Padre takes on his padre in Peoria
PEORIA ¡ª It was Father¡¯s Day and Opening Day all rolled into one.
The Murphy clan celebrated a baseball family¡¯s best day Saturday, when Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy faced his son, Kai Murphy, a member of the San Diego organization.
A fun day for Dad?
¡°I can¡¯t lie about that,¡± Pat said after the Brewers¡¯ 11-7 victory. ¡°Just extremely proud.¡±
Kai brought the Padres lineup card to home plate before the game, catching Pat off guard.
Then, he hit a two-run double in the seventh inning that cut the deficit to 8-5 in his first at-bat of the spring.
¡°I looked over, and I think he was laughing,¡± Kai said. ¡°We have this kind of unwritten thing of we're best friends. We're going to go home after this and really remember and laugh about it. But on the field, we're both professionals. He has to manage his team, and I want to respect everyone else on the field.¡±
Pat managed to keep his emotions in check.
¡°It still feels like, ¡®Whoa,¡¯¡± Pat said. ¡°The guys on the bench were kidding me, 'Go ahead and clap. You can clap.'¡±
The Brewers saved the ball from the double but Kai said he had not received it yet.
¡°I was more nervous for the lineup card, because I have never done that before,¡± Kai said. ¡°I didn¡¯t know who to give it to. The at-bat, I¡¯ve done a million times, so I wasn¡¯t too nervous.
¡°It's really cool playing against him. But at the end of the day, you're playing baseball, and I'm trying to make this club one day. It¡¯s awesome to do it against him. As much as I was competing and trying to help the Padres win, now that it is over and we are out of it, you can be grateful and have some perspective.¡±
Kai¡¯s two younger brothers, Austin and Jaxon, also attended, and they commemorated the day with a group photo afterward. Kai¡¯s teammates recognized how special the moment was, greeting him with a dugout full of high-fives after he came around to score in the seventh.
¡°Not a lot of people get to have this type of moment with their family,¡± Kai said. ¡°Now that we¡¯re out of the jungle, we can sit back and smile about it.¡±