Phillips: MLB losing Kyler Murray just another self-inflicted wound

With a league full of scouts, you'd think that Major League Baseball might have picked up the curveball that Kyler Murray was preparing to throw at them coming.

MLB never got the bat off its shoulder.


Murray was supposed to throw MLB a meatball. He was going to fix its “black baseball player” problem, giving a generation of young players, particularly young African-Americans, someone to look up to and say, “that could be me one day.”

That all went away on Monday when Murray declared for the NFL draft. And although Murray could still show up when the Oakland A’s open camp next month, two weeks before the NFL Combine, everything about this feels like Murray has taken batting practice for the last time.

How did MLB get here?

The short answer is that the league forgot who it is, and for that matter, who Murray is.

The long answer is a little more complex.

Kyler Murray's historic season at Oklahoma drew him away from baseball.
Kyler Murray's historic season at Oklahoma drew him away from baseball. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)

After the Oakland A’s drafted Murray ninth overall in last June’s draft, the A’s thought they had their man, and MLB believed it had finally secured an African-American prospect who could eventually be one of the faces of the league.

After signing Murray to a deal that included a $4.66 million signing bonus, the two sides agreed upon a deal that would allow Murray to play one final year of football at Oklahoma before trading in his football cleats for baseball spikes.

But we all know how that ended, as Murray put together one of the single greatest seasons in college football history with over 5,300 yards of total offense to go along with 54 touchdowns, while beating out Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa for the Heisman Trophy after Tua had been the front runner for almost an entire calendar year.

With whispers that Murray was leaning toward declaring for the NFL Draft and sticking with football, stories began to surface that MLB and the A’s were doing everything they could, and maybe some things they technically couldn’t, to change Murray’s mind.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that executives from the team and the league met with Murray to come up with “something creative” to keep him away from the gridiron. With rules set up within MLB to stop players from signing major league contracts that will put them on a 40-man roster straight out of the draft, Oakland was possibly working on a deal that would give Murray a long-term extension and pay him more money.

It’s also believed that MLB would have given the A’s the green light to do what was necessary to sway Murray, which is why marketing officials from the league were at the meeting to come up with possible endorsement deals that would put more cash in Murray’s bank account.

But even then, Murray would have still been starting his professional career in the minor leagues instead of being on an official NFL roster.

Kyler Murray might never put on an A's jersey
Kyler Murray might never put on an A's jersey (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)

And then there’s also the issue of race, which can’t be ignored here. Because for everything that Murray could have done for the league, and the sport, as the new black face of baseball, you have to consider all the missteps that were made along the way.

For all the programs that MLB has introduced over the years like the Dream Series, Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI), and the Urban Youth Academy, in hopes to get more African-American kids interested in the game, while creating a pipeline to the majors, the percentage of African-Americans players on Opening MLB Rosters in 2018 was a pathetic 8.4 percent.


And get this: That was the highest it had been since 2012, as it was 7.7 percent in 2017.

For all that MLB has “tried to do” in the name of diversity, the league still hasn’t fully realized that it’s viewed by many in the African-American community as a white sport that has a racist past that consistently overlooks and erases the legacies of legendary black players, and still has issues with its current ones.

In 2017, Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones was called the N-word and had peanuts thrown at him during a game at Fenway Park.

Last February, Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. caused a stir and upset some fans and others within the organization because his hat was cocked to the side during an interview. The then-20-year-old Venezuelan native, who many considered the best prospect in baseball at the time, quickly realized that “playing the right way” actually means playing the white way.

And for those of you who are wondering what happened to Acuna Jr., well he won the National League Rookie of the Year Award and led the Braves to the playoffs for the first time since 2013.

Baseball as a whole, not just MLB, keeps tripping over itself when it comes to diversity and race relations. And in an era in which the NFL is plagued with CTE issues, violence against women, and is run by a group of people who have consistently shown us that they really don’t care about important social issues that greatly impact the players who make up 70 percent of the league, or their right to peacefully protest, they still couldn’t sway Murray to say no to the NFL.

Since he came onto the scene in high school, Kyler Murray has been dubbed a legend at the most popular position in American sports, quarterback. In baseball, where pitchers run the show, he's an outfielder. The long history of steering young black players away from playing quarterback is well known; less documented is the dearth of black pitchers. According to FOXSports Ken Rosenthal, the 2017 season started with just a total of 54 African-American pitchers in the minors, which comes out to less than two per team.

He walks on water in his home state of Texas.

He owned college football in his one year as a starter.

And Monday, he made it pretty clear that he wants to see if he can do it at the highest level by dominating on Sundays.

In a few months, Kyler Murray has a chance to be the first athlete to ever be drafted in the first round of the MLB and NFL drafts.

A competitor like Murray is never going to turn down an opportunity to make that kind of history.

When you think about it, Major League Baseball never had a chance at Kyler Murray, because far too many times the sport, and the league, has ignored people who look just like him.