by James Finn Garner
We rode the bus a lot back then
Murphy was our bus driver
No first name
“Murphy” might’ve been fake too
He was bad business
Gold teeth
Angry eye
A past we never asked about
But reliable
Murphy was reliable
You could always count on him
Hearing one of us on the team shout
(and we did it many times a night)
“Hey Murphy! I think I just saw a police car!”
And hitting the gas
And driving like the devil himself was after him
Nicely done. Your are a Philip Levine of baseball
Well, we’re both from Detroit, but that’s where the similarity ends.
That’s a great vision, Jim.
From a story told by Buck O’Neil to Joe Posnansky