By MARK MOSCHETTI
SEATTLE – When Bob Murphy first arrived at Seattle Pacific in late summer 1964, he didn't specifically plan to play baseball for the Falcons. Until that moment …
… when he actually was playing baseball for the Falcons.
"I didn't plan – I hoped," Murphy said with a laugh of his goals of getting onto the diamond. "I just turned out for the team. I was there for the practices."
Pretty soon, he was suiting up at shortstop. By his sophomore year, he made a switch to second base. As a junior, he became as potent at the plate as he was fluid in the field.
Then, after he'd taken his final swing as a batter and thrown out his final runner as a fielder during his 1968 senior season, Murphy could slip out of his uniform knowing that he'd been part of the two winningest teams in program history at what then was still called Seattle Pacific College.
Now, Murphy is ready to be recognized as one of the best athletes in school history when he is enshrined in the SPU Athletics Hall of Fame.
He will be one of seven inductees at the ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 7, inside the on-campus E.E. Bach Theatre, beginning at 10:00 a.m. It is free and open to the public.
Asked what he thought when he first got word of his selection, he said, "It was a lot of pleasure, and then I was proud."
Added former Falcons coach Lorin Miller, "He's a great person, and he was a really good friend. (His baseball talents) and those things all kind of fit together, and I couldn't be any happier for anyone than Bob to have this award."
A LONG WAY FROM HIS HOME TOWN …
Growing up in Minnesota, Murphy attended Breck School in Golden Valley, about five miles west of Minneapolis. (At the time, it was all boys; it is now coed.) There, he was the traditional three-sport athlete: football (Murphy played quarterback), basketball, and of course, baseball.
He loved them all.
"My favorite was doing those things at the right time," Murphy said of the different seasons. "I was a really good basketball player."
A job transfer for his father brought the family to Seattle after Murphy graduated from Breck. He checked out SPC and made the decision to come.
"I liked the whole campus. The Student Union Building was nice; a lot of the other buildings where you went to classes were nice," he said. "I loved going across the street to watch basketball (in Brougham Pavilion)."
Actually, his first athletic endeavor here was to try out for the basketball team, but he didn't make it. So he turned his attention back to baseball, and ultimately did make it.
Murphy quickly proved himself to be a strong middle infielder. When he made the switch to second base during his sophomore season, he was open to the change.
"It wasn't too bad going to second base. I liked the idea – I'm not sure why, because I liked playing shortstop in high school. They (the coaches) had their reasons for wanting me to move (to second). They thought I handled the double-play ball well from second. I knew it would take me a little while (to get comfortable there)."
… THEN GETTING INTO HIS GROOVE AT HOME PLATE
Murphy definitely got comfortable there, compiled fielding percentages of .946 as a sophomore, then .954 and .977.
He needed more than a little while to find his comfort zone at the plate. But once he found it, well …
… he really found it.
During his sophomore season in 1966, Murphy batted just .172. The following spring, he boosted it all the way to .422. That included a single-season school record 38 hits, part of which was a school-record nine straight at-bats with hits. He had a string of 14 consecutive hits in home games played at the Queen Anne Bowl, just a few blocks away from campus. Murphy had four games of 4-for-4 hitting.
"Not having too much success was worrisome at first. But it got turned around," Murphy said. "I think I just thought about what the coaches were saying and what they thought they needed me to do in my own approaches to the plate, and the way I approached pitches, and confidence."
Miller, then in his first year as head coach, said it wasn't just about the mechanics of hitting that helped Murphy step up his game.
"I said to him, 'We're going to do some uncommon things that don't seem like they really apply to baseball. But if you can get through those things without too much concern about how ridiculous or how out-of-context it seems, we'll do a little better job of figuring out what we need to do," Miller recalled.
"He was a guy who wanted to listen. I said some things that weren't profound. But there was something about all of that that got him going."
Alice, his wife of 57 years, had her own light-hearted theory on why Murphy suddenly started knocking the cover off the ball.
"He started dating me that junior year – he was trying to impress me," she said with a  laugh, to which Bob replied, "She was my Number 1 fan – always has been."
Murphy developed a knack for getting on base – not often with power, but with consistency. (One of his power hits was a two-run shot in the bottom of the sixth that helped Seattle Pacific beat crosstown rival Washington, 4-2, on May 2, 1967.)
"I don't know if I've ever seen a guy more happy than he was to solve that little skeleton in the closet about hitting," Miller said. "He got that – I can't take credit for that."
The Falcons finished 19-9 that spring –the best winning percentage (.679) and then the most wins in program history. Murphy was honored as an Associated Press second-team All-American and was also named to the All-Pacific Coast team.
During his 1968 senior season, Murphy and Seattle Pacific won even more games – 22, to be precise. That gave the Falcons a berth in the NCAA Pacific Coast College Division Regional, where they outlasted everyone except Chapman College. Murphy was named to the All-Tournament team.
Murphy did play softball for a number of years after his college career concluded and also became an avid golfer. With his teaching degree from Seattle Pacific, Â he spent 30 years teaching and coaching baseball and basketball at Kilo Junior High (now Kilo Middle School) in Federal Way, about 25 miles south of campus.
Baseball is still Murphy's true passion. He still relishes the memories and old stories of being on the field, and he still shares some of those stories in phone calls or visits with teammates such as Rick Marquardt and Larry Quesnell.
"I just loved the game. I loved playing it," Murphy said. "It was very much fun playing college baseball – especially when you're having a good game."
Murphy and the other six inductees will be honored at both basketball games in Brougham Pavilion after the induction ceremony. The women play Saint Martin's at 2:00 p.m., followed by the men against Western Washington at 4:15.
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