Ray Murray
American baseball player (1917-2003)
Raymond Lee Murray (October 12, 1917 – April 9, 2003) was an American professional baseball player and manager. A catcher, he appeared in 250 games played over all or parts of six seasons for the Cleveland Indians (1948; 1950–1951), Philadelphia Athletics (1951–1953) and Baltimore Orioles (1954). The native of Spring Hope, North Carolina, threw and batted right-handed, stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed 204 pounds (93 kg). He was a veteran of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.
Major league career
Murray was a backup catcher to Jim Hegan in Cleveland, Joe Tipton in Philadelphia, and Clint Courtney in Baltimore. As a member of the Athletics in 1953, he shared the regular catcher's job with Joe Astroth and set personal bests in every major statistical category, including games played (84), hits (76), home runs (six), runs batted in (41) and batting average (.284). All told, he batted .252 with eight homers and 184 hits during his MLB career. He later managed in minor league baseball in the San Francisco Giants' organization.
Murray was a talented catcher with a big bat and a strong throwing arm. In his short career he allowed very few stolen bases (he notched 69 "caught stealings" in 1,803 innings caught) and quickly gained recognition as a gun slinger at the plate. Murray was known for his colorful antics with the umpires, which may have earned him the nickname "Deacon" for the way he preached to the umps.
The public source identifies “Ray Murray” as american baseball player (1917-2003). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Murray, American and baseball.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7297880. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2003, 1948 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ray Murray” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.