Why Eddie Murray and Orioles Just Can’t Kiss and Make Up

It’s the summer of Eddie Murray’s 12th season, two years since he wound up one of the most productive decades in baseball history and almost three years since he signed one of the largest contracts ever given a professional athlete.

It’s a little more than two years since he got a one-year trial as team captain of the Baltimore Orioles, two years since he last made the American League all-star team and nearing the second anniversary of his demand to be traded.

All of that seems like a long time ago for both sides, a time when these old friends, like Bogie and Bacall, thought they would live and prosper together forever. It was an era when Earl Weaver filled out the lineup card and when it seemed that a lineup change here, a free-agent signing there would get the team back in a pennant race.

It was probably one of the last times anyone called Murray a great player.

Of all things that have happened to the Orioles the last two years, is anything more stunning than the way their biggest star has fallen so far and so fast in so many people’s estimation?

Three years ago, he was voted his league’s all-star first baseman for the first time in his career, and it was assumed a new era had begun. From Rod Carew to Murray, a baseball torch had been passed.

A year later, it had passed again, to New York’s Don Mattingly as Murray was again named a reserve, and last summer for the first time in seven years he was left off the team altogether.

No one blinked then and no one is blinking this summer when he hasn’t even made a blip in the voting. In the latest results, he’s not among the top eight vote-getters, and is running behind not only Oakland’s Mark McGwire, but Texas’ Pete O’Brien, Cleveland’s Willie Upshaw and Toronto’s Fred McGriff.

This is a stunning fall from grace because only a few players in history have been more highly regarded than Murray from the time of his debut in 1977 through his 31-homer, 124-RBI season in 1985.

His name became synonymous with excellence, with driving in runs more consistently than any other man in the game and with having the ability to carry almost singlehandedly a team for weeks.

In 1986 Detroit Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson called Murray “the best in the game,” and statistics compiled by the Elias Sports Bureau on performing in pressure situations supported him. Not only that, he played every day, made all the plays defensively and, on a team blessed with a rare blend of talent and character, he was the prototype player.

Today he’s only 32 and has never suffered a career-threatening injury? What happened?

The answer appears to be a combination of factors. A huge one is being associated with a bad team, where his seemingly carefree attitude and half-speed play sticks out like a roman candle in a funeral parlor. When the Orioles were in contention in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, no one minded Murray not getting to every grounder or taking listless rounds of batting practice.

But now, in the collapses of the last two seasons, they’ve become the subject of talk shows, jeers and newspaper columns from New England to Texas.

There are other factors. In two years, he has gained weight and lost quickness. His walks are down, his strikeouts up. His RBI and home run production is down drastically.

Why? Publicly, the Orioles say they’re as puzzled as anyone, but privately they savage Murray, attributing many of his problems to a refusal to stay on a winter conditioning program or to work hard during spring training.

They say that the game came so naturally for so long that now, at the age of 32 when his middle has thickened and his biceps softened, he has been unable to change either his diet or his work habits. They wonder if he has either the will or the willpower to change.

“He always had a soft body,” said an American League executive who knows Murray. “And it caught up with him.”

There are also questions about his sight. Team doctors have twice advised the Orioles that Murray needs glasses, or at least further testing. Murray has refused to try glasses or even agree to more testing.

Two years ago when he first began having problems defensively, the Orioles still had his hitting to fall back on. Now even that has become a problem.

Last season, he had most of his production in two monthlong spurts and, despite finishing with 30 homers and 91 RBI, the Orioles did not think he had a $2 million season.

He started poorly and finished poorly, and the finish carried into 1988. For whatever reason -- conditioning, eyes, weather or team performance -- the Orioles have only recently caught a glimpse or two of his former greatness.

He has been hot lately, but only after hitting .231 with four homers in the first two months.

“He has definitely declined defensively,” said Ken Singleton, a former Oriole and friend of Murray’s. “It’s hard to say that about his offense because when the team is going badly sometimes guys get trapped into trying to do too much and wind up looking bad. I do wish he would try the glasses. Richie Allen did and became MVP. Reggie (Jackson) wore them.”

Murray is playful and chatty in the clubhouse and quizzes reporters for their opinions on everything from baseball to movies to his Los Angeles Lakers. Yet requests for interviews are met with a stony silence, and if a notebook appears he either stops in mid-sentence or walks away.

Once a reluctant interview, he’s now an impossible one. The silence began after his trade demand in 1986 and continued because, he once said, it was something that irritated the Orioles.

Why it has continued this long is anyone’s guess because, unquestionably, the Orioles have gone out of their way to mend fences with him. They would also love to trade him, but privately say that the combination of his play and huge contract (about $8.4 million remains) makes him untradeable.

Still, there’s no question he is intensely unhappy with the Orioles, and the reasons range from a disagreement over medical treatment in 1986, to owner Edward Bennett Williams’ criticisms of him that same summer, to the signing of free agents not raised on the Orioles way of playing, to the inept farm system.

“It’s winning,” Singleton said. “I’m sure the losing has gotten him down. We had a special team there for a while. We all focused on the same thing and cared about each other. That’s why I never went anywhere else when they released me (in 1984). I knew nothing was ever going to be as good as we had it in Baltimore and didn’t want to leave with a bad taste in my mouth. Everything changed after they started bringing in the free agents and outsiders.”

As far as Murray is concerned, the entire organization is in disarray and he wants out.

The Orioles say that’s fine, but, as he has become angrier and angrier about remaining, his play has declined. Because of that, his trade value declined.

So the Orioles have tried to make him happy. Williams, at Frank Robinson’s insistence last winter, apologized both publicly and privately. Former general manager Hank Peters was fired, and the new general manager, Roland Hemond, has gone out of his way to make Murray feel special.

When Hemond traded Murray’s buddy Mike Young this spring, his first phone call was to Murray. A matter of courtesy, he said.

The farm system has been overhauled, although the results may not be apparent for another year or two.

Still, Murray isn’t happy. He has made it clear he believes the fans at Memorial Stadium are out to get him, the press is out to get him, the umpires, etc. He believes the crowds in Baltimore have been overly critical, and that they’re racist, even though players who’ve been elsewhere, reliever Tom Niedenfuer, for one, have said, “They don’t even know how to boo here.”

Coach Elrod Hendricks has publicly agreed with Murray, but others have not. Robinson, who has had problems with Murray’s carefree attitude in the past, tiptoes through the words carefully: “I never thought of it in those terms.”

Singleton said, “I think the booing is more economic than racial. Elrod said it was guys in ties and suits, and I agreed with that. Number one, they wish they were playing ball. Number two, they’re motivated by money. Eddie’s making $2 million, and he’s playing ball, and there’s some jealousy.

“I’ve talked to him a couple of times the last few weeks, and I just think he’d be happier somewhere else. I don’t even think it’s the fans so much. That may have been blown out of proportion. I just think he can’t stand playing on a bad team and needs to go somewhere he feels a part of something.”

But if Murray wants out as badly as he says, his lackadaisical play is sentencing him to finish his career in Baltimore. Ask the scouts, who see him play first base with his arms folded stoically across his chest and lope after grounders hit down the line.

Yet neither the scouts nor Murray’s teammates think he does not care. Ask anyone who has played for the Orioles the last 10 years and they’ll tell you Murray cares about winning, maybe more than any other player they’ve known. Although his teammates haven’t always understood his anger, they’ve remained loyal to him because, while owners, managers and general managers come and go, Orioles players believe that there are only a few True Orioles.

Murray is the captain of the team, but Mike Flanagan, Scott McGregor, Mike Boddicker, Al Bumbry, Cal Ripken Jr., Singleton, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer are on it, too. All are gone except Boddicker, Ripken and Frank Robinson, and they’re left in a clubhouse with players they barely know and who have as much a connection to the 1983 championship team as to the United Auto Workers.

“There are a lot of guys over there who’ve never won, and they don’t know how important that is to the players who have,” said Detroit’s Ray Knight, who played for the Orioles in 1987. “He’s one of those guys who has everything and winning is all that’s left. People may have the wrong impression, but he cares. His problem is that he’s very sensitive about what’s said and written about him.

“He made the same mistake I’ve made in that he got caught in a vortex where he thought the organization cared about him as a person. They don’t. You provide a service, and if for any reason you stop providing it they want to get rid of you. Also, he got the huge contract (five years, $12.7 million) and where he’d always hit 30 home runs, people now expect 50. It gets you down after a while, and Eddie obviously is down about it.”

Knight and others believe that on a different (and more competitive team), Murray might put together the three or four more seasons he needs to punch his ticket to Cooperstown. But it’s a Catch-22. He may not play better until he gets to another team, yet no team is likely to take him until he plays better.

The Los Angeles Dodgers backed out of talks for Murray last winter as did the St. Louis Cardinals. The Philadelphia Phillies recently inquired, then didn’t make an offer. The Orioles have even offered to pick up $1 million of the remaining $8.4 million on his contract. No dice.

This story doesn’t necessarily have to continue on a downward spiral. Murray has made his peace with Williams and, lately, both his spirits and his bat seem to have perked up. He’s still having trouble defensively and, although he’s not the one-man wrecking crew he once was he’s still a very good player.

The Orioles privately picture one of two scenarios: One is that Murray stays around and that the Orioles become respectable in 1989 and competitive in 1990 as the minor leagues deliver a fast injection of life. He has long said he enjoys working with younger players, and a very young team seems to be Robinson’s goal for 1989.

The other scenario is that Murray’s hitting will really pick up and that some team--the Dodgers?--will decide it’s one bat away from a championship. They would then put a package of young players together, and the Orioles would say so long to Murray.