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MLB great Dale Murphy talks Hall of Fame, Braves, collecting at new GroveWood Baseball Museum
My good friend Scott Bullington, who runs the Boys & Girls Club in Greeneville, Tenn., asked me about the GroveWood Baseball Museum in nearby Morristown.
“Well, I had heard of it from another friend of mine, who has been,” I told him. “Matter of fact, it is on my bucket list of places to visit.”
Within a couple of days, he called back and told me we were going to a special event GroveWood was hosting featuring former Atlanta Braves great Dale Murphy.
I was all in.
Jamison Pack is the owner of the GroveWood Baseball Museum. He has built quite an impressive collection of baseball memorabilia that he displays in his museum in downtown Morristown, which consists of five large rooms designed for visitors to easily move from one room to the next.
“I started off collecting baseball cards, but then around 2017 and on into 2018, I got serious about collecting memorabilia,” he said. “I displayed what I had acquired to that point in a room in my home, but I quickly outgrew that, and so I decided to open this museum in February of 2023. I wanted to be able to share it.”
What he now has on display is baseball memorabilia dating back to the late 1800s through the game today. The walls are adorned with beautiful murals made from famous baseball pictures of such immortals as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Buck O’Neil.
Vintage bats, balls, gloves and jerseys, many which are autographed, are displayed throughout the rooms. Seats from stadiums such as Crosley Field in Cincinnati and the original Yankee Stadium are on display.
Some of his rarest items are a ball from Babe Ruth’s “called shot” home run in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He has a ball from the 1909 World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Detroit Tigers, signed by Fred Clark, who caught the ball at first base for the final out in Game 7 as Pittsburgh won.
“He stuck it in his back pocket,” he tells me, reminding me of what Anthony Rizzo of the Cubs did a few years back at the end of the 2016 World Series.
Pack has a handwritten 1910 players ledger from the Detroit Tigers showing how much they were paying each player, and, of course, Ty Cobb was the highest paid.
There is a bat from the Federal League that Pack says is the only one known to still exist, and the same for a 1912 World Series Press Pin.
There is a glove used by Pittsburgh Pirate Vic Aldridge during the 1925 regular season and World Series. An original team photo of the infamous Chicago “Black Sox” is part of an exhibit on “Shoeless” Joe.
Since opening, Pack has brought in former stars to appear, including Steve Sax, Ferguson Jenkins, and Dwight Gooden.
Today it is Braves legend Dale Murphy.
MEETING MURPH
He arrives early, about an hour before his public appearance is to begin, and takes a personal tour of the museum. He makes a point to stop and speak to everyone he comes into contact with, and it is obvious that it is no act. It is who he is. You can believe it when people comment about how friendly and accommodating Murphy is. I’ve seen him several times, and he is always the same.
SCD Archives: Dale Murphy talks cards, memorabilia, autograph shows
There is a Murphy display set up in the front, and he tells everyone within earshot how much he appreciates the gesture. The baseball murals on the walls quickly catch his attention.
“I need some of these in my restaurant,” says Murphy, whose MURPH’S restaurant is located near Truist Park in Atlanta.
He stops and admires a Ty Cobb bat, which Jamison takes out of its glass case for him to hold.
“Do I need to have on gloves to handle this?” he asks. He is told that it is OK for him, Dale Murphy, to put his hands on the Cobb bat. He admires the beauty of the dark wood, carefully holds it up to his shoulder, then swings it slowly a couple of times.
“How cool is this?” he says softly, wondering about the type of wood. “All my bats I used in my career were made of ash, I’m not sure what this is.”
Looking at an exhibit on Cleveland’s Bob Feller, he says, “You know I hit a home run off of him one time,” and then laughs. He pauses for a moment for effect, then says, “He used to come around and pitch exhibitions when I first came up. He laid one in there on me and I hit it out, so yeah, I can say I hit a home run off of Bob Feller.”
He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the museum tour and its exhibits, talking about guys he had met or played against over the years as it brought back memories.
After the tour, he meets with the media. He starts off talking about the game.
“Baseball is so special; I think that the attachment of the fans is what makes it what it is,” he says. “No other sport celebrates its history like we do. Just look at what they have done here. Don’t get me wrong, other sports are very popular, but I believe that baseball is still our national pastime.
“I was lucky to come up with the Braves just as Ted Turner was putting them on WTBS, and he hired all these great announcers [Ernie Johnson, Skip Carey, Pete Van Wieren and John Sterling], and people watched even when the teams were not good.
“Of course, the following all around the South is huge. They like to promote it as ‘Braves Country,’ but everywhere you go in the United States, Braves fans still turn out in big numbers, and that goes back to the TBS days. I was just thinking the other day about coming up here, and I realized that in June it will be 50 years ago that I signed with the Braves and they sent me up here to Kingsport.”
He was asked what he remembers most about those days?
“I remember being really homesick, at first,” he said. “But I loved it, lots of great memories of playing all around here in the Appalachian League.
“It is also the first time I ever ate country ham and grits,” he added with a laugh.
Then came the question that follows him everywhere he goes. What about being elected one day to the Baseball Hall of Fame?
“I still have a good shot,” he says. “I compare myself to others, and I hope that one day it will happen. You know it would cement my legacy. But I never felt that I would go right in.”
He was asked about his clean-cut image compared to guys who have had to deal with steroids and PEDs. And what about Pete Rose and his gambling issues?
“I think that in the Hall, the story of baseball needs to be told,” he said. “I mean, look at Pete. I think his story, and everything that it entails, it should be told. Same with the other guys.
“Things today are so different. I couldn’t imagine playing in the age of social media, but you know the guys playing today have grown up with it. I mean people are posting stuff today about kids in Little League and travel ball. Nobody knew anything about me until I established myself in the big leagues.”
I asked him about when he first came up. He was a catcher, then moved to first base, where he continued to struggle, until he was finally moved to the outfield and his career took off. Who with the Braves made that call?
“It was Bobby Cox,” he said. “But then he left and went to the Toronto Blue Jays as manager.”
Joe Torre replaced Cox and Murphy thrived in center field. Two NL MVP awards, seven All-Star games, five Gold Gloves, four Silver Slugger bats, Sports Illustrated covers, and Nike posters still famous to this day.
I asked him what he thought would have happened if Turner hadn’t fired Torre, and if the Braves had not traded slugging third baseman Bob Horner, his protection in the lineup, to St. Louis? He just smiled, shook his head, and laughed.
“Somebody wanted Eddie Haas, a Braves guy who had come up through the system, to be the manager.” He politely didn’t say who.
Murphy made the playoffs only once with Braves (1982). With all the Braves success since the early-’90s, he was asked, should they have won more than two World Series?
“No matter how good of a season you have, it is extremely hard to win in the postseason,” he said. “So many things have to go just right. Sometimes, strange things just seem to happen. It is baseball, the game is hard.”
I asked him about helping get an expansion team in Salt Lake City, Utah, near his home in Alpine.
“Yes, I am involved in that and we think we have a very good chance of getting an MLB team out there, whenever they decide they are ready to expand. A lot of work is going into it,” he said.
The press conference ends and his fans await. During a meet-and-greet, autographs are signed and photos taken. For some, there will be a dinner with him afterward. All the tickets are sold out, and there is a long line out the door and down the hallway. I can assure you that no one leaves disappointed.
My only wish is that someday soon he will get to write those three letters—“HOF”—under his name when he signs an autograph.
— Barry Blair is an author/writer who makes his home in Jonesborough, Tenn. You can reach him at barryblair54@gmail.com or check out his website rightfieldpress.com.
