WORLD SERIES NOTES

While the Atlanta Braves are knocking on history’s door, Dale Murphy is occasionally knocking on stranger’s doors.

While his former teammates say they are on a mission, one of the best players in club history is literally on a mission.

Don’t look for Murphy to show up at any of the Series games in Atlanta. No first balls, no plaque dedications, nothing. He has never even been to Turner Field.

Murphy can’t leave his job as president of The Massachusetts Boston Mission, a program of the Mormon Church that involves 200 young missionaries.

“I am needed here,” Murphy said. “Sometimes when I think back to those days with the Braves, it seems like another life.”

Of all the strikeouts that will surely be recorded in this pitcher’s series, there has still been no bigger swing and miss then the metaphorical one taken by Murphy.

For 11 full seasons he played in Atlanta, winning two MVP awards, five Gold Gloves and appearing in seven All-Star games.

Yet Murphy never appeared in a World Series.

‘I wouldn’t mind you saying I’m jealous of what’s going on right now in Atlanta,” he said in a phone interview from his Boston-area office, where he mostly supervises the missionaries, although sometimes he walks door-to-door with them. “I would have loved to experience a World Series,” Murphy said. “And, yeah, sometimes, I have regrets.”

The Braves wanted to honor Murphy this summer, but because he was in the middle of the three-year volunteer mission commitment, he couldn’t leave Boston.

He has had chances to return to baseball--there are not many hitting coaches out there with 398 home runs--but he said he chose his family instead.

“No matter what your occupation, you have to make a decision, and there are sacrifices,” Murphy said. “Sometimes when you choose your job, you sacrifice your family. I couldn’t do that.”