Posts filed under 'all-star game'
EARLY WEDNESDAY RANTS AND RAVES
So I just turned off the TV set, after watching what was the longest All-Star Game in MLB history. This 15-inning epic saw the American and National leagues having and being thwarted chance after chance due to brilliant defensive plays. In the end, after over four hours of record action, the AL prevailed on a sacrifice fly.
Better than watching an All-Star game last so many innings (the only other All-Star Game to go fifteen frames was in 1967 – 2-1 NL in Anaheim on a Tony Perez home run) was that the game was played at Yankee Stadium, home to so many memories (Don Larson’s 1956 perfect game, Reggie Jackson’s three home runs in the sixth game of the 1977 World Series, and so on).
It was only appropriate that Yankee Stadium would be the setting to this extrodinary event. Not that the Stadium at the Bronx is as revered as Madison Square Garden, but that only days before one great member of the Yankee family, Bobby Murcer, passed away from a malignant brain tumor. Murcer, a longtime Yankee, who took an offer $10,000 less than another club to play alongside his boyhood idol and fellow Oklahoman Mickey Mantle, was a favorite to his fans. Though he failed to fulfill the media’s expectations of him being the next great Mantle, he will always be remembered as a true Yankee captain.
But of all the memories Bobby Murcer left Yankee fans with none will be more inspiring than that one day in August 1979, when he first did a eulogy for the team’s fallen catcher Thurman Munson, then drove in five runs at Yankee Stadium against a really tough Baltimore Orioles team on national television.
Not to be too light on someone’s death, if God was a manager of a baseball team in need of a pinch hitter I honestly feel he sent Murcer up to bat to send one into the seats where all the beatuiful angels were seated. And there Bobby Murcer was at home plate, getting a high five as he crossed home plate by someone named Mickey. Yeah, that’s my take on Bobby Murcer going to Heaven. With a bat and glove and uniform in hand. And not to mention, a microphone if Phil Rizzuto wanted a backup for a “Holy Cow!” at the announcer’s booth.
Add comment July 16, 2008
