Daniel Murphy finds himself fending off widespread criticisms about his decision to take the New York Mets first two games off to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.
“I got a couple of text messages about it, so I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I didn’t hear about it,” Murphy told ESPN of the overall reaction he has faced following the blistering on-air criticism he received from WFAN Radio. “But that’s the awesome part about being blessed, about being a parent, is you get that choice. My wife and I discussed it, and we felt the best thing for our family was for me to try to stay for an extra day — that being Wednesday — due to the fact that she can’t travel for two weeks.”
Murphy left the Mets just as they were breaking camp in Florida late Sunday and heading for Washington to face the Nationals in their season opener. Though his son was born just after midnight early that next morning, Murphy missed both Monday’s and Wednesday’s games and was formally placed on paternity leave, returning for the finale of the three game series swept by Washington on Thursday.
“It’s going to be tough for her to get up to New York for a month,” Murphy told reporters of his wife. “I can only speak from my experience — a father seeing his wife — she was completely finished. I mean, she was done. She had surgery and she was wiped. Having me there helped a lot, and vice versa, to take some of the load off. It felt, for us, like the right decision to make.”
Ah contraire, countered WFAN announcer Mike Francesa, who chided Murphy with the admonishment “you’re a major league baseball player. You can hire a nurse. What are you gonna do, sit there and look at your wife in the hospital bed for two days?”
Still, Mets manager Terry Collins came to the defense of his starting second basemen. “I’m sure there might be some guy along the way that said, ‘Hey, listen, it’s too far to go. It’s too far to travel. I’ll see you in a few days,'” Collins said. “But you know what? I certainly feel it’s very unfair to criticize Dan Murphy.”
The collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the players’ association allows for up to a three-day absence after a player is placed on paternity leave. The Phillies Jimmy Rollins took the leave-of-absence on Wednesday.
“Again, that’s the choice of parents that they get to make,” Murphy said when asked if he was surprised by all the negative reaction. “That’s the greatness of it. You discuss it with your spouse and you find out what you think works best for your family.”
