Good Spring Training News on Bobby Murcer

I heard the best possible baseball news today--and it had nothing to do with who won or lost an exhibition game, the latest trades or free agent signings, or the most recent steroid updates on Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.
The results of Bobby Murcer's biopsy show no recurrence of the brain cancer that first struck him a year ago. Yes! as Marv Albert might be tempted to exclaim. The potential abnormality that had concerned his doctors was merely the development of scar tissue, which can be a normal occurrence after the kind of brain surgery that Murcer underwent last year.

This is good news no matter whom it might concern, but it is an especially pleasant development because it happens to involve Murcer. Simply put, Bobby Murcer is one of the nicest gentlemen in all of baseball, a man who treats everyone he comes in contact with as if he were a long lost teammate. He is a man with an easygoing nature, a self-deprecating sense of humor, and an eagerness to look first and foremost at the good side of people. Several years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Murcer for MLB Radio; it remains one of the highlights of my broadcast career.

And, oh by the way, Murcer was a pretty good ballplayer in his day, a star during the first half of the 1970s before an unwanted trade led to some unpleasant summers at Candlestick Park and Wrigley Field. At his peak, Murcer was a legitimate five-tool talent who played center field to a Gold Glove level while tailoring his sweet left-handed swing to the friendly right-field fences at Yankee Stadium.

According to a baseball cliche, spring training is one of the best times of the season. That is especially true today, on the day when we heard some good news about a terrific man named Bobby Murcer.