Football in too many places has become professional rasslin’ in shoulder pads with taunts, trash talking, posing, posturing and hitting after the whistle and out of bounds. Baseball sluggers stand and admire homers. NBA types dunk and glare, although they can’t make free throws.
It was all getting to be too much. These are not the sports or athletes of my youth. So, what to do to make it all better? I called Dale Murphy, the former Brave and poster boy for all that was and is good in sports. Murf, the perfect candidate for a milk commercial. Murf, who frowned and shook his head in disgust while teammates watched with yells of delight and pleasure TV replays of a long, continuing brawl they had just had with the San Diego Padres.
The same Dale Murphy who as a Brave won consecutive National League MVP awards. After the first, during a press conference, somebody yelled, “How you gonna celebrate Murf, by painting the town beige?” He laughed at that one. His idea of a big night was a Disney movie. The only high balls he ever indulged in were four-seamers that he sometimes flailed at and missed. His idea of swinging was for the fences. Once before a team photo night promotion, Bruce Benedict said, “Just send Murf out; he’s the only one they want to see.”
So, I called him at his home just outside Salt Lake City, Utah. We talked family and how’s it going and what are you up to these days and where are you living now, those kinds of amenities. I began to feel better about things. Predictably, he is trying to cut off the negative stuff in sports at the pass. He said he has founded a web site and program that teaches character and sportsmanship to young athletes, those in formative years at Little League age. The web site is Iwon’tcheat.com. Among other things, he conducts essay contests in which young people take on Why Character is Important.
He gives cash prizes to student, teacher and school. I said I would try to get it going here, in Calhoun. He sounded appreciative.
“It started with the steroid scandal,” he said of the project. “Then, I thought the steroid thing was too narrow, that there are other problems: cheating in school, bad sportsmanship, trash talking, drugs, alcohol, all those things. We started the I won’t cheat program; players in the Little League World Series wore I won’t cheat patches on their uniforms this year, so we’re attracting some attention. We’re making progress. I want to go national with it; I think we can.”
We got back to family. I mentioned his son, Sean, who grew to 315 pounds, played football at Brigham Young University and is now on the Miami Dolphins’ 53-man roster. “He’s biding his time, learning technique and just waiting to be activated,” said Murf. “He’s excited and enjoying himself; he’s just a step away.” Another son as a Morman is away on a required missionary effort and hopes to play baseball. He touched on all nine off-spring and wife Nancy. Murf is a proud papa and a prouder granddad. Imagine that, Dale Murphy a grand-father. Why, just yesterday, Joe Torre was yelling at him to stop chasing balls out of the strike zone.
Finally, I said, “Hey, Murf. Whatever happened to the term ‘bush league?’ Nobody uses it anymore. They should, the way players behave now.”
“Yeah, he said. I’d forgotten that. It covered everything, being unprofessional, showboating. All you had to say was, ‘Hey, Bush,’ and they’d know what you meant. It worked.”
“Let’s start a campaign to bring it back,” I said.
“Great idea,” he said. “I’m with you.”
I thought about the exchange. It is as negative as Dale Murphy gets.
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