Eddie

“He always seemed to come through.”

That's what former Orioles reliever Tim Stoddard says about Eddie Murray.

But ask any teammate who played alongside Murray during his 12-plus years with the Orioles—and his nine years with other clubs—and thethey'd probably say pretty much the same thing.

Eddie Murray always seemed to make the key play or get the big hit that would enable his team to win. Game after game, season after season.

It is that quality, as well as his extraordinary career offensive statistics and his status as one of the game's two most potent switch-hitters ever (along with Mickey Mantle), that has made Murray one of the greatest players in the history of big league baseball. On Sunday, July 27, Murray will receive the ultimate honor for his performance on a baseball field when he is inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Murray is the 11th individual to wear an Orioles uniform to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He will go into the Hall as the fifth wearing an Orioles cap on his bronze bust.

Any fan who had the pleasure of sitting in a baseball stadium, or even in front of a television set, and watching Murray play during his glory years with the Orioles in the late 1970s and 1980s knows how great a ballplayer he was. But more than most of the game's all-time top hitters, Murray was a player's player.

His teammates were the ones that truly appreciated how extraordinary he was. Coming up through the Orioles system in the 1970s, playing in towns like Bluefield, Asheville, Miami, Charlotte and Rochester, Murray came to embody the ultimate team player. The only thing that was important to him was winning. He always eschewed the personal achievement in favor of the team achievement—and that meant that winning came before anything else.

It wasn't only that Murray was one of the greatest power hitters and clutch hitters in Orioles history. It was the little things that his teammates learned to appreciate, as well as his prodigious bat.

They remember Murray for being the one on the top dugout step to cheer a teammate on for getting a key hit or for knocking a ball out of the park, for inciting his teammates to get revved up to spark a rally when they had fallen behind, for letting others know when they were not doing enough to help the Orioles win. They remember him for his adherence to “little ball,” manager Earl Weaver's practice of teaching players certain plays that could be used only in the rarest of circumstances to help pull out or ice a victory. Murray would be the one to call a pick-off play when he knew it could provide a vital edge. And, of course, he'd be the one to move a runner up a base in a tight game if he thought it could eventually help to bring home the winning run.

Major league baseball, to Eddie Murray, meant winning on the field, nothing else.

He loved playing the game, but he was not enamored of the celebrity that came with it. In fact, though he usually went out of his way to talk with fans and provide them with autographs, he shied away from the accoutrements of fame.

When he was a boy growing up in Los Angeles, baseball was his life, and he dreamed of becoming a major league ballplayer. But what he says he didn't realize at the time was that a big league player, especially a star, virtually loses his anonymity.

“Personally, I would have loved sometimes to go somewhere and hide,” he says, adding that he wishes, for example, that he could have walked into a restaurant without anyone knowing who he was, without anyone approaching his table and asking for an autograph.

Similarly, he never enjoyed talking with the baseball media. Murray always preferred to do his talking on the field, with his bat.

And it was obvious, from the first day he stepped on the field at the Orioles spring training camp in Miami back in 1977, that Murray had a bat that would make a lot of noise.

Ken Singleton, the Orioles' star outfielder at that time, remembers the impression Murray made during his first spring camp, with both his loud bat and his quiet demeanor.

“Pat Kelly and Lee May were standing in the outfield during Eddie's first batting practice session in spring training the year he first came up,” says Singleton, referring to outfielder Kelly, and to May, who at the time was the Orioles' regular first baseman. “And Eddie's hitting balls over the wall left-handed and right-handed. And they didn't know who he was. Pat said, 'Who is this guy?' And Lee said, 'Some rookie.' And Pat says, 'I don't even know what position he plays.' So they're standing out there, and Pat says, 'Let's see where he goes after he hits. Let's see what kind of glove he picks up.' So after Eddie hits 10 balls out of the stadium, he goes back to the dugout, gets his glove and goes over to first base. And Pat Kelly says, 'Oh, Lee. You're in trouble.'”

Murray knew that as a rookie, it was his job to hit but not to make a big deal of himself.

“I can recall when Eddie Murray first came up,” says Singleton, “how quiet he was. Lee May had told Eddie during spring training, 'Rookies don't say anything, they just play.' So Eddie follows this to the tee. He never said anything to anybody. So Earl [Weaver], after about a week into the season, comes up to Lee May and says, 'Does this guy like me? He hasn't said anything to me.' And Lee said, 'Oh, yeah, he likes you. He told me.'”

Weaver quickly learned to like Murray.

If there ever was a player during the Hall of Fame manager's reign with the Orioles that epitomized how he believed the game should be played, it was Murray. He was focused on winning, didn't screw up and gave everything to his team.

In his first year, he quickly made an impression, batting .283 with 27 home runs and 88 RBIs. Those accomplishments won him the American League Rookie of the Year award.

Interestingly, Murray seldom won other awards or hitting titles during his career. He hit 504 home runs and collected 1,917 RBIs in his career but only led the league in either of those categories once -— in the strike-abbreviaated 1981 season (when he topped the AL in both homers and runs batted in). He never won an AL MVP award. He made the All-Star team seven times as an Oriole, but started in the game only twice.

Murray never hit more than 33 home runs in a single season. He never had more than 124 RBIs. He batted .300 or higher seven times, five as an Oriole. But his highest average while wearing an Orioles uniform was only .316. In a sense, it is a testimony to his greatness that he accomplished what he did in his career without winning many titles. For it was it his consistency, year-in and year-out, that was the hallmark of Murray's career, rather than one or two spectacular years. He is one of just three players in history to exceed both 500 home runs and 3,000 hits.

During each of his first 20 years in the major leagues, he drove in 75 runs or more. No other hitter in big league history ever did that.

Orioles players used to rank themselves every week, based on which player on the roster had performed the best that week, all the way down to which had been the worst, from No. 1 to No. 25. The list was compiled in good fun by Rick Dempsey and Singleton. Even Weaver would become involved. It was a way the Orioles kept together as a team. The ranking was called, “Earl's Sons of the Week.”

“Invariably,” Singleton says, “it always turned out to be Eddie Murray. We always made Eddie No. 1.”

That's how consistent and how good he was during his first nine years with the Orioles. Seven times he was voted Most Valuable Oriole by the local media. Unfortunately, however, the relationship between the team and the player soured.

Murray, along with Cal Ripken Jr., carried the Orioles to their last World Series championship in 1983. After that season, however, the team's fortunes began to tumble. Some members of the Baltimore media blamed Murray for contributing to the team's fall, saying he no longer gave 100% on the field. The club's owner at the time, Edward Bennett Williams, also was critical of Murray's play, even though he had some of his best seasons in the late 1980s. Murray was sensitive to the criticism. He grew surly with the press and turned somber in the clubhouse. The once-beautiful marriage between great team and great player was cracking up.

The Orioles traded Murray to his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers after the 1988 season, getting three mediocre players in return. He also went on to play for the Mets, Indians and Angels, but did return to Baltimore for one happy reunion year in 1996. The Orioles made it to the American League Championship Series that year, and Murray hit his 500th home run on a wet night at Camden Yards on September 6, 1996. The union between the great first baseman and the Orioles and the city of Baltimore was further cemented when Murray spent four years as a coach with the team, following his retirement as a player.

Now he will go into the Hall of Fame as a Baltimore Oriole. Though usually reticent to be in the public eye, Murray admits that he is looking forward to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “It's something special going up there,” he says, adding that he expects to offer thanks during his induction speech to the people who helped him reach the baseball pantheon. Murray comes from a large family, and he has spoken in the past of how grateful he is to members of his family for helping encourage him to reach the big leagues.

But he also is appreciative of his baseball family with the Orioles in Baltimore.

“Nothing will ever replace my first eight years here—that waas awesome,” he says. “We were family...We cared about one another.”