Murcer: Call him Mr. Oklahoma City

By Jenni Carlson

Published: July 13, 2008

Baseball took Bobby Murcer to three of the world's most glorious and glamorous cities.

New York. San Francisco. Chicago.

None ever stole his heart.

Even though Murcer ventured out to those glitzy locales, he always returned to Oklahoma City. This was home. He was born here, raised here, starred here.

Sadly, on Saturday, he died here.

Murcer will be remembered in coming days for his life in baseball. As a player, he was a five-time All-Star and a beloved Yankee. As a broadcaster, he endeared the Yankee Nation even more.

And all of those things about Murcer are true, but so is this.

He loved his hometown.

Mr. Yankee? Mr. Oklahoma City is more like it.

"He was on-call for anything anybody in Oklahoma needed him for,” longtime friend Lee Allan Smith said. "He was just the best.”

Smith oversaw all projects and events related to the Oklahoma Centennial, and Murcer was among first dignitaries he enlisted. Murcer was on the Ford Center stage last November during the Centennial Spectacular. A few weeks later, he went to New York City to ride on the centennial float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

He was scheduled to go to Pasadena a few weeks later for the Rose Bowl Parade, but poor health kept him home in Oklahoma.

Make no mistake — this was home.

Murcer, who was a three-sport prep star at Southeast, married his high school sweetheart. Bobby and Kay made their home here, started their family here, raised their children here.

Tori became a cheerleader, Todd a golfer, and Bobby supported them every way possible.

Her senior year at Heritage Hall, Tori was named the homecoming queen. The school has a tradition of a boy and a girl from the kindergarten class carrying the flowers and the tiara during the homecoming festivities, and that year, Alex Roller was one of the young attendants.

Bobby gave Alex a signed baseball as a token of thanks.

The signature was Mickey Mantle's.

"Bobby,” Roller's mother, Lynne, told Murcer, "you should sign the ball.”

He refused.

"It will be worth more,” he said, "without my signature.”

Lynne Roller taught English to both of the Murcer kids at Heritage Hall, and in the years since, she has become close with the family. Still, she marvels at the way Murcer was when the camera was off and the spotlight was dim.

He was a sports star and a broadcast legend.

"But he was just as happy to be the husband and the dad,” Roller said. "I just don't know how to say enough good things.”

She paused.

"The kind of dad every kid should have.”

Murcer fell so easily back into family life whenever he came home. The Murcers would go to lunch with friends or have people over to the house.

Bobby and Kay have a group of friends that they've been close with since high school.

"He never really forgot where he started,” said Roller, now the deputy director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. "People loved him here just as much.”

A decade ago, the Mickey Mantle statue went up outside Bricktown Ballpark. Busts of other baseball greats from Oklahoma have been added around it in the years since, but the first ones were Bobby Murcer and Allie Reynolds.

The reason?

They continued to make Oklahoma their home even after baseball took them to faraway places.

"That was important,” Smith said. "Neither one of them made the Baseball Hall of Fame, but they were there (in Bricktown) first.

"He was just a sweetheart and loved by everybody. Not just baseball either. Everybody in Oklahoma City loved him.”

The feelings were mutual.