Calvin Murray doesn’t need a calendar to know when it’s March 24.
Once his phone starts buzzing and doesn’t stop, the former major league outfielder knows exactly what day it is. It happened again late last month on the 25th anniversary of one of baseball’s most iconic moments.
Murray, the uncle of Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray, was at bat for the when pitcher Randy Johnson hit a bird midflight.
“I get the yearly text message during spring training,” Murray said. “I’m usually blown up quite a bit when people start seeing that highlight.”
The infamous collision of ball and bird turned a sleepy Cactus League spring training contest into one of the earliest viral moments in all of sports. A video of Johnson’s fastball striking a dove in the seventh inning of a split-squad game at Arizona’s former spring training home in Tucson has become synonymous with Johnson, a Hall of Famer, and quite popular: It’s been viewed 2.3 million times on YouTube.
Looking back on the play 25 years later, those involved still have vivid memories that don’t need to be helped along with the aid of a video. The sights and sounds of the pitch, the bird and the aftermath are engrained in their memories forever.
It has become a way for then-Diamondbacks catcher Rod Barajas, now a quality control coach for the , to connect with his players, a few of whom weren’t even born when the play happened.
“They don’t know a whole lot of players that played back in the ’90s or the 2000s,” Barajas said. “They’re kind of clueless of who those guys are, but they know that video. So, when I tell them that’s me in that video, they remember. They’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s huge.’ And it’s a big hit with all the players.”
When Hall of Fame second baseman Jeff Kent, who was standing on the top step of the Giants dugout during that fateful pitch, is asked about some of the wilder things that happened during his career, he always tells the story.
The shock of what happened still sticks with Barajas.
He called for a fastball from the flamethrowing Johnson, and as the ball was about halfway to the plate, Barajas’ muscle memory kicked in. He started moving his glove to the spot he was anticipating Johnson’s pitch would go.
“Obviously, I see the ball,” Barajas said. “It’s coming and then it disappears and then there’s nothing there. So, yeah, the muscle memory was like, ‘Go get that ball.’ But I went to get it and nothing came to me.”
While Barajas and Murray were waiting for the pitch to arrive, it happened.
Johnson’s pitch collided with the dove, which was flying from one side of the guide wires holding up the mesh net behind home plate, to the other, instantly killing it and turning it into a puff of feathers. The birds had been flying between the wires all game, remembers former Diamondbacks general manager Joe Garagiola Jr., who was in his seats a few rows behind home plate that afternoon.
At first, Murray thought he was being pranked.
“All I remember is, I just know that baseball players, they’re just a bunch of practical jokers, especially being spring training,” Murray said. “My initial thought was he threw the ball and I thought it was an exploding baseball. I thought it was some pranked-up baseball, guys being goofy like that.
“And I was kind of like, ‘The ball blew up halfway.’ I thought the ball blew up, but it was actually the bird that blew up. And I was like, ‘What the heck?’ And I froze and I looked back.”
When Murray looked back and saw an equally stunned Barajas, he knew it wasn’t a prank.
“Then we were both like, ‘What the hell’s going on?'” Murray said.
That was the general sentiment around the ballpark, according to Kent. No one around the stadium knew what just took place. Barajas didn’t even know it was a bird that was hit because it essentially disappeared.
“It took a while for those feathers to start falling,” Barajas said.
Barajas and Murray just stood there next to each other, not talking.
“I think it was just kind of looking at each other like, ‘Did that just really happen?'” Barajas said. “Just the shock and the surprise.
“I know I can remember seeing his face and I probably had the exact same face he did, big eyes and just at awe of what happened.”
Former Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly, who used to bird hunt “quite a bit” in the offseason, said, to this day, he has never seen a bird explode into that many feathers.
“Obviously, we didn’t know what the heck happened at first,” he said. “But because of my hunting experience, I recognized feathers in the air and I kind of figured out what had happened.
“And then trying to figure out how does that happen? How in the world does a guy throwing a hundred miles an hour hit a bird flying full speed? It was just mind-boggling.”
Kent was standing on the top step of the dugout, having made the road trip two hours south to Tucson specifically to face the D-backs’ ace, intently watching Johnson.
When he saw the bird on the ground, Kent, an avid hunter, started laughing. But nobody moved.
“Everybody was frozen,” he said.
Kent walked onto the field, picked up the bird by its wing and got the first close-up look at the calamity.
“The bird’s breast was blown out,” Kent said.
After Kent picked up the bird, he turned to Johnson, who was still on the mound, and showed him the animal in a nod of appreciation for what he just did.
“I looked at Randy like, ‘Hey, you just did an amazing thing,'” Kent remembered. “And he looked at me and he was wanting to tear me apart. I could see it in his eyes. There was no smile. He had his game face on, and he didn’t react one bit.
“And I thought that was funny, but it just showed how much of a competitor … It was spring training. Randy’s out there with his game face on and he didn’t give a s— whether he hit a bird or not. I’m laughing. I’m going like, ‘This is an amazing moment.’ I know a bird’s dead, but I said, ‘You can’t ever replicate this. You’d probably win the lottery before you could do this again.’
“And so that’s the kind of snickering laugh I had on my [face] because I’m a hunter. I’m a bird hunter and a deer hunter. So, I appreciate animals, but just that moment was unbelievable to be a part of. And I looked at Randy and he had this, ‘Get the f— off my field look.’ And I just kind of went, ‘Oh, OK.’ And I grabbed the bird and turned around and walked to the dugout.”
Then Kent threw the bird in the trash.
In the immediate aftermath, Murray turned toward the umpire and begged for a ball to be called. The umpire, however, was quick to shut down Murray’s plea because baseball rules state that if a pitched ball hits either a bird in flight or an animal on the field, the pitch is replayed.
“He’s like, ‘No pitch, Calvin,'” Murray recalled with a chuckle. “I’m like, ‘Damn it.'”
It’s a story that has followed those involved through the years.
Kent considered getting the bird taxidermized with a baseball lodged in its chest and asking Johnson to sign it, but the idea was fleeting. He still, however, has a photo from a newspaper of him holding the bird.
Although Johnson was once reluctant to relive the event, he chose a dead bird as for his post-career photography studio.
Murray still gets a kick out of seeing the reaction when people he has known for years find out he was at bat that day. Some wonder why he never told them about the play, to which Murray typically responds: “I don’t go around announcing that I was hitting when the guy hit the bird.”
“I’m like, ‘Bro, I played, too,'” Murray said. “I did more than play when the guy hit the bird.
“It’s cool, though. I mean, my girls, they crack up when somebody finds out and tells them. So, it’s good a conversation starter, I should say.”
The Diamondbacks went on to win one of the most thrilling World Series ever played 25 years ago as well, but without modern technology, the bizarre spring occurrence that preceded their title run might have been more urban legend than a part of baseball history.
“If it wasn’t for video, nobody would’ve believed us if we’d said, ‘Hey, Randy Johnson knocked a bird out of midair today with a fastball,'” Brenly said. “Nobody would’ve believed it if there wasn’t a video.”
The next day, the Diamondbacks took the field again for another spring training game.
Something was different, however, when Barajas looked up at those guide wires on either side of the net.
“You look up on the wire that holds the net behind home plate, and instead of being four birds, there were three birds up there,” Barajas said. “So, we figured those are the three buddies of the guy that didn’t make it.”
