Dale Murphy is going to get another shot at getting a place in Cooperstown. The former face of the franchise for the Atlanta Braves has been included alongside seven other players on the Baseball Hall
of Fame’s Contemporary Baseball Era ballot. This is an Era Committee ballot that is focused on players who participated from 1980 onwards.
Murphy will be joining a loaded ballot that includes Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela. The first two players would be surefire, first-ballot Hall of Fame Candidates if not for essentially becoming the faces of PED usage in baseball. Carlos Delgado was one of the most feared hitters in the American League during his era and is the franchise leader in homers for the Blue Jays. Jeff Kent snatched an MVP award away from Barry Bonds in 2000, which oughta tell you just how good he was in his prime.
Don Mattingly is the only player in Yankees history to have his number retired without having played in a World Series, which (again) is a strong indicator of just how good of a ballplayer he was. Gary Sheffield has 509 homers, which used to be a foolproof ticket to Cooperstown until the Steroid Era rolled around and Fernando Valenzuela’s exploits with the Dodgers made him one of the most popular players in baseball as a whole (while winning two World Series in Los Angeles in the process).
However, we’re all rooting for Dale Murphy over here. This’ll actually be the fourth time that he’s been on an Era Committee Ballot since falling off of the BBWAA ballot back in 2013. He was on the Modern Era ballot (for candidates who contributed to the game from 1970-1987) in 2018 and 2020 and he was on this same Contemporary Era ballot back in 2022. He fell way short in each season, as he was never even close to the 75 percent threshold needed from the somewhat-small committee in order to gain entrance into Cooperstown.
This time around, I’d say that it really depends on how the voters feel about the Steroid Era players who are on this ballot. If the voters finally come around on Bonds in Clemns then those two are no-brainers if we’re judging them solely on their play on the diamond. If that’s still a major factor then Murphy could have just as good of a shot as anybody else on this list. Murphy’s case for being elected into the Hall of Fame has always been a tricky one to argue from a neutral standpoint — he had a fantastic prime but the fact that he stuck around too long past that prime has been largely the crux of the argument that’s kept him out of Cooperstown.
Still, Murphy reportedly (as of this interview from 2024) remains hopeful that he’ll be able to get in at some point. I know I’m sure rooting for him and he’s got a bunch of fans here on this corner of the internet who are still patiently waiting to see Murphy get his day in Cooperstown. We’ll see what happens.
