18 year major league veteran Dale Murphy missed out on Hall Of Fame election this week by a rather wide margin. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jeff Schultz manages to tout Murph’s credentials (“Two Most Valuable Player Awards. Five Gold Gloves. Four Silver Sluggers. Seven All-Star Games. Seven seasons with 30-plus home runs, and 398 homers in his career (which ranks 46th all-time). A six-season span (1982-87) in which he averaged 36 home runs and 105 RBI”) and rub it in at the same time.

There have been some humorous moments along the way. In 1999, Murphy’s first year on the ballot, the Braves told him they wanted to induct him into their own Hall of Fame at Turner Field. But Murphy was living in Boston with his family at the time, supervising missionaries. He told them the church frowned on him leaving town and the honor would have to be postponed.

Fast-forward one year: Murphy walked into his office one day and his secretary was hysterical. “She starts screaming: ˜You made it! You’re in the Hall of Fame! They just called!”  Murphy recalled. “I said ˜What?’, But it was just the Braves Hall of Fame. It was nice, but I kinda knew about that one.

Typically, Schulz’ item is followed by a less than pithy anonymous comment :

If a lug like Dale Murphy ever gets in the HOF, then I’m joining al queda’s farm team.

If that strikeout king and rally killer and pop up with the bases loaded time after time specialist gets in the hall of fame, then I’m going to splice goat genes with a clone of myself and raid a sorority house.