes – people – like Murphy are rare and unusual, their clean accomplishments and living to be appreciated for the rarities that they are.

Instead, Hall of Fame decisions generally turn on numbers, which is fine. But even in that limited context, those arguments don’t seem to measure up to the point where 87 to 90 percent of voters would not view Murphy as Cooperstown material.

HE PLAYED ON BAD TEAMS: If Murphy was such a great player, how come he played on just three winning teams in 18 seasons and only reached the playoffs once, with the 1982 Braves?

Perhaps it’s worth asking what numbers Murphy might have put up had he not played on the 1980s equivalent of the modern Pittsburgh Pirates. Or the 1998-2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Murphy played 2,180 games and not once did he appear in a lineup with a future Hall of Famer other than a pitcher. There can’t be many 18-year players who can make that claim, certainly not many Hall of Famers.

Heck, Murphy didn’t play with any Cooperstown-quality pitchers in their primes other than knuckleballer Phil Niekro. He played briefly with a 42-year-old Gaylord Perry, a washed-up Bruce Sutter and very young versions of Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Curt Schilling.

Only 11 of Murphy’s non-pitching teammates made a National League All-Star team during his 14 full seasons and they’re not exactly a murderers’ row: Biff Pocoroba, Jeff Burroughs, Gary Matthews, Bruce Benedict, Horner, Glenn Hubbard, Claudell Washington, Rafael Ramirez, Gerald Perry, Greg Olson, and Kruk.

Seven of those 11 made only one career All-Star appearance. Only Kruk (3) played in more than two.

Murphy played for arguably the two best managers of the last 30 years. Unfortunately, not even Cox and Torre had enough talent to win consistently in Atlanta.

It’s tough to come up with a premier slugger of the last three decades who had as little protection in the lineup as Murphy, let alone so few table setters in front of him.

Consider three comparable players to Murphy: recent Cooperstown inductees Jim Rice and Tony Perez, and Andre Dawson, who is knocking on the door.

Rice played much of his career with Carlton Fisk and Carl Yastrzemski, along with Fred Lynn and Dwight Evans. Dawson played in an Expos lineup with Hall of Famer Gary Carter and should-be Hall of Famer Tim Raines. Perez had Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, and the rest of the Big Red Machine.

Nothing against Rick Cerone, Ken Oberkfell, and Andres Thomas, but they weren’t exactly Bench, Morgan, and Rose.

BUT HE DIDN’T HIT FOR AVERAGE: The biggest knock on Murphy’s resume has long been his .265 career batting average. Nobody seems to discount this, even in recent years as the emphasis has shifted to on-base percentage and OPS as more telling barometers of a player’s value.

Murphy led the N.L. in OPS in 1983, finished second three times, and had two other top-seven performances. His career OPS of .815 is higher than that of Dawson (.806) or Perez (.804).

In 1985, a year in which the Braves won just 66 games and finished 10th among 12 N.L. teams in runs scored, Murphy led the league in homers, runs scored and walks, finished second in OPS and RBI, and won a Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, and Lou Gehrig Award.

This was arguably his best season, but not one of his two MVP years. With the Braves finishing fifth in the N.L. West, Murphy finished seventh in the MVP vote. (The top six played for teams that finished first or second.) He also hit an even .300, one of his two .300 seasons.

It’s tough to think of a player since who have compiled such single-season credentials for a bad club – and few who have done so on good teams.

BUT HE WASN’T GREAT LONG ENOUGH: The Steroid Era conditioned fans to expect sluggers to keep going strong well into their late 30s. Before steroids, it was highly unusual for outfielders to play beyond the age of 35, let alone put up big numbers.

That’s why Murphy’s decline, expedited by knee injuries, should be measured against his era. At 31, during the live ball 1987 season, he hit a career-high 44 homers. In 1988 at 32, he dropped to 24, the first of five seasons in the 20-homer, 75 RBI range. He played in just 44 games after his 36th birthday.

Though Murphy did not play most of his home games on artificial turf like Dawson did, he patrolled outfields during an era in which half of the N.L. had AstroTurf. Even those with natural grass were not maintained like their modern manicured counterparts.

Rice, Dawson, and Perez all benefited from stints, albeit brief ones, at DH late in their careers. That helped Dawson extend his career to 41 and give him an edge over Murphy in some career categories. Murphy, a career N.L. player, never had that option.

HIS NUMBERS FALL SHORT: At the time of his retirement in 1993, Murphy’s 398 homers ranked third among those not in Cooperstown behind Dave Kingman and Darrell Evans. With power numbers soaring over the next decade in the Steroid Era, Murphy’s 398 homers looked like a lesser achievement.

Murphy’s numbers are bulletproof. He did not consume alcohol and, presumably, like many Mormons, did not use caffeine. His contemporaries relied on amphetamines and even today’s players, weaned from ephedra, pound energy drinks and receive dubious prescriptions for ADHD medication.

Like most players of his era, Murphy did not lift weights or worry about things like “post-workout recovery.” At 6-5 and a lean 215 pounds, he looked huge at the time but now appears spindly when you see him on MLB Network broadcasts from the ‘80s.

One of Murphy’s sons is a practice squad player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Shawn Murphy is a 6-4 offensive tackle who weighs 100 pounds more than his father did professionally.

Dale Murphy never would have touched fringe products like nutritional supplements, even legal ones. But imagine what he might have done with a modern conditioning and nutrition program? If nothing else, he likely would have milked those knees for another productive year or two.

Such “what ifs?” have no place in a Cooperstown debate. But they belong in a discussion about the era in which he played.

LACK OF VOTING MOMENTUM – Murphy was first eligible for Cooperstown in 1999, along with fellow first timers Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Robin Yount, and Carlton Fisk.

It ranked among the most impressive first-time classes ever and no doubt hurt Murphy’s initial vote count. Like a low ranking in a pre-season college football poll, it’s tough to overcome.

Murphy appeared on 96 of 497 ballots (19.3 percent) in 1999. Other vote totals that year included Sutter (24.3 percent), Rice (29.4), Gary Carter (33.8), and Bert Blyleven (17.4).

In 2000, Murphy topped out with 116 of 499 votes cast (23.2 percent). With Ryan, Brett, and Yount off the ballot – and Perez and Fisk elected – momentum began to build for Rice, Carter, and Sutter, all of whom eventually would be elected.

Even as Sutter, Rice, Carter, Dawson, Blyleven and others built momentum toward Cooperstown, Murphy’s vote totals dropped, hitting 8.5 percent in 2004 before a slight rebound in 2008 to 13.8 percent.

Why did Murphy not experience a similar jump? None of them played any additional games.

It could be that unlike Rice, Carter, Dawson, and Blyleven, Murphy has not worked for a team or as a broadcaster. He’s off the radar screen.

Carter quietly lobbied for his own cause and Blyleven has become a favorite in the blogosphere. Rice benefited from having a longtime Red Sox publicist peppering Hall voters with stat-driven fodder and the higher profile of Red Sox Nation since the Reverse-the-Curse season of 2004.

Murphy, meanwhile, has pretty much stayed away from the game aside from an appearance at the 2000 All-Star Game in Atlanta as an honorary captain and emerging in 2007 to speak out against steroid use.

He spent three years in Boston overseeing Mormon mission operations, raised eight kids with wife Nancy, and lives far away from baseball in Utah, where he briefly contemplated a run for governor on the Republican ticket in 2004.

In 2007, Murphy and Fred McGriff were inducted into Ted Williams Hitters Hall of Fame, which since the death of its namesake had moved into Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays.

Asked about Cooperstown, Murphy said it’s nice to be considered and that he doesn’t give it much thought except for the annual questions he receives at election time.

At the time of the Williams event, it seemed as if McGriff and Murphy would go down as the two greatest sluggers (non-steroid division) never to reach Cooperstown.

If I had a vote, I’d also check McGriff’s name. He hit 493 home runs but my favorite stat of his is that he never played for a losing team until the Braves traded him to the expansion Devil Rays following the 1997 season. He was 34.

If Murphy is going to be penalized for playing for bad teams and lacking career longevity, McGriff can’t be penalized for playing on good teams and putting up consistent numbers over a long career. It has to be one or the other.

It should be both.

As for Murphy, it’s time to appreciate his accomplishments and there’s no need to weigh them in terms of the era in which he played. Yes, hitting 398 home runs from 1976-93 is a huge feat. But if we weigh his accomplishments and character against the last decade, his candidacy looks even stronger.

Each year, the Baseball Hall of Fame sends voters a letter with the following instructions:

“Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.”

Some writers have suggested that clause no longer is valid in light of the Steroid Era. After all, how do we know who has truly lived up those standards of “integrity” and “character.”

The answer is we don’t. But is there anyone whose career has lived up to those standards and met the qualifications more than Dale Murphy?

By Pete Williams

It’s not as taboo of a discussion subject as sex or salary.

But I’m guessing most of us would be embarrassed to admit how few books we read.

In 2008, I kept track for the first time. I decided I would not count fitness books, which I read for review purposes and for my radio show. They tend to be short and I usually skim the workout photos and charts.

I also did not count children’s books. There’s nothing more important than reading to your kids and I’m proud to say I rarely miss a night of that. But such books, no matter how many, tend to be short.

I also did not count books I skimmed, read a few chapters online, or did not finish. Nor did I count technology-related books I read for instructional purposes or any books read for my own book research.

My 2008 reading total: 14 books.

That’s pathetic and embarrassing, especially for someone who writes books. How can I complain that more people don’t purchase and read my books when I’m no bookworm myself?

I didn’t set a goal for 2009 and perhaps that was my first mistake. I’m proud that I read the entire seven-book Harry Potter series aloud to my son Luke and decided that should count toward my total.

Still, even counting the J.K. Rowling saga, I managed only 26 books in 2009 – or just one every two weeks. Not counting Rowling, I finished only 19 books, just five more than in 2008.

That’s unacceptable, a lousy example to set as a father and a writer. That’s why I’ve set a goal of reading 52 books for 2010. After all, people far busier than I am manage to average a book a week. There’s plenty of compelling, fascinating material to read.

At least 80 percent of my reading must be non-fiction and non-sports. The other 20 percent can be anything.

Like any goal, it’s important to put it in writing, state it publicly, and hold myself accountable. So there it is: 52 books by New Year’s Eve.