Talk:Dale Murphy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ] | ||
Hey, so, can anyone verify that "disabled girl" story? It's a famous story about Babe Ruth -- I find it kind of hard to believe that Dale Murphy did the exact same thing. -- ESP 14:58 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- I did a little googling and found this: http://lekotekga.org/lekotalk/may03.htm
There are lots of links pointing to sites telling the same story about the same girl. I find it hard to believe that all of these people, some of whom are actual charity organizations, would be making this up, especially long after Dale Murphy has left the city. Thunderbunny 04:47, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)
http://users.aol.com/brave3/murphy.htm On June 12, 1983 Dale visited a 6-year old girl in the stands who had lost both arms and a leg in a power line accident. The girl's nurse asked Murphy if he would hit a home run for the girl. Flustered as he was, Dale could only mumble "Well, O.K." That night he hit not one but two home runs and drove in all three runs in a 3-2 Braves victory.
Here is the box score from the game: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=198306120ATL
[edit] Hall of Fame (moved from article)
{{SectOR}}
Despite his career accomplishments, Murphy has become a highly debated candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
| Year | Votes | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| 96 | 19.32 | |
| 116 | 23.25 | |
| 93 | 18.06 | |
| 70 | 14.83 | |
| 58 | 11.69 | |
| 43 | 8.50 | |
| 54 | 10.46 |
In order to be elected to the Hall, a candidate must receive votes on seventy-five percent (75%) of the ballots cast in any given year. The adjoining table shows the number and percentage of votes that Murphy has received each year since he became eligible in 1999.
He will remain on the ballot as long as he appears on a minimum of five percent (5%) of the ballots cast in the preceding election, but at this point Murphy's chances of election appear slim.
Various reasons given for this failure include the lack of success of the teams Murphy played on, and his decidedly mediocre performance in the later part of his career. Murphy's performance suddenly tailed off after the age of 31, and he finished his career with four below-average seasons and two seasons as a bench player.
His career numbers have also been overshadowed by the explosion in offense in the 10-year period just after Murphy's retirement (1993-2002). For example, there have been 50 home runs hit in a season 30 times in the history of baseball: 18 times between 1921-1990 and 12 times between 1995 and 2000. Many believe the general inflation in hitting statistics since the time of Murphy's retirement to the abuse of drugs such as androstenedione and steroids. Perhaps the prevalence of such drug use may cause the Hall of Fame voters to re-evaluate statistics of players such as Dale Murphy and contemporary stars such as Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, and Jim Rice. However, few outfielders with career totals comparable to Murphy before 1993 have made the Hall of Fame. According to Baseball Reference, only one of the ten players with career numbers most similar to Murphy's is in the Hall of Fame (Duke Snider). This of course does not account for how Murphy compares to his contemporaries, how he compares to these other ten (four of whom played significant amounts of time during the recent statistical binge period), or take into account the accolades above mentioned. The debate may be summarized as a question about whether it is more impressive to accumulate large statistical totals or to exhibit dominance over one's contemporaries. The former standard would be much harsher on Murphy while the latter would strongly suggest he be inducted to the Hall of Fame.
