Courtesy Bloomberg

(July 14, 2008) Bobby Murcer, the outfielder turned broadcaster who became a loyal and beloved fixture of the New York Yankees even though he missed out on the baseball team's championship runs, has died. He was 62.<

Murcer, who had battled brain cancer, died yesterday at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City, the Yankees said in a statement.<

``If there's a Hall of Fame for people, he's in it,'' said former teammate Reggie Jackson in a statement.<

He spent 39 years with the Yankees, playing alongside such greats as Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris before moving to the broadcast booth. He hit 252 home runs and made the All-Star Game five times during a 17-year playing career that also included stints with the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs.<

``Bobby Murcer was a born Yankee, a great guy, very well- liked and a true friend of mine,'' Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in the team's statement. He added, ``I will really miss the guy.''<

An Oklahoma native like his idol Mantle, Murcer joined the Yankees with high expectations in 1965, just after a five-year stretch during which the team won two World Series.<

During his first eight years as a Yankee, the team finished as low as 10th place in the American League and as high as second. The team won two World Series championships after Murcer was traded away in 1974, then didn't win another during Murcer's five-season return stint, 1979-1983.<

Nonetheless, Murcer established himself as a fan favorite.<

He was ``just about the only star worth watching in his first tour of duty with the downtrodden Yankees from 1965 through 1974,'' sportswriter Maury Allen said in his 2004 book, ``Yankees: Where Have You Gone?''<

Yankee Hero<

In 1979, Murcer delivered a eulogy at the Ohio funeral of his close friend, catcher Thurman Munson, who was killed when the small plane he was piloting crashed. Hours after the funeral, at a somber Yankee Stadium, Murcer drove in all five runs, including two in the bottom of the ninth, in a 5-4 victory, one of the most emotional in the team's storied history.<

Murcer gave Diana Munson, Thurman's widow, the bat that struck the game-winning hit.<

``I consider the Yankees the greatest sports franchise in the world, Yankee Stadium the greatest stadium in the world and Yankee fans the greatest fans in the world,'' Murcer told a cheering crowd on Aug. 7, 1983, Bobby Murcer Day.<

Bobby Ray Murcer was born May 20, 1946, in Oklahoma City, the second of three boys to Mae Belle and Robert Murcer, a jeweler. Bobby grew up rooting for the Yankees and made All-State teams in baseball and football, according to an online biography by the Society for American Baseball Research.<

He secured a football scholarship from the University of Oklahoma but found many baseball suitors upon his graduation from high school. Although the Los Angeles Dodgers outbid the Yankees, $20,000 to $10,000, Murcer chose New York.<

``All that winning, all those great names,'' he told Bill Madden for his 2003 book, ``Pride of October: What It Was Like to be Young and a Yankee.''<

Young Promise<

Signed in 1964 as a left-handed-hitting shortstop, Murcer made his debut late in the 1965 season, which ended with the Yankees in sixth place.<

His path to a full-time spot in the lineup was delayed when he was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1967. He spent two years serving in the radio corps at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.<

He broke into the Yankees starting lineup in 1969, hitting 26 home runs and eventually settling in center field, where legends such as Mantle and Joe DiMaggio had roamed before. His ``soft, round, cherubic face'' earned him the nickname ``Lemon,'' Allen wrote.<

Three consecutive standout seasons -- 1971 (.331 batting average, 25 home runs), 1972 (.292, 33) and 1973 (.304, 22) -- earned Murcer comparisons with his boyhood hero, Mantle. In March 1974, Murcer became the highest-paid player in Yankee history, signing a contract for $120,000.<

Crushing Trade<

Murcer's production dropped in 1974, when the Yankees spent the season in the less hitter-friendly confines of Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being renovated. A month after the season ended, the Yankees traded him to the San Francisco Giants for Bobby Bonds, one of the biggest player moves in league history until then.<

Crushed, Murcer spent the next two seasons with the Giants, then 2 1/2 seasons with the Chicago Cubs, before returning to the Yankees via a trade in June 1979.<

``I just forget about those years with the Giants and Cubs,'' Murcer told Allen for his 2004 book.<

Murcer spent more time on the bench than the field in his final years as a Yankee. ``They shunted me aside,'' he told the New York Times in 1982. He finally made it to a World Series in 1981, going hitless in three pinch-hitting appearances as the Yankees lost in six games to the Los Angeles Dodgers.<

Broadcast Booth<

When Murcer announced his retirement in June 1983 -- to make room for Don Mattingly, who would become another celebrated Yankee on non-championship teams -- the Yankees assigned him to the broadcast booth to fill out his contract.<

``I didn't have any formal training,'' Murcer recalled. ``I retired that afternoon and was broadcasting that night.''<

Murcer won three Emmy Awards during his tenure as a Yankee game analyst, working most recently for the YES Network. He spent the 1986 season as Yankee assistant general manager, then decided he was happier returning to the broadcast booth.<

``He wore his emotions on his sleeve whether he was in the booth or as a player,'' said Yankees manager Joe Girardi, in a statement. ``Bobby was the kind of man that, I believe, got what life was all about.''<

Murcer was chairman of the Baseball Assistance Team, the league-sanctioned charity that helps former players in need, particularly ones who played before the era of large contracts and generous pensions.<

He lived in Oklahoma City with his wife, Kay. They have two children.