This is a job for Daniel Murphy. Daniel Murphy took on all kinds of jobs in a New York Mets uniform: left fielder, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, playoff hero, World Series less than hero (to put it kindly)…but the one that fascinated me most was credit deflector. Any time — any time — a reporter asked him to analyze something he did well to help the Mets win a game, Murph deflected the credit.
Daniel was hitting the ball because David was in front of him and Ces was behind him and who wouldn’t see good pitches with that kind of protection? Daniel was transformed into a slugger thanks to the countless hours in the cage Kev put in with him. Daniel’s home run contributed to a win because the pitching made the win possible, from Matty or Jake or Noah starting to Addy and Clip in middle relief to Jeurys, who was absolutely lights out. Daniel made that occasional great play in the field because Teuf had worked with him on positioning and Lucas can scoop the ball like nobody else and the only reason the play mattered was because of that tag Travvy made the inning before, and how about that throw from Grandy two innings before that?
Daniel Murphy painted himself an innocent bystander in his own success. He was present and accounted for by his reckoning when something went wrong, but if you wanted acknowledgement that Daniel Murphy was at all a factor in bringing a pennant to Flushing, you’d have to ask somebody else.
Ideally, you’d convince Daniel Murphy that Daniel Murphy was a teammate of himself and then maybe he’d file a proper review.
Like Daniel Murphy lifted if not a carried a team through two rounds of a jubilant postseason.
Like Daniel Murphy put team first always, consenting without any visible objection to playing wherever need dictated.
Like Daniel Murphy might not have been graceful or ultimately effective as a defender, but dang he tried.
Like Daniel Murphy could hit like Daniel Murphy could praise others.
The imperfect ballplayer with the unbeatable attitude gave us seven seasons in a Met uniform (plus one that got sidetracked in the minors). There were nights you wanted nobody else in there for you. There were nights you wished somebody else was in there for him. They were occasionally the same night. But never did he leave you thinking he left anything on the field, save for ego.
Friday, though, he left a qualifying offer of $15.8 million for 2016 on the table, opting to pursue free agency [1], as ballplayers tend to do when the option arises. This means Murph and the Mets have all but completely parted ways. Historically, that figures. The last NLCS MVP the Mets had, Mike Hampton, didn’t stick around for the flag-raising the following April. Same for the last Met World Series MVP, Ray Knight. The first drafts of internal histories are inevitably edited by forward progress. That guy who was as responsible as anybody for getting us as far we did? Go easy on his highlights, maybe crop him out of the special section in the yearbook. We’re not in the business of marketing him anymore.
We who are not responsible for selling the personalities that constitute the next version of the New York Mets will tell our own story. We’ll long tell of how Murph led our Mets above and beyond where we could have reasonably pictured them, how he slew one Cy Young winner after another in the one month when great pitching is purported to stop good hitting. No Daniel ever excelled in any lion’s den as Murphy did.
And then, when Daniel Murphy lifted the 2015 Mets as high as he could, he let their chances slip through his grasp. Baseball’s den is a capricious place and none of us who’d been with Daniel since 2008 could have been surprised that he’d miss a crucial ball in a crucial inning in the most crucial of World Series contests. It was why, when he went from Murphy to muffy and allowed the Royals to tie Game Four and facilitate the disappointing end of an otherwise uproarious adventure, I had to laugh at the reaction of the woman sitting directly in front of me in Promenade. There’s Eric Hosmer’s grounder, there’s Daniel Murphy not picking it cleanly, there’s the shock of the moment setting in and then there’s the woman — who had been as supportive of our team as possible since first pitch — wailing what each and every one of us had to be thinking:
“FUCKING MURPH!!!”
This reaction transcended mere fickleness or frustration. It was a family reaction. We all intrinsically understood that this was Murph as much as the Sports Illustrated cover boy/toast of October was Murph. The horrible error didn’t negate what he did in the two series prior. It was all part of the package we signed for from the time he delivered as a rookie in a race. We witnessed him spraying line drives or shifting positions or oozing determination just as we watched him running the wrong way or throwing to the wrong base or hesitating at the wrong instant or just being Murph.
Thing is, through all the missteps — of all the Daniel Murphys, he was the Daniel Murphyest — we never didn’t want to embrace him. He was family. He was ours. He was gonna help us win sometimes, he was gonna help the other team win sometimes. He was human that way. He was a Met that way.
Whatever his next uniform, he’ll always be a Met that way.