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The ceremony had just ended in the library at baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and Hall president Josh Rawitch showcased some cool artifacts from the museum for all to see.
When Rawitch flashed a Willie Mays jersey, it pulled on the heartstrings of longtime Giants clubhouse manager Mike Murphy, who was honored last week at the hall along with Steve Vucinich, the former Oakland A’s clubhouse manager.
Murphy and Vucinich were among seven former renowned clubbies inducted into the inaugural class of the MLB Clubhouse Managers Association Hall of Fame. The other five were inducted posthumously.
During the visit to upstate New York, Murphy made sure to walk through the hall’s iconic plaque room to pay homage to Giants Hall of Famers and players from other teams that he had befriended through the decades.
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“It was great. I really enjoyed it up there, a real nice honor,” Murphy said. “I found all my boys there. I got to go visit Willie. On his plaque on the wall, I gave him a little touch on the head. I said, ‘I miss you, buddy, I really do.’ ”
Murphy went into semi-retirement in 2015 but kept working home games through 2022 in the Oracle Park clubhouse that’s named after him. Vucinich’s final season was 2021; he was in camp the following spring to help his successors make the adjustment.
(Murphy and Vucinich pose together in the Baseball Hall of Fame’s plaque room. | Source: Courtesy MLB Clubhouse Managers Association
Both joined their respective organizations in the first years of their West Coast existence, Murphy in 1958 and Vucinich in 1968. In all, Murphy spent 65 seasons with the Giants, Vucinich 54 with the A’s.
“Being a founding member of the association and seeing how far we’ve come, wow, it’s a wild moment,” Vucinich said. “It was like, “Thank you, baseball.’ I was voted in by my compatriots, and that means a lot.”
The idea of an association for clubhouse managers initially was discussed at the 1985 winter meetings in San Diego, and the MLBCMA was established in 1993. The non-profit makes donations and awards scholarships (including to clubhouse assistants and batboys) primarily from money collected at the annual winter meetings trade show.
The association has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Baseball Assistance Team, which helps in-need folks in the baseball industry, and more recently $25,000 each to Aaron Judge’s and Clayton Kershaw’s foundations.
Aside from Murphy and Vucinich, the five award recipients were Eddie Logan (Giants), Pete Sheehy (Yankees), Butch Yatkeman (Cardinals), Yosh Kawano (Cubs), and Bernie Stowe (Reds).
Logan ran the Giants’ clubhouse in New York and transitioned to San Francisco, where he hired Murphy, first as a batboy then clubhouse assistant. Murphy ultimately became visiting clubhouse manager and then home clubhouse manager.
“Really nice person, but I was a little scared when I first met him,” Murphy said of Logan. “Legendary guy from New York, and he taught me a lot: Do your job and don’t say much, which I didn’t. I didn’t bother nobody.”
At the 2024 World Series, Yankees clubhouse man Lou Cucuzza Sr., who doubles as the MLBCMA president, spoke with Rawitch about ways to honor clubhouse managers of the past. The idea surfaced to raise a plaque in the hall’s library, known as the A. Bartlett Research Center, alongside existing plaques honoring MLB trainers and public relations officials.
A plaque was designed. A committee voted for the honorees. And an inaugural class was honored.
Vucinich and Murphy helped generations of major leaguers during their careers in the Bay Area. | Source: Courtesy MLB Clubhouse Managers Association
While the hall hosted the ceremony and included the plaque in its library, it’s not officially a Hall of Fame award. Still, it was a special moment for Murphy, Vucinich, and the families of the other recipients to be on baseball’s hallowed grounds for an event that could evolve into an annual tradition.
“You think about the museum itself,” Cucuzza said, “with hundreds of thousands of equipment (items) in that building, then you think about the equipment guys in the clubhouse being the first to touch the equipment and last to touch the equipment that made it to the Hall of Fame. It’s just amazing.
“This isn’t just a longevity award, but it’s for the cream-of-the-crop guys that players have admired. Look at Murph. The relation he had with Willie, no manager or other player had that personal relationship that Murph had. It’s a perfect example of relationships that go beyond handling team equipment and clubhouse operations.”