Bob Murphy, ASA member and longtime New York Mets sportscaster, has announced he will retire at the end of the 2003 season. Murphy, 78, has been a fixture in the Mets broadcast booth since the team’s inception in 1962.

Before coming to New York, Murphy worked with ASA Hall of Famer Curt Gowdy calling Boston Red Sox games from 1954-59. After spending two years in Baltimore, Murphy was chosen as the nuts and bolts broadcaster to join nationally known Lindsey Nelson and former player Ralph Kiner as the broadcasting trio for the newly formed Mets franchise.

Along the way, Murphy has called over 6,000 Mets games. But maybe none have been more memorable than Game 6 of the 1986 World Series when the Mets were trying to keep a rally alive in the 10th inning. “It gets by Buckner!,” Murphy’s call of Mookie Wilson’s ground ball that rolled through the legs of Boston Red Sox first basemen Bill Buckner, still brings a smile to the face of every Mets fan. That fluke play forced a Game 7 which the Mets won to become World Champions.

Murphy, who was born in Oklahoma, began his broadcasting career with the Class C Muskogee Reds after coming out of the Marines at the end of WWII. Besides baseball, he has done college basketball and football, New York Titans football and one season of “Bowling for Dollars.” In 1994, Murphy was inducted into the Broadcasters’ Wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.