I was watching the Met game this past Saturday when Gary Cohen mentioned that it was legendary Met broadcaster Bob Murphy’s birthday. “Murph” would have been 85 years old.
Earlier this season I wrote an entry about Ralph Kiner, and how much he meant to Met fans, and I never did a follow up post about Bob Murphy. Simply put, to me and I’m sure many, many Met fans, Murph is the voice of summer.
How many cook outs, or days at the beach has Murph been with us? How many night’s was Bob Murphy’s voice on a transistor radio under our pillow – the last voice we heard for the day? Murph was so taken for granted that we never thought there would come a day when we wouldn’t hear him.
Gary Cohen made a great point Saturday, when he said,
“Bob & Ralph never lost their enthusiasm for the game, even though the Mets were out of so many games.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
As an adult, just hearing Murph at the start of a game brought a smile to my face. He’d always tell you about the weather conditions “the skies are overcast today at Shea”. The other thing about Murph, is when he was broadcasting a game you never knew if the Mets were winning by 12 runs or losing by 12 runs.
Early this year Joe D. wrote an post about Murph making a call, and I think each one of us of a certain age, tries to do a Bob Murphy impersonation. He was just that good!
Keith mentioned during the game Saturday that Murph would get upset when players impersonated him. Murph, shouldn’t have gotten upset, it was their way (and ours) of paying tribute to a good guy.
For my “happy recap”, how many guys remember Bob Murphy hosting Bowling for Dollars on channel 9 in the 1970’s?
Murph we miss you, Happy Birthday!!!
