Yankee for Life by Bobby Murcer with Glenn Waggoner
New York: Harper, 2008.
Bobby Murcer’s Yankee for Life is a refreshingly simple memoir of the late outfielder/sportscaster’s passion for baseball, a passion overshadowed only by his love of his family. In an age where many headline stories about professional athletes are filled with marital infidelities, cheating through the use of performance- enhancing drugs, and mind-bogglingly inflated salaries, this book is extremely tame. But in his strong assertion of his values—his loyalty to his wife, his children, “his” Yankees, and “his” sport—Murcer emerges as a role model and a source of hope in a sports world gone mad.
He recalls his years as a Yankee with pride for his accomplishments, tempered by his awareness of the impossibility of following in the footsteps of the previous Yankee center-fielders, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. His accounts of his fellow teammates’ actions and antics are discrete—never approaching the tell-all anecdotes of some of baseball’s (and fellow-Yankee) memoir writers. Murcer pays respect where it is due, most emphatically to the late Thurman Munson, and states his basic differences with some athletes, even at times admitting his own fault concerning disagreements. He describes his gut-wrenching despair at being traded to the National League, and then having to watch the Yankees win two World Series.
Murcer’s Yankee years extended past his playing career as he was brought into the radio/t.v. booths first as a color commentator and then as a play-by-play announcer. Several of the chapters deal with his learning the skills of announcing from the “greats” with whom he worked. These chapters contain many light anecdotes, some of which are self-deprecating, and many of which relate the unintentionally humorous exploits of fellow-broadcaster, Phil Rizzuto. Behind all of these anecdotes is the author’s deep love of the life he was leading.
One element that makes this memoir unique is the inclusion of recollections from his wife, Kay. Having dated Bobby through high school, having married him in their early 20’s, she was a part of all that he accomplished. She was his friend, companion, advisor, consoler, and supporter. Her inserted comments match the overall tone of this book, amplifying Bobby’s perspective of events, often revealing feelings that he chose not to share in his own words. Clearly this was a loving, caring relationship.
While Yankee for Life may lack the lyrical power of John Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud, the reader can infer the tremendous courage of Murcer and his wife as they faced the diagnosis of terminal brain cancer in 2006. Admittedly frightened, but determined to embrace all that was left in life for him, he speaks matter-of-factly of his surgery, his chemo and radiation treatments, and a subsequent “double-whammy” experimental treatment. There is no self-pity here; he has revisited lovingly his playing career, his years in broadcasting, and most importantly, the loving partnership which sustained him for more than 40 years.
Ted Odenwald and his wife, Shirley have lived in Oakland for 39 years. He taught HS English at Glen Rock High School for all of those years plus one more. Now he is enjoying time spent with his family, singing in the North Jersey Chorus and quenching his wanderlust. Ted is also the Worship Leader at the Ramapo Valley Baptist Church in Oakland.