Baseball Roundtable is proud to present a guest post – for the BBRT Why I Love Baseball page – from John Michael Murphy – for whom baseball has been a combination of line drives and life lessons.

Line Drives

Murphy was selected by the New York Yankees in the sixth round of the 2013 First-Year Player Draft out of Sacred Heart University (SHU) – the highest MLB draft pick in the history of the SHU baseball program.  His collegiate honors include all conference, all region, and All American awards. Murphy led the SHU Pioneers to four Northeast Conference (NEC) championship games, culminating in NEC titles in 2011 and 2012.  As senior team captain, Murphy led SHU in batting average (.367) slugging (.565), on base percentage (.442), doubles (13), home runs (4), walks (26), and stolen bases (29). Murphy also stroked plenty of line drives in the renowned Cape Cod League, where he batted .308 with four homers, 16 RBIs and six stolen bases in 104 at-bats – making the All-Star Game before a hamstring injury cut his season short.

Life Lessons

Murphy took what he learned on the baseball field to heart, and you can read about the life lessons he garnered from the national pastime in his guest post.

Murph’s Laws of Baseball (Murphslaws.com)

Murphy has now launched a website – Murph’s Laws of Baseball – dedicated to sharing what he’s learned about baseball’s line drives and life lessons.  Here’s how he describes it:

With a pro career coming to an end, I look forward to passing on the information I’ve gained over the years that have allowed me to be successful on my journey of baseball and life. Through drills, articles, and swing analyses from a professional level, I am excited to further baseball fanatics’ knowledge of the game.

Want to learn more?  Click here to visit Murphy’s site.  Want a look at how Murphy analyzes the hitting stroke?  Click here for his guest post on the Be A Better Hitter website.  Now, for a look at baseball’s life lessons, read on.

 

Why I Love Baseball – Line Drives and Life Lessons

By John Michael Murphy

Throughout my years of playing baseball at the Little League through professional levels, I learned many different life lessons.  Baseball has taught me about character, responsibility, work ethic, and the value of maintaining dedication to a goal. If I hadn’t played the sport I love for the last 20 years of my life, I don’t know where my life would be today.

A commitment to going about my business the right way – both on and off the field – is something I will always have with me as a result of playing this game. Being respectful to everyone on field, in the dugout, or in the crowd not only reflected my respect for the game, but also helped me form positive habits and attitudes related to how I treat those outside the game. Having respect for the world and people around us is something that is lost in today’s society. We tend to be selfish and care about things that are only beneficial to ourselves. The way we think and behave determines our character. By playing the game of baseball, I learned to behave in a respectful manner – ensuring I would not embarrass myself, my team and coaches and, most important, my family.

Baseball, particularly at the collegiate level, also taught me a lot about time management, setting priorities and following through.  Managing responsibilities and priorities in collegiate athletics is a challenging task.  Having class all morning, going to team workouts, going to practice, back to class, then finishing work and studying will force you to develop good habits. The time management skills I  developed  – going from freshman year where I struggled with the process, to senior year, where I didn’t have to think twice about where I would be at any hour of the day –  have served me well.  Being able to balance tasks and set priorities makes my everyday life easier and I have baseball to thank for that.

Baseball also taught me a lot about setting, and keeping your eyes on, important goals.  Having and sustaining the motivation necessary to reach a goal is what creates successful individuals. Baseball motivated me more than I could ever imagine. Once I was able to realize my ability, my goal setting never stopped. In high school, my goals went from making varsity to playing Division 1 baseball. Once those goals were achieved, my targets were elevated, progressing into wanting to start as a freshman in college to playing professional baseball. By setting those goals and letting nothing come between me and the process of achieving them, I allowed myself to realize that success, in any task, is achievable if your work ethic, mindset, and actions are all goal-based.

Along the ride, I have made some of the most amazing relationships. I have met and made best friends who will always be a part of my life, no matter where we end up. Meeting those coaches and players, learning how to manage my days, how to work towards goals, and how to handle myself in a professional manner are all part of who I am today – and why I love baseball.

BBRT presents a guest post from journalist/author Larry LaRue.

BBRT is pleased to bring you a guest post from veteran journalist/sportswriter Larry LaRue, author of the entertaining book Major League Encounters,  a compilation of 100 vignettes over 255 pages that gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at what drives the men – and boys – who earn the rare opportunity to play our national past time  at its highest level.  (See BBRT’s review, posted August 30, for more detail.   Major League Encounters is available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.  BBRT thanks LaRue for his contribution – especially the very appropriate tale (since this is a post for BBRT’s Why I Love Baseball section) on how he witnessed the no-hitter on which the Kevin Costner’s film “For the Love of the Game” is based.

Why I Love Baseball

By Larry LaRue

For BaseBallRoundTable.com

I’ve loved the game my entire life and 33 years ago was given the opportunity to cover it professionally. What I learned from and about the men who play, manage and coach the game only deepened my affection for baseball.  All of us who played the game learned somewhere along the line how difficult it was to be as good as the best on our teams. It was no different in the majors.

In the spring of 1988, Ken Griffey Jr. was in camp with the Seattle Mariners and his natural ability was astonishing.  He was having a great spring until he faced Oakland’s Dave Stewart, and Stewart made him look foolish at the plate.  After a second strike out, Griffey went to hitting coach Gene Clines.

“What is that pitch?” he asked.
“That’s a split-fingered fastball,” Clines said.
“Why does he keep throwing it in the dirt?”
“Because you keep swinging at it.”

Griffey considered that, took it to heart. He committed the pitch to memory, swore he would make Stewart throw it for a strike. When the regular season opened, rookie Griffey faced veteran Stewart in the Kingdome for the Mariners home opener.  Stewart got ahead in the count, threw Junior a splittie.  Griffey hit it off the left field fence for a double.

For many of the 33 years I covered the game, I was in the press box of one ball park or another most nights all season. It was impossible not to see the physical toll a 162-game season took on the men who played it.  By the All-Star break, every pitcher was at less than 100 per cent.  So were most hitters. There are strains, aches and minor injuries that are largely ignored day after day after day.

The game isn’t played by supermen. Those who succeed, however, do so because – like all of us growing up playing once or twice a week – they love to be on a diamond.

Being around players meant appreciating their devotion to a game, and understanding it was for the most selfish of reasons. They could not imagine enjoying any thing in life more than playing baseball well.

Cal Ripken Jr. considered his consecutive games streak little more than a man showing up for work every day. He did it because he loved the game, yes, but he also did it because he felt an obligation to teammates and the franchise.  He’d signed on to play baseball. Unless there was someone on the team better than he was at what he did, the team was at its best when he played.

The more I learned about the game – and I often learned it from old-school managers like Gene Mauch and Dick Williams, who didn’t mind pointing out what I didn’t know – the better it got.

Seeing a pitcher set up a hitter in the first inning for what he might need to do late in the game, knowing what hitters looked for in certain counts … the complexity of the game was fascinating.

More than anything, though, knowing the men who played the game made watching it all the more gripping.

On May 14, 1996, I watched Dwight Gooden throw a no-hitter for a New York Yankees team he’d barely made. Starting because someone else couldn’t, he was a shell of the pitcher he’d been when he burst upon the game.

That night, however, Gooden pitched on heart and grit and the desire players never lose no matter what their ability. By the seventh inning, he had nothing left but a curveball. By the eighth inning, he’d thrown 110 pitches. In the ninth, he passed 120 pitches, then 130.  On the 135th pitch of the game, Gooden completed a no-hitter. Kevin Costner’s film, ‘For Love of the Game,’ was based on Gooden’s performance.

For Gooden that night, the game was about redemption.

Baseball has never been only about athletic ability. The drama each season provides goes beyond wins and losses and gives those who follow it comedy and melodrama, delight and torment.

The best players fail, not just at the plate or in the field, but occasionally in life. Unknowns fill in and become stars.  Bodies break down, teams that are great in May flounder in July.  The game is never scripted and as a writer, I couldn’t have created more moving stories.

I watched Nolan Ryan throw his last big-league pitch, a ball with nothing on it, and walk off the mound and the field for the final time as a pitcher.  He’d thrown a million fastballs by then, set records and left his mark, but Ryan knew his right arm. What hurt that night was, he knew, the end.

“I’ve thrown my last pitch,” he said afterward, without tears.

I consider myself fortunate to have known men like Ryan, Reggie Jackson, Bret Boone, Griffey, Fred Lynn, Ripken, Bruce Kison, Jay Buhner … and countless others who gave me their time, shared their stories.

Professionally, I’ve now covered my last baseball game.  I’ve been shifted back to news, where my career began, as a columnist.

Yes, I love the game of baseball, and the young players like Mike Trout, Kyle Seager, Chris Sales. I will miss covering the sport and the men who keep it alive.  Players like Ryan and Ripken, however, showed how to walk away with dignity that reflected well on them and their game.  No tears here.

I still love the game.