Due to other stories I’m working on, there will be no BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE this weekend. Apologies. Instead, here’s a Famous For Something Else that I’ve been meaning to put up.
Bill Murray, member of the early days of SNL, star of Ghostbusters, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, Stripes, Lost In Translation and all-around cool guy, was, ever so briefly, a professional baseball player. He played for the independent Northwest League Grays Harbor Loggers in 1978 in-between SNL gigs, partly for a “what I did over summer vacation” segment for the show. The crazy tale is recounted here in a Oral History put together by Rob Neyer. And here are the stats of the player who Baseball Reference has recorded as “William Murray“:
| Year | Age | AgeDif | Tm | Lg | Lev | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | TB | HBP | SH | SF | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | 28 | 6.7 | Grays Harbor | NORW | A- | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .500 | .500 | 1.000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 Season | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .500 | .500 | 1.000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
Bill Murray. Ballplayer. Nobody would ever believe it, and yet it happened.
Murray remains involved with baseball to this day, owning stakes in a few independent clubs.
The Baseball Continuum 