From AJC sports guy Jeff Schultz : Dale Murphy lost his final chance to be voted into the Hall of Fame by writers in 2013. Is it possible a new song written about him by another Hall of Famer will give his candidacy new life?
Mike Mills, an avid sports fan and the talented singer, musician and composer for the Athens band R.E.M. (inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007), has written a song called, “To The Veteran’s Committee,” which pleads for Murphy’s long overdue induction into Cooperstown. The song appears on the just released CD, “The Baseball Project: 3rd,” which is the third collections of baseball rock songs from the band that includes Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Peter Buck (R.EM.), Scott McCaughey and Linda Pitmon.
“I was already touring with the Baseball Project,” said Mills, a long-time Braves fan (and sports Fantasy League player) who even remembers being taken to an Atlanta Crackers as a youth. “I guess you could say I was a bench player before and now I’ve been called up.”
Murphy met Mills and other Baseball Project band members for the first time a few years ago at a function at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York that included a private donation of 35,000 baseball cards and a panel discussion on the sport and race relations.
“I always felt Dale should be in the Hall of Fame just based on what he did as a player,” Mills said. “But after meeting him, I believed it even more. What a great person. He has all four qualifications for the Hall: ability, character, sportsmanship, integrity. It’s just stupid that he’s not in there.”
In, “To The Veterans Committee,” Mills writes an open letter to the group that’s empowered to put deserving former players, managers or officials into the Hall of Fame if the honor has previously eluded them, for whatever reason. There are now actually three 16-member committees, including the “Expansion Era Committee,” which is the one that would determine Murphy’s candidacy moving forward. ( THE REST )
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