Ricky Says Dwayne Gets Half

The story behind MC Hammer's benefactor, plus, baseball players are suddenly shrinking, the Tokyo Series, and Ebbets Field lives on.

Author

J.D. DiGiovanni
March 18, 2025

Pine Tar Letter
A vintage baseball card featuring Dwayne Murphy, an outfielder for the Oakland A's. The card shows Murphy in a posed batting stance, wearing the team's yellow and green uniform with a green batting helmet. His autograph is printed across the lower portion of the card. The top left corner has a yellow banner with the word "OUTFIELD," and his name, "Dwayne Murphy," is printed in bold black letters at the top. A green ribbon at the bottom displays "A's" in yellow text. The card has a white border and a blue background. The image is placed on a textured light blue background, with a small "PTL" logo in the lower right corner.

Today is the birthday of Dwayne Murphy, born 1955 in Merced, California.

Under the lights in Milwaukee County Stadium in August of 1982, Dwayne Murphy watched from the on-deck circle as Ricky Henderson led off first. In a split second he took off and slid safely into second. That made 119 for the season, one more than Lou Brock’s single-season record set in 1974. As Henderson rose from the dirt, he pulled the second base out of the ground and held it up in the air as the crowd cheered.

The A’s lost that night. They’d do that a lot in 1982 — ultimately finishing fifth in the AL West with a record of 68-94. But it didn’t matter. Ricky had done it. After the game, talking to the press, Henderson said, “If I could break this base in half, I’d give the other half to Dwayne Murphy.”

Murphy’s nine seasons with the A’s fell between their dynasties of the early 1970s and the late 1980s — somewhat obscuring the masterful defensive play in the outfield that earned him six consecutive Golden Gloves. But his teammates all recognized and respected both his talent on the field and his ability as a leader. He was always helping out.

Murphy made a habit of rallying the team around struggling pitchers, doing everything he could — both defensively and offensively — to snap losing streaks. He even supported the team’s former club assistant and batboy.

When Stanley Burrell — a local kid the players all called ‘Hammer’ for his resemblance to Hank Aaron — moved to Los Angeles to start a record label, Murphy and his teammate Mike Davis lent him $20,000 each. They both loved the fact that the kid turned his clubhouse nickname into the stage name, “MC Hammer.”

It was that same generous spirit that, according to Ricky Henderson, made Murphy worthy of the other half of second base. Batting behind Ricky Henderson in the lineup, Murphy had made a point of taking pitches to give his teammate a chance to steal. He later said, “I took a lot of pitches for him. He made my career, I believe, because I let him steal and that put me in a position to knock in runs. I loved to watch him play. Let him steal second, let him steal third, knock him in. It gave me a respectable career.”

A digital baseball card-style graphic features the name "Dwayne Murphy" in bold blue letters. The top left corner displays a stylized "PTL" logo in red and blue. Below the name, personal and career details are listed, including his position ("Centerfielder"), batting and throwing hands ("Bats: Left, Throws: Right"), height ("6'1"), weight ("185"), and birth details ("Born: 3/18/1955, Merced, California"). A table at the bottom presents Murphy's career statistics in baseball, with categories in white text on a blue background: batting average (BA: .246), home runs (HR: 166), runs batted in (RBI: 609), hits (H: 1069), runs scored (R: 648), stolen bases (SB: 100), on-base percentage (OBP: .356), slugging percentage (SLG: .402), and on-base plus slugging (OPS: .757). The card has a white background with a red border.

MLB News

The Incredible Shrinking MLB, Ebbets Field, & the Tokyo Series

  • I Wish I Was A Little Bit Taller… – The introduction of ABS — or Robo-Umps as folks are beginning to call the system now — will have a lot of knock-on consequences. One of them? Well. Because the ABS strike zone is calculated as a percentage of a player’s height, it means players are now being accurately measured. And it seems maybe some are shrinking. Talk about padded stats.

  • 2025 Power Rankings – The sage minds at The Athletic have graced us with their rankings of all 30 teams. Please, a moment of silence for White Sox fans.

  • The Tokyo Series Starts Today – The Dodgers and the Cubs are scheduled to kick off the MLB season at 6:10 am ET Tuesday and Wednesday this week. They’re “spring training games that happen to count” says Russell Dorsey at Yahoo Sports. Fine by us.

  • Wait…Why Japan? – Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic does a great dive into how and why baseball has become so popular in Japan.

  • Ebbets Field Lives On – Ebbets Field Flannels, the clothing brand that made its mark by using classic wool fabric to make hats, jerseys, and other apparel inspired by old minor league and Negro League teams is back. And if you ask, us — a newsletter dedicated to telling stories from baseball’s past — it’s looking pretty sharp.

On This Day

Back in the Hall

  • 1985 — Commissioner Peter Ueberroth reinstated Hall of Fame members Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, who had been banned from association with organized baseball by former commissioner Bowie Kuhn due to their employment by Atlantic City casinos.