Honor Guarded

Eddie Murray, one of only three players in baseball history to accumulate 500 home runs and 3,000 hits, can’t wait for Sunday’s ceremony inducting him into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. ... to be over.

Don’t get Murray wrong. He’s truly honored to be enshrined with former Montreal Expo catcher Gary Carter alongside baseball’s immortals, and he says the Hall of Fame folks have been “super” since early January, when he was elected in his first year of eligibility.

But the reclusive Murray, who rarely spoke to the press during his 21-year career and guarded his privacy as fiercely as former teammate Mike Scioscia blocked the plate, isn’t keen on the idea of being the center of so much attention.

“It’s an honor, it’s here, but sometimes I wish the day was already over,” Murray, the former Baltimore Oriole first baseman who spent parts of his career with the Dodgers and Angels, said in a recent interview. “I’m just not big on some of these individual things.

“They’ve been telling me how many [Hall of Famers] come down each summer, and when I stop and think about it ... there’s something special going on there to get that many players of that quality to come back to an event.

“That’s something I’d love to experience, not when the spotlight is on me, but when it’s on someone else, and you get to come back and you’re doing nothing but partying. There’s a few things that are just for [Hall of Famers]. They made it sound special.”

Every summer, Murray will be able to return to the rolling hills and stifling humidity of upstate New York to play in the pre-ceremony golf classic for Hall of Famers, and attend the post-induction Sunday night private dinner, which is for Hall of Fame members only -- not even spouses can attend.

But first, he must join the club this weekend.

“You almost feel like the rookie, and you hope the shaving-cream-pie-in-the-face thing doesn’t happen,” said Murray, in his second year as the Cleveland Indians’ batting instructor. “It’s going to be different.”

If Murray handles himself as he did in pressure-packed situations as a player, when there were runners on, the game was on the line and all eyes were on him in the batter’s box, the induction ceremony should be a breeze.

Murray, who grew up playing on the sandlots of South Los Angeles and was a Locke High teammate of 2002 Hall of Fame inductee Ozzie Smith, was nicknamed “Steady Eddie” because of his consistency and durability.

He had a .287 career batting average with 504 home runs, 3,255 hits and 1,917 runs batted in from 1977 to ‘97, but he did some of his best work in the clutch, hitting 19 career grand slams, second only to the 23 hit by Lou Gehrig, and batting over .400 with the bases loaded.

Murray owned the American League record for game-winning RBIs with 117 -- it was an official statistic from 1980 to ’88 -- he drove in more runs during the 1980s (996) than any other player, and he hit two home runs for the Orioles against Philadelphia in clinching Game 5 of the 1983 World Series, Baltimore’s last championship.

“I know it’s a biased opinion,” Mike Flanagan, a teammate of Murray’s from 1977 to ‘87, told the Baltimore Sun, “but I believe Eddie is the greatest switch-hitter ever to play the game.”

Outside of the World Series win, Murray’s most memorable big league moment came in Anaheim Stadium, when he hit three home runs and drove in a club-record nine runs in a 17-3 Oriole victory over the Angels on Aug. 26, 1985.

Murray hit a three-run home run in the first inning, an RBI single in the second, a solo homer in the fourth and a grand slam in the fifth, coming within a two-run shot of homering for the cycle.

When Murray came to bat in the seventh, fans who normally chanted, “Reggie ... Reggie,” in honor of former Angel slugger Reggie Jackson, chanted, “Eddie ... Eddie.” Murray flied to the warning track in center, missing a four-homer game by a few feet.

“People ask how big the ball looked that night,” Murray said. “It wasn’t so much that the ball was so big, it just slowed down. That’s what you learn, what you try to teach the kids, that there’s a breathing and a thinking process that has to go on.”

Few were as skilled in that mental game as Murray, who studied pitchers from the dugout, committed their patterns to memory, quickly deciphered what pitches an opponent couldn’t throw for a strike on a given night and eliminated those from his thought process. The result: Murray guessed pitch and location better than most and was able to outsmart many a pitcher.

“If you’re getting off on a pitcher or a pitcher is dealing on the hitter, there has to be an adjustment somewhere,” said Murray, 47. “It’s the ultimate chess game. That was the fun part about it. You get a strike, you get a ball, now the real work starts. What’s coming next? How did he get me out the other time?”

Murray, one of 12 kids, honed his baseball talent with five brothers, all of whom played professionally, and a number of Los Angeles-area players who reached the big leagues. At 6 feet 2 and 210 pounds, Murray was gifted with natural power, which was good, considering he never set foot in a weight room.

“I never lifted weights, never touched them,” Murray said. “To me, those were like kryptonite to Superman. I was scared of them. The first person I saw who lifted was Kenny Singleton. He looked like a million bucks, but when he did that over the winter, I don’t think he swung a bat or threw a ball. That sent a red flag up for me.”

Murray, who hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game 11 times, a record he shares with Chili Davis, was a third-round pick of the Orioles in 1973 and played his first 12 seasons in Baltimore, from 1977 to ’88. But his relationship with former Oriole owner Edward Bennett Williams soured, and he was traded to the Dodgers before the 1989 season.

He had three productive seasons in Los Angeles before signing with the New York Mets, for whom he hit .285 with 27 homers and 100 RBIs in 1993, his last big season.

Murray closed his career with 2 1/2 seasons in Cleveland, a half season (end of 1996) in Baltimore and brief stints in Anaheim and Los Angeles in 1997. Though he was a designated hitter later in his career, Murray won three Gold Glove awards at first base.

“Whether it was in the field, on the basepaths, in the batter’s box, he took pride in being a winner in everything he did on the field,” said Scioscia, the Angel manager who played with Murray in Los Angeles. “He was so in tune with what he had to do on the field, and his ability to adjust to what a situation called for was uncanny.

“A lot of things he made look easy, but he also understood that for other guys, things were more of a struggle. But he supported guys, understood them, and made guys around him better. He has a great baseball mind and showed it as a teammate.

“When a guy like Cal Ripken achieves what he does and you hear in his speech [after breaking Gehrig’s consecutive-games record in 1995] that he gave credit to Eddie for helping him as a youngster ... that puts into perspective the people he’s touched in his career.”

Media members, however, were rarely among those Murray touched. Or spoke to. Or acknowledged. Murray was uncomfortable in the spotlight as a rookie, and he grew leery of reporters after feeling burned by a New York columnist early in his career.

“Then to see people make things up, to see you piggyback articles, to see people who never met you write negative things about you, that was the biggest shock,” Murray said.

His response was to issue a blanket indictment of the media, though there were excep- tions. And later in his career, Murray granted occasional interviews.

“There are people in the media who I call at home, there are media people who are friends, I even went to one’s wedding,” Murray said. “I don’t get credit for this. Even though I’m talking to you, I don’t get credit for that.”

Murray, it should be noted, is laughing as he says this. There is a lighter side to Murray, underneath the public scowl he seemed to wear for 21 years, and if reporters rarely saw it, teammates did.

“He’s got a great sense of humor, absolutely,” Scioscia said of Murray. “He was a great teammate.”

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Eddie Murray’s Career Statistics

Highlights

* Hit first major league home run on April 18, 1977, off Pat Dobson. Tied Lee May for team lead with 27 home runs, a rookie record later broken by Cal Ripken Jr.

* Played in his first postseason in 1979 and hit home runs in both the ALCS and World Series. Led Orioles with a .417 batting average in the ALCS.

* Led AL with 78 RBIs and 22 home runs in a strike-shortened 1981 season. Finished second with a .534 slugging percentage. Tied major league lead with two grand slams.

* Finished second in 1982 AL MVP voting to Milwaukee’s Robin Yount. Led Orioles in batting (.316), home runs (32) and RBIs (110).

* Helped Orioles to the 1983 World Series and hit two home runs off Philadelphia’s Charles Hudson in the decisive Game 5 of ALCS. Finished second in MVP balloting by 32 votes to teammate Ripken.

* Drove in career-high 124 runs in 1985 and finished second in AL.

* Became only major leaguer to homer from both sides of the plate in consecutive games on May 8-9, 1987, at old Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* Ended his first stint with Orioles in 1988 as their all-time leader in home runs (333), and second in hits (2,021) and RBIs (1,190).

* Batted a career high .330 in 1990 with the Dodgers, who finished second in the NL. Won third career Silver Slugger Award.

* Became all-time RBI leader among switch-hitters in 1992 ahead of Mickey Mantle.

* Became 20th member of 3,000-hit club on June 30, 1995, while with the Indians. Drove in 75 or more runs for 19th consecutive year and equaled Hank Aaron’s record.

* In first game after being traded back to the Orioles in 1996, hit home run No. 492. Hit 18th career grand slam on Aug. 10 vs. White Sox in the ninth inning. Hit 500th home run at Camden Yards on Sept. 6.