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Yankee Johnny Murphy Was A Pretty Good Pitcher,

But Did You Know That…

As I’ve said many times, whenever you look closely into a major leaguer’s career, you’ll invariably discover something interesting and/or unusual — something more other than just the bare statistical information found on the Baseball Reference website. Oftentimes, it comes as a complete surprise.

Such is the case today with my feature on Yankee All-Star pitcher, Johnny Murphy. I was familiar with Murphy from studying the great Yankee teams of the 1930s. But in doing a little research, I discovered additional aspects of his career of which I was completely unaware.

Johnny Murphy’s Career

The New York City native pitched for thirteen seasons in the majors (1932, 1934–43, 1946–47) with two years lost to military service during WWII. His entire career was spent with the Yankees, except for 32 games in 1947 — his last year in the majors — with the Red Sox. Used almost exclusively in relief, the 6’2”, 190-pound right-handed hurler posted a career 93-53 mark (.637), along with a 3.50 ERA, over 415 games and 1045 innings. Although the save was not an official statistic during his career, it’s been retroactively tabulated and Murphy was the first pitcher to record 100 saves, with 107 for his career.

Johnny was a decent pitcher, there’s no doubt about that. But you might say he played on some pretty good teams that provided him with outstanding run support. Many baseball historians

consider the Yankees of the 1930s to be some of the greatest teams of all time. With teammates that included future Hall of Famers Tony Lazzeri, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez, Joe Gordon — and, through 1934, Babe Ruth, Murphy’s Yankees won the 1932 World Series, consecutive World Series championships from 1936 to 1939, and two more World Series championships in 1941 and 1943.

In eight World Series games over 16.1 innings, all in relief, Murphy went 2-0, with four saves, and a 1.10 ERA. All together, Murphy was a member of eight pennant winners and seven World Series championships, the most of any pitcher in history. The lone World Series lost during his career came in 1942 to the Cardinals.

But Did you Know That…

 Johnny Murphy was the General Manager of the 1969 “Miracle Mets”

 Following his playing days, Murphy became an executive with the Red Sox for 13 years, becoming Director of Minor League Operations under owner Tom Yawkey. Then in 1961, he joined George Weiss in the front office of the National League expansion team, the New York Mets, rising to the position of vice president, and in 1968 becoming the third general manager in franchise history following the departure of previous GM Bing Devine.

One of Johnny Murphy’s first decisions as the new GM of the Mets turned out to be a pretty good one: the hiring of Gil Hodges as manager for the 1968 season. At the same time, Murphy was the beneficiary of a talented farm system, especially its young pitching prospects. It would be hard to improve upon a system that produced in rapid succession Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Nolan Ryan, and Gary Gentry among other stars.

Under the dual leadership of Johnny Murphy in the Front Office and Gil Hodges in the dugout, the 1969 “Miracle Mets” pulled off one of the greatest upsets in baseball history. They rallied in September to win the National League East title over a fading Cub team, swept the Braves in the NLCS, and then defeated the heavily favored Orioles in five games to win the 1969 World Series.

Unfortunately, the story does not have a happy ending. At the pinnacle of his career, just three months following this stunning, historic World Series victory, Johnny Murphy suffered a heart attack and died at age 61 on January 14, 1970, in New York City.

So today, we gladly turn our baseball stoplight on a fine pitcher who is remembered for a lot more than just his success on the mound, Johnny Murphy, architect of the 1969 “Miracle Mets.”

Gary Livacari 

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Information: Excerpts edited from Johnny Murphy Wikipedia page