John Murphy

From Wiki Gonzalez

John Murphy may be the most prolific poster at the Hall of Merit. His non-stop advocacy of Dickey Pearce led to the diminutive shortstop's unlikely induction to the HoM.

Under the watchful eye of Joe Dimino ("The Commish"), John handles the day-to-day operations of the Hall of Merit (creating ballots, ballot discussion threads, announcing the new HoMers, Hall of Merit plaques, player discussion threads, etc.). He has been carrying on that function since 2004. Occasionally will settle a dispute if the Commish is not available, but only when necessary.

A charter member of the Hall of Merit, he is one of the few who hasn't missed an election (up to the 1952 election).

His screen name is John (Don't Call Me Grandma!) Murphy (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/member/877/), a tribute to Johnny "Grandma" Murphy, who was a star relief pitcher for the Yankees during the thirties and forties and was the GM of the "Miracle Mets" team of 1969. John took on that moniker when Baseball Primer changed over to the Baseball Think Factory in May of 2004.

Though not as frequently as he used to, John also contributes posts at the Baseball Newsstand wing of Baseball Think Factory. He has been known to make celebrity posts now and then. He has been posting in that section since 2002. Not in Steve Treder territory for quantity of postings, he is up there among his peers, nevertheless (7,000+ and counting as of May, 2005).

Born in Brooklyn, NY and lived on Long Island for twenty-five years, he has been residing in Raleigh, NC since 1992.

As a HoM voter, he tries to be fair to all eras from baseball history, mixes peak and career for his picks, and also tries to have an equal amount of representatives from all nine positions. He has gone over his system numerous times in order to fine tune is baseball world view.

Besides Pearce, other players he is happy to have played a part in electing to the Hall of Merit are Ezra Sutton, Heinie Groh, Lip Pike and Cal McVey. Negro League great John Beckwith is his next project for induction into the HoM as of 1949 (update: Beckwith was elected in 1957). Cupid Childs is also a favorite of his, but timelining appears to have killed the stalwart second baseman's chance. (Update 2006-11: Childs was elected in 1988 and Murphy noted soberly: "Cleveland Spider standout second baseman Cupid Childs broke Rube Waddell’s 2-year record for longest wait until eventual induction by 11 years in his 82st year of eligibility. He achieved 35% of all possible points.")

John's favorite team is the New York Mets and became smitten with them during the "Ya Gotta Believe" year of 1973. Even though a North Carolinian for years now, his allegiance to the team from NY has not diminished.

A fan of sabermetrics and Bill James for over twenty years, the one thing that he has learned is that we're still far away from knowing everything about baseball. He uses Win Shares as the base of his voting system, but uses some analytical tools from Baseball Prospectus for the National Association years. He owns an impressive library of baseball books and is proud to show off an original Macmillan "Baseball Encyclopedia" and "The Hidden Game of Baseball."

Tends to eschew politics in his posting, though is politically-minded in his non-baseball activities.

In his third season (simming the 1926 season) as a Kiddo Davis owner (a Diamond Mind Baseball league), John finally got his team into the WS. Up against the head honcho of the Hall of Merit, John was able to get his team into the seventh game after losing the first three games to Joe Dimino. Unfortunately, Joe's Yankees bested John's Phillies to win it all in the last game.

As for 1927, his team ended the season at.500. The 1928 season looks to be a repeat (and was).

Now in 1936, no other pennants have flown over Baker Bowl since 1926, though John's career managerial WPCT in the KDBL is over .550 (third in the league). As for 1936, the Phillies have an excellent shot at second with a team even better than his mighty pennant-winner of '26 and may make a trip to the postseason via the new playoff system instituted this "year."

As far as we know, he has never been married to Pixies bassist Kim Deal (no, I have never been married to her, but I wouldn't have been upset if I had been :-).