Eddie Murray

For other people named Eddie Murray, see Eddie Murray (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Eddie Murphy.
Eddie Murray

Eddie Murray in 2007.
First baseman / Designated hitter
Born: (1956-02-24) February 24, 1956
Los Angeles, California
Batted: Switch Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 7, 1977, for the Baltimore Orioles
Last MLB appearance
September 20, 1997, for the Los Angeles Dodgers
MLB statistics
Batting average .287
Hits 3,255
Home runs 504
Runs batted in 1,917
Teams
Career highlights and awards
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Inducted 2003
Vote 85.3% (first ballot)

Eddie Clarence Murray (born February 24, 1956), nicknamed "Steady Eddie", is a former Major League Baseball (MLB) first baseman and designated hitter. Spending most of his MLB career with the Baltimore Orioles, he ranks fourth in team history in both games played and hits. Though Murray never won a Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, he finished in the top ten in MVP voting several times. After his playing career, Murray coached for the Orioles, Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Dodgers.

He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003.[1] In the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2010), Murray is described as the fifth-best first baseman in major league history. He was 77th on the list of the Baseball's 100 Greatest Players by The Sporting News (1998).

Early life

Murray was the eighth child of twelve and still has five sisters and four brothers. He has often quipped that as a child he did not have to go far for a pick-up baseball game. The games were quite fierce and his older brothers never let him win.[2] Murray played Little League baseball under coach Clifford Prelow, an ex-Dodger minor leaguer. (In his Hall of Fame induction speech, Murray thanked Prelow for teaching him not just the game of baseball, but love for the game as well.)[3] Prelow remembers that young Murray was a well behaved player.[4] Murray attended Locke High School in Los Angeles, where he batted .500 as a senior and was a teammate of Ozzie Smith.

Playing career

Baltimore Orioles

Murray was selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the third round of the 1973 amateur draft and had several successful seasons in the minor leagues. He debuted at the major league level on April 7, 1977 and played in 160 games for the Orioles in his first season. He won the American League Rookie of the Year award by batting .283, hitting 27 home runs and contributing 88 RBI.

With the Orioles from 1977 until 1988, Murray averaged 28 home runs and 99 RBI and was a perennial candidate for the MVP award, twice finishing second in the voting. His best season was 1983, when he hit .306/.393/.538 with 110 RBI and a career-high 33 home runs; though a spectacular season, he finished second in the MVP voting. The Orioles also appeared in the post-season twice, in 1979 and 1983, and won the World Series in 1983. He won the Gold Glove Award three consecutive times from 1982 to 1984. Murray's close-knit friendship with fellow Oriole Cal Ripken, Jr. was highly publicized in Baltimore at the time.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Murray was traded on December 4, 1988 to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Juan Bell, Brian Holton, and Ken Howell and had three successful seasons with the Dodgers, knocking in 88, 95, and 96 runs. In 1990, Murray led the Major Leagues in hitting, but failed to win the National League batting crown; that went to Willie McGee, who already had enough plate appearances to qualify for it when he was traded from the National League's St. Louis Cardinals to the American League's Oakland A's. McGee won the NL batting crown with a .335 average, but hit only .274 the rest of the season in Oakland, for a season average of .324, .006 lower than Murray's major league leading .330 average.

New York Mets

Prior to the 1992 season, Murray signed a two-year deal with the New York Mets. Murray was one of several acquisitions the Mets made (including Bobby Bonilla, Willie Randolph, and Bret Saberhagen) to try to regain their winning ways. However, in Murray's two years with the team they finished with 90 and 103 losses, respectively. Murray hit his 400th career home run with the Mets early in the 1992 season and finished with 16 for the season, while driving in 93 runs and hitting .265.

Despite the team's struggles in 1993, Murray hit 27 home runs to finish behind Bonilla for the team lead. Murray was one of three Mets to hit twenty or more home runs that year, with Bonilla hitting 34 and Jeff Kent hitting 20. Murray also led the team in RBI with 100. This was the last time in his career that Murray hit the 100 RBI mark.

Cleveland Indians

Murray reached the 3,000-hit plateau as an Indian on June 30, 1995 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome with a single to right field off Minnesota Twins pitcher Mike Trombley. In the 1995 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves, Murray won Game 3 with a single in the bottom of the eleventh inning off of Alejandro Peña to score Álvaro Espinoza. The hit made the series 2–1, in favor of Atlanta. The Indians traded Murray back to Baltimore on July 21, 1996 for pitcher Kent Merker.[5]

1996–1997

From 1996 to 1997, Murray played for several teams, including the Cleveland Indians (1994–96), the Baltimore Orioles (1996), the Anaheim Angels (1997) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (1997). Although he no longer possessed the presence at the plate he had had in the 1980s, he was a valued and still consistent contributor for these teams. On September 6, 1996, he hit his 500th career home run—fittingly, the home run came as a member of the Orioles, and also came exactly one year to the day that Ripken had broken Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive games played. He retired after the 1997 season with 504 home runs; as of 2011, Mickey Mantle is the only switch-hitter who has hit more home runs (536). Murray hit a home run from both sides of the plate in 11 games; he retired tied with Chili Davis for first place in this category. This co-record has since been broken by Mark Teixeira.

Coaching career

Murray served as the hitting coach for the Cleveland Indians from 2002 to 2005. He was with the Indians when inducted into the Hall of Fame.

On June 14, 2007, Murray was fired as hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers had just come off a three-game sweep of the New York Mets and had produced 31 hits and 18 runs. Former Dodger player Bill Mueller was named as interim replacement.

Outside of baseball

In the late 1980s, Murray made a generous donation to the Baltimore City Parks and Recreation Department. This donation led to the establishment of the Carrie Murray Nature Center, named after Murray's late mother. In 2008, Murray released a charity wine called Eddie Murray 504 Cabernet, a nod to his 504 career home runs, with all of his proceeds donated to the Baltimore Community Foundation.

On August 17, 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Murray with insider trading. The SEC alleged, in a civil claim, that Murray had "made approximately $235,314 in illegal profits after Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories Inc. publicly announced its plan to purchase Advanced Medical Optics through a tender offer."[6] Specifically, the SEC alleged that Murray had received a "tip" about the impending purchase offer before the offer was publicly announced, bought stock in Advanced Medical Optics because of the tip, and then sold the stock for the profits after the stock increased in value after Abbott Laboratories' plans were publicly announced.[7] According to the SEC, Murray received the tip from former Baltimore Orioles teammate Doug DeCinces, with whom he remained close friends after their playing careers ended. One year earlier, DeCinces had agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle the SEC's civil insider trading charges against him in the same case.[8][9] Murray agreed to settle the SEC's civil charges by paying a total of $358,151, without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.[10][11]

Legacy

4 of the 300 inner city kids who came for #33's induction

In 1998, he ranked number 77 on The Sporting News list of Baseball's 100 Greatest Players,[12] and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Murray was the third player in history to reach 500 home runs and 3,000 hits Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were the first two.[13]

On Sunday, July 27, 2003, Murray, along with Gary Carter, was inducted into major league baseball's Hall of Fame.[2] More than 30,000 people heard Murray talk about how hard it was to get to the Hall of Fame. He said that he was never about one person, but about the team. He thanked the "sea of black and orange" in the crowd and then pointed to the kids farthest in the back; (more than 300 inner-city little leaguers had come from Baltimore's Northwood Baseball League) and told them that one day "they would be here too".[14]

Murray was named the fifth best first baseman in major league history in the New Bill James Historical Abstract (2010).[15]

A bronze statue of Eddie Murray's left-handed hitting stance was unveiled at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on August 11, 2012.

Career stats – regular season

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG TB
3,026 11,336 1,627 3,255 560 35 504 1,917 110 43 1,333 1,516 .287 .359 .476 5,397

Accomplishments

Eddie Murray's number 33 was retired by the Baltimore Orioles in 1998.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Eddie Murray Statistics". baseball-reference.com. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  2. 1 2 "2003 Hall of Fame Inductions". MLB.com. 2003. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  3. ↑ "Excerpts from Eddie Murray's speech". The Baltimore Sun. July 27, 2003. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  4. ↑ Klingaman, Mike (July 27, 2003). "From start, kid had clout". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  5. ↑ "BASEBALL;Murray Traded To the Orioles". The New York Times. 1996-07-22. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-14.
  6. ↑ SEC Litigation Release No. 22451, from the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (August 17, 2012). Retrieved on August 23, 2012.
  7. ↑ Id.
  8. ↑ Id.
  9. ↑ SEC Litigation Release No. 22062 (August 4, 2011). Retrieved on August 23, 2012.
  10. ↑ SEC Litigation Release No. 22451, supra.
  11. ↑ Jones, Ashby. "Hall-of-Famer Eddie Murray Hit With, Settles, Insider-Trading Charges". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
  12. ↑ Baseball's 100 Greatest Players. Baseball Almanac. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
  13. ↑ "Eddie Murray". Baseball Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2016-01-14.
  14. ↑ Singer, Tom. "Murray lets down the wall at Hall". MLB.com. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  15. ↑ James, Bill (2010). The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Simon & Schuster. p. 434. ISBN 1439106932.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eddie Murray.
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Andy Etchebarren		 Baltimore Orioles Bench Coach
1998–1999 		Succeeded by
Jeff Newman
Preceded by
Marv Foley		 Baltimore Orioles First Base Coach
2000–2001 		Succeeded by
Rick Dempsey
Preceded by
Clarence Jones		 Cleveland Indians Hitting Coach
2002–2005 		Succeeded by
Derek Shelton
Preceded by
Tim Wallach		 Los Angeles Dodgers Hitting Coach
2006–2007 		Succeeded by
Bill Mueller
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