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SALT LAKE CITY — Daniel Murphy stops for a moment to admire the view of the mountains rising above the Smith's Ballpark batter's eye after taking a few cuts during a team batting practice on a warm and sunny Wednesday afternoon.
"It's beautiful," the new Salt Lake Bees infielder says, peering at the ballpark backdrop. "It's interesting to see snow in the middle of the summer."
There's no way Murphy, now 38, could have ever imagined he'd be standing here in the middle of what he calls a "great sandlot" this time a year ago. The former three-time MLB All-Star — most famous for his 2015 National League Championship Series MVP and a catalyst for the New York Mets' postseason run to the World Series that year — left the game just before the 2021 season began.
The soft-spoken slugger, who battled all sorts of leg injuries during his initial professional stint, is quick to admit that he retired before any team could tell him that his career was over. He compiled a .236 average with a .608 OPS in 40 games with the Colorado Rockies during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, both of which were far below his career production.
He saw the writing on the wall and left on his own terms.
Murphy still watched the game and enjoyed it over the past two seasons, but he never really felt the itch to return to the game. The Florida native was quite content staying at home and helping his wife, Victoria, raise their four children together. That changed the moment he sat down last October and began to watch the Ken Burns 1994 documentary "Baseball."
There was something about the way the greats like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Willie Mays hacked at a pitch and sprinted out of the batter's box that made him think about his swing and movement. Dwelling on it more — and reading Christy Mathewson's century-old "Pitching in a Pinch" — only helped him appreciate the game he once played and rekindle his desire to pick up a bat again.
The thought of returning to baseball kept growing from there.
"You get curious about something, and I was extremely grateful for what baseball has afforded myself and my family. And I can move just fast enough to kind of test some of these things out," he said. "My body was, at least in my opinion, moving well enough to try and get bats professionally; and if I chose not to do it, it would have been out of fear more than anything else — I didn't want that to be the case."
His test, as he puts it, began with hitting a ball off a tee again, and continued with batting practice and live at-bats, before seeking to play on a team again.
That helped carry him all the way back to New York. The Long Island Ducks, a member of the independent Atlantic League and home to several former major league players, was the only club that offered to sign him, something that was finalized in March. The trial run turned out to be a success; he hit a robust .331 with a .861 OPS in 37 games with the club earlier this season.
Murphy's agents started to reach out to major league clubs to see if anyone might be willing to bite.
It turns out the Los Angeles Angels, the Salt Lake Bees' parent club, were quietly tracking Murphy's comeback attempt — so quietly that Angels skipper Phil Nevin told reporters on June 13 that he wasn't even aware Murphy was playing again until a few weeks ago.
However, as the Angels deal with a string of infield injuries, they're starting to run thin at certain positions, and it was time to look at outside options. The club signed Murphy to a minor league deal last week and assigned him to the Bees on Tuesday.
"It's a depth thing. I know he's been swinging well in the independent league," Nevin said, according to ESPN. "I'm fond of those guys that come from the independent leagues."
Murphy contends he's fairly surprised how quickly his comeback attempt led him back into at least affiliated ball, but he's excited to play in a "faster sandlot" than the independent leagues. The ultimate goal, of course, is to reach the fastest sandlot — the one the Angels play in — at some point this season.
He knows that's a decision out of his control, so he says he'll work on being as productive as he can be in Salt Lake.
To that end, he adds that his overarching goal from his "voluntary" journey is to savor every aspect of the game that he fell back in love with again during his time away from it. It's a different perspective of the game than when he climbed through the minors the first time 15 years ago, mostly because of what he's trading to be here, staring at the snow-capped mountains towering over Smith's Ballpark.
"I want to be enjoying my baseball because it's coming at a higher cost than when I was single," he said. "Now, I'm hopefully able to have a narrow focus for the game, while also being able to take on the responsibility of being a husband and a father."
