Baseball’s “peculiar” trait attracts a former star

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — Daniel Murphy looked out across the grass at Fairfield Properties Ballpark, where the Long Island Ducks were practicing under an overcast sky. “Baseball is a beautiful game,” he said, “and it makes people do weird things.”

Murphy would know. A three-time All-Star who played his last Major League Baseball game in 2020, he is attempting a comeback with the Ducks, whose 126-game season kicked off Friday with an away game in North Carolina. Murphy, along with some other long shots, plans to work it out in the Atlantic League, despite being 38 and having earned nearly $80 million in a 12-season major league career.

The goal, for Murphy and the other big names on the Ducks roster, is simple: back to the majors.

Active since 1998, the Atlantic League is a place of optimism and experimentation. The teams are independently owned, but the league is a partner of MLB and has often served as a testing ground for new methods and ideas, such as larger bases, a pitching rubber pushed back one foot, and so-called robot umps – a version of MLB’s proposed system for automating ball and strike calls.

But at the heart of the league are the players, most of whom couldn’t make it to the major league level or never made it in the first place. That’s where Murphy stands out. At his peak, he was a star earning over $108,000 per game. In the Atlantic League, the maximum allowable salary is $3,000 per month. The other players in the league dream of a career that Murphy already had.

A solid hitter and second baseman for most of his tenure with the Mets, he had a breakaway streak leading the team into the 2015 World Series. Using a dramatically reworked swing, he set a major league record by homering in six consecutive playoff games.

Following his success, he signed a three-year, $37.5 million contract with the Washington Nationals and took his game to another level. If the face of baseball’s launch angle revolutionhe made back-to-back All-Star Games, led the National League in doubles twice, and finished second to Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs for the NL’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2016.

After a trade to the Cubs and two disappointing years with the Colorado Rockies, Murphy at age 35 suddenly faced the moment every athlete dreads: The game no longer wanted him.

Murphy was known for prioritizing his family. His decision to take parental leave for the birth of one of his three children was criticized by fans, but led to an invitation to the White House. Unsurprisingly, his plans for retirement included attending college and spending more time with his two sons and his daughter. But baseball didn’t let go.

In his spare time, he watched Ken Burns’ “Baseball,” a nine-part, 18-hour documentary about the history of America’s national pastime. Murphy saw the game with fresh eyes and wanted to get back in it.

“I didn’t realize how cool our game was,” Murphy said Saturday at Ducks’ Fan Fest. He added: “I think when you’re in it, and you’re trying to be as productive as possible and be as good a teammate as possible and a husband and a father, I underestimated how cool our game was. And how cool the guys were who played for me.

In a league known for its innovations, Murphy’s comeback attempt features an experiment of its own, inspired by watching his kids play baseball.

“I observed the way my kids moved,” he said. “My swing was not the same as theirs. They seemed to swing it with their whole body. I was probably a bit more of a hand swinger. It was like the way Ted Williams and Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth swung the bat. They looked like they were playing as kids. So I’m going to try to play like a kid.”

In bringing that new swing to the Ducks, Murphy chose a tough path back to baseball’s biggest stage. But it’s one that worked for other former MLB stars, including Dontrelle Willis and Carlos Baerga, who parlayed late-career stints with the Ducks into brief returns to the majors. Overall, the Ducks have sent 27 players to the major leagues in their 35-year history.

This year, the Ducks’ roster features a typical mix of young, undrafted players; minor leaguers released before they earned a call-up; and a few other Major Leaguers trying to make a comeback. Adeiny Hechavarría, who played for the Mets and the Yankees, is on the roster. So did Rubén Tejada, a teammate of Murphy’s on the 2015 Mets who broke his leg from a hard slide from the Dodgers’ Chase Utley in that postseason. Once a solid player with the Minnesota Twins, Lew Ford is on the team, as is Al Alburquerque, a former Detroit Tigers reliever who last played in MLB in 2017 and is best known as a sports radio host. insisted he did not exist.

There was even speculation that former Mets pitcher Matt Harvey might join the squad after his surprise performances for Italy in the World Baseball Classic.

For now, though, Murphy, who went 3 for 4 on Friday, is the star attraction.

Last weekend, Tommy Palamara, 13, of Setauket, NY, had been eagerly waiting in the stands for Murphy to sign autographs. “I know him because of the 2015 Mets,” he said, before admitting, “I was too young to remember, but I was told I watched him.”

Scott Nitz, a Mets fan and Ducks season ticket holder from West Islip, NY, said he is excited to be cheering on Murphy this season. “He’s been at the top. But he’s at a level now where he’s humble,” Nitz said. “I’m thrilled that he’s come back. I hope someone catches him, and I hope it’s soon.”

Ducks manager Wally Backman, himself a former second baseman for the Mets, thinks Murphy has as good a chance as anyone else.

“He’s still got all the bat speed,” Backman said. “I know he was with Colorado last year, he had a bad hand and he tried to play through it. I believe just watching him play yesterday, with the National League bringing in the DH, I think there will be a place for him.

And beyond Murphy’s own goals, Backman said his experience could make a huge difference to the Ducks’ younger players.

“The older guys and the level they’ve been at isn’t going to let those younger guys beat them,” said Backman. “We saw it yesterday when Murphy hit a ball down the right field line and he had to give up a double, and later he made a diving play at first base. That reflects on the young boys. They’ll break their necks because they see the work ethic in the older guys.

Murphy, for his part, tries to focus on the journey.

“This is a brand new adventure,” he said. “I think I still have a little bit of baseball left in me, and I want to find out.”

Glancing at his younger teammates, he added: “I still like singles though. It’s much more fun when you get hits.”