For those of you who don't know me very well, I like baseball.  I was especially fond of baseball when my son was pitching. I think it was more traumatic for me when he chose to lay down his glove than it was for him! But it wasn't so much baseball that made me really interested, it was watching him play. I like watching baseball, but it was the person I was watching that made the game important.   

The same is true when it comes to another man. Bobby Murcer was more than a professional baseball player. He was a man of humility and courage.  He had a servant's heart and modeled for me what life and baseball are really all about- how you treat people.  

If you are unfamiliar with the name Bobby Murcer, let me tell you a just a little about the man I knew. He was a New York Yankee (my apologies Red Sox fans) and played with guys like Mantle and Mattingly until his untimely death from a brain tumor last Saturday. As a young adolescent I remembered watching him play as the 'next Mickey' as demonstrated by his front page picture on Sports Illustrated. Then one day as a youth minister it became a young boy's baseball dream come true to meet him and to become a part of his family's life. I was like a kid in a candy store the first time I visited he and Kay's home. He had a gallery of Yankee memorabilia. There were pictures, baseballs, baseball cards, uniforms, magazine articles, signed letters by Mantle, Berra, Maris, Torre and many others. I was in hog heaven! I was smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

Yet for all the things Bobby could have stood for and all the things he was known for, those who knew him also knew he was one of the most humble men they would ever meet. I personally will always remember his incredible humility. Here I am, a 'nobody' in the world he lived in yet he would always return a phone call no matter where he was. He treated me as if I was the most important person in the world. His desire to serve others was demonstrated when I called and asked him to write a letter of recommendation on my son's behalf for playing college ball. His response? "I would be honored to. Who and where do I send the letter?"

That's the kind of man he was. If we needed something at church for an auction in order to raise money for mission trips, he would offer signed baseballs or donate other items to help out. He was quite the man. For him it was not about baseball, popularity, or being famous.  It was about people. Bobby knew he was no better than anyone else and he made you feel like you were a 'friend' every time you met him. I didn't learn as much about baseball from Bobby as I did in how to treat people.

Thank you my friend. You will be missed.

rb