Mormons, baseball and media: Dale Murphy speaks at Pa. youth conference and LDS Night at the Dodgers

Dale Murphy is a two-time National League MVP and played in the 1993 World Series.

This weekend, however, he was simply "Brother Murphy" to Mormon teenagers at a youth conference in State College, Pa., wrote Centre Daily Times sports writer Jeff Rice.

Murphy and his wife Nancy spoke to the young men and young women on Thursday, July 21, where they shared stories of faith in their own lives.

Dale Murphy also shared baseball stories of sticking to his faith in a profession where drug and alcohol use is common.

“You had to sort of set a standard that you followed and kind of just make some decisions sometimes,” Murphy said. “I made great friends and had great respect for all my teammates, but there are different lifestyles. You’ve got to just make decisions at times that you’re not going to go to certain places. Find friends and teammates that have common feelings about things.

“My teammates respected me for that. They knew how I felt.”

One story he shared was about Philadelphia Phillies teammate John Kruk, now an ESPN analyst, when a report asked what it was like to have Murphy on the team.

"Kruk’s reply: 'We’ve got 24 morons and one Mormon,'" Rice reported.

“I guess that was a compliment,” Murphy said as his audience laughed. “So I’ll take it.”

He did sign a few baseball cards, too.

LDS Night at the L.A. Dodgers

Also, more than 4,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were expected to attend Mormon Night as the Los Angeles Dodgers played the Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium on Friday, July 22, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

Mormons Jeff Hinton, Quint Randle and Ron Saltmarsh, who are members of Joshua Creek, were scheduled to sing the national anthem and "God Bless America."

It's one of several Mormon or LDS nights in professional sporting events.

Recently, there has been LDS Family Night at the San Francisco Giants. In the NBA, there were LDS Nights in Oakland, Calif., and missionaries sang the national anthem in San Antonio earlier this year.

Email: rappleye@desnews.com