When Tom Glavine threw at Dale Murphy

During the Braves game last night, Francoeur asked Glavine if he had ever been ejected for arguing balls and strikes. Glavine said no, then Jeff Francoeur asked if Glavine had ever been ejected. Glavine said twice, once for beaning a guy early in his career and then Glavine said, "and the Murphy incident."

I had never heard of this, and immediately googled it.

For background, the Braves and Phillies had a brawl two weeks earlier when Otis Nixon was hit by a pitch, charged the mound, and kicked Phillies pitcher Wally Ritchie.
Youtube (poor quality, but it is all I could find)

During this game, Glavine had been pitching like you'd expect the eventual 1991 NL Cy Young to do: 8 IP, 4 H, 2 runs (0 earned), 12 Ks, 3 BBs.

Then, in the top of the 9th, future Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell plunks Nixon. McDowell gets tossed, and the Braves end up scoring 4 runs in the inning.

But unwritten rules are unwritten rules.

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Glavine asked Cox if he could hit the second guy as opposed to Murphy. “No, you gotta hit Murph,” Glavine says Cox told him.

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Youtube

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Tom Glavine had a problem.

The Braves' left-hander, an eventual Cy Young Award winner, knew what had to be done. That was easy. Phillies pitcher Roger McDowell had just drilled Atlanta outfielder Otis Nixon and had been ejected from the game for his trouble. Now Glavine would retaliate. No problem there.

But the first Phillies batter due up was Dale Murphy. And, well, you know. If only it was somebody else. Anybody else.

It wasn't just that they'd been teammates before Murphy was traded to the Phillies the summer before. Murphy was special to everybody. He very well might be the only person in baseball nobody ever said a bad word about.

So Glavine compromised. He threw four floating pitches high and inside that forced Murphy to take a half-step off the plate. Glavine lobbed up four puffballs that moved so slowly Murphy could read the name of NL president William White on the face of the ball.

After the fourth pitch, Murphy looked quizzically at the mound and trotted to first. Glavine was thrown out of the game.

"The reason Glavine got four pitches was because Dale Murphy was hitting," home plate umpire Bob Davidson said later. "You don't throw at God. If it had been anybody else up there but him . . ."

But it was Murph, and how can you intentionally hit such a great guy?

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Glavine may have been placed in the most uncomfortable position. Required to defend his teammate, he had to send a message to Murphy, whom he holds in high regard.

'When he was here and things were going bad for me, he was always there to pat me on the back and give me some encouragement,' Glavine said. 'It was an uncomfortable situation, that's all I want to say about it.'

Murphy wanted to say little more.

'We just played a little dodge ball,' Murphy said. 'I don't want to read minds or anything. Whatever happened, happened. I don't know how to evaluate it or characterize it.'

Atlanta's Jeff Blauser was more clear.

'(Glavine) was sending a message to the other side,' he said. 'If you go after our players, there's going to be a flip side to the coin. I have a lot of respect for Tom. He stuck up for his teammates and his teammates appreciate that.

'(But) if it had been a different hitter, something different might have happened.'

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