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?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Sports Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.