Seated in front of his locker in the visiting clubhouse at the Kansas City Royals' spring training facility, Eddie Murray spots Cleveland Indians superstar-in-waiting Manny Ramirez walking out the door.

"He's going to be something special," Murray said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to point out one of baseball's top prospects.

In signature understated fashion, Eddie Murray is excited. Out of New York. In Cleveland. Surrounded by so many potent bats and so much young talent. Married. Loving life.

Murray, 38 and carrying a bat that refuses to age, is starting over again, playing for his third team since leaving the Orioles after the 1988 season.

"I made some phone calls, talked to people who have been in the league for a while and everybody seemed to think this was a ballclub on the move," he said of the Indians. "If we can catch the ball a little better, throw a few more strikes, we have a chance to do something."

For a time last winter, it appeared as if Murray would have a chance to do something again for his first organization, the team for which he hit a club-record 333 home runs and drove in 1,190 runs in 12 seasons.

If Orioles owner Peter Angelos made the personnel decisions, as has been suggested, Murray and Dennis Martinez might have returned to Baltimore. Instead, they signed with Cleveland. Sid Fernandez and Rafael Palmeiro signed with the Orioles, proof that Angelos trusts general manager Roland Hemond on personnel matters.

"I think it was more just the owner wanted us back," Murray said. "I don't think anyone else really did."

Murray didn't say he would have returned, but didn't say he would have rejected the chance, either.

"There was never really an offer on the table," Murray said. "Therefore, it was nothing but words."

Murray never has wasted much time on idle words, so he doesn't waste time thinking about what might have been.

"We couldn't sign everybody," Hemond said of his decision. "He [Angelos] was pulling for it, but with Palmeiro available at 29 years old, we figured he would fit in better for us. That doesn't mean I don't have high regard for Eddie. I do.

He's put together a Hall of Fame career. But we had Harold Baines, who did a very nice job for us at DH, and we had an opportunity to get Palmeiro. I'll say one thing. I don't think I'll enjoy watching Eddie come up to the plate for the other team against us."

That won't happen until May 6 at Camden Yards, where Murray spent one day, for the Mets in an exhibition game before the 1992 season. Many Murray fans in Baltimore might have that date circled, but he said he doesn't.

"I don't even think about it," Murray said. "I can't imagine too much good will come from it."

Remembering the boos

He remembers the boos of his final two seasons, but talks of them more in puzzled tones than out of either anger or bitterness.

4 "Basically, I was run out of town," Murray said.

He indicated he believes the media turned much of the town against him.

"It was ugly. It was time to go, time for both sides to part," he said. "It got to the point the last two years I wasn't talking to the media. It seemed like all the stuff started, all the problems with the media started after I was made team captain. I guess people expected me to change the way I am because I was made team captain."

Five-and-a-half years after being traded to the Dodgers in a deal held up when officials from both front offices were trapped on an elevator for 44 minutes, Murray will return to Baltimore in a meaningful game. What reaction does he expect from the Camden Yards crowd?

"Who knows?" he said. "I don't even want to think about it. It could be the same old thing, or it could be something different."

As unskilled at the art of self-promotion as he is uninterested in practicing it, Murray does not have a political breath in his lungs. He has no use for phonies and isn't about to learn how to become one himself.

Consequently, when asked about his impressions of Camden Yards, he didn't turn poetic, didn't ruminate on its ambience. He envisioned it through the eyes of a ballplayer, specifically through a power hitter's line of vision.

"It was hard to tell much about it from just one game, and it was early, the grass wasn't really in shape," he said. "I've heard nice things about it. I've heard the ball carries well, so they've definitely got it facing in the right direction."

A throwback

In so many ways, Murray is a throwback to another era. He talks and thinks baseball with teammates, quietly leading younger players. He seldom sits out a game. In 15 of his 17 seasons, he has played at least 151 games. He was limited to 99 games in strike-shortened 1981 and to 137 by a hamstring injury in 1986. In every season except '81, when he had 78 RBI, he has driven in at least 84 runs.

Murray seldom is portrayed as a player from another generation. He doesn't fit the throwback stereotype forever perpetuated: Brush cut, dirty uniform, pale complexion.

No, he doesn't fit the stereotype linked to the term, only the essence.

Throughout most of his career, Murray has been popular with teammates, quietly generous in the community, distant with the media.

Not surprisingly, New York wasn't the perfect fit for him. After Murray spent three productive years in Los Angeles, Dodgers general manager Fred Claire, still a vocal Murray backer, decided to let his first baseman walk in order to make room for Eric Karros, the 1992 National League Rookie of the Year.

"Eddie did a tremendous job for us," Claire said. "He was everything I hoped he would be and more. He had a great presence on our club and in our clubhouse. He played hard, wanted to play every day, and he was great with our young players. I have a lot of respect for him. He knows the game as well as anyone I've ever been around."

Murray signed a two-year contract with the Mets and grew unhappy with what he considered to be viciously unfair media treatment of teammates Bobby Bonilla and Vince Coleman.

"That place does nothing but try to destroy people," Murray said of New York. "I've always enjoyed playing this game, always enjoyed coming to the ballpark. But last year's experience, it was very tough to play with all that stuff going on.

"Obviously, we weren't playing all that great. People were yelling and screaming all the time, and you had to play with plugs in your ears. You just had to go about doing your job and shutting them off. The last two years in Baltimore, I had to shut it off, too. It was getting ugly."

Murray didn't actually wear plugs. Home plate always has been his refuge from the trimmings that accompany the game he loves to play. He sees only the ball leaving the pitcher's hand. Last season, he saw it well enough to drive in 100 runs for the sixth time in his career.

"At this time, I don't feel like I've lost anything," Murray said. "One thing I've always had the ability to do is adjust. Knowing that will always allow you to relax at the plate. If anything, as I get older, I just have to adjust a little more quickly."

'A consummate professional'

Amid lingering reports Murray was a problem in the clubhouse, former Mets general manager Al Harazin called Cleveland GM John Hart to inform him that was not the case.

"I told Al his call wasn't necessary," said Hart, a former minor-league instructor with the Orioles. "I know Eddie Murray. I know what he's all about. He plays every day,and he gets it done. That's the bottom line.

"Eddie's a consummate professional. He's great with young players, and obviously we're looking for him to hit. He's a real presence behind Albert Belle. They pitched around Albert a lot last year. They won't be doing that as much anymore.

"Eddie talks the game. He knows the game. He loves the game. I've known Eddie for 15 years. We like all those things about Eddie, but obviously the reason we got him was to hit. Any time you have a Hall of Fame guy who can do the things he can do offensively in a role that suits him best at this point of his career, plus the type of person he is, I think you're in pretty good shape."

Hart said he had no reservations about signing Murray to a contract that pays him $3 million plus incentives per year. This year's salary is guaranteed. The Indians hold the option on the 1995 and '96 seasons. The final two years become guaranteed if he plays 145 games and has 550 plate appearances this season.

Murray will be Cleveland's designated hitter and will play first base at times against left-handers.

He returns to the role he performed when he broke into the majors in 1977. Those who have known him longest and know him best, swear by the person. His numbers swear by the player. Lee May, who was on first base when Murray was a rookie designated hitter at age 21 in 1977, remains close with his former understudy.

"Eddie knows how to hit, and he's at his best with runners in scoring position," said May, Kansas City's hitting coach. "When the bases are empty, he has a tendency to go for the pump. But that's what he should do. That's what they pay him for, to be a pump man. The last thing you want Eddie Murray to do is go up there looking for walks. What's he going to do after he walks, steal second and steal third? Let Kenny Lofton bunt, steal second, steal third. Eddie's a pump man."

Murray has 441 home runs, putting him on course for Cooperstown and in range of the 500 home run club.

May, who that evening was preparing to sample the cooking of Murray's wife, the former Janice Zenon, expressed no doubts Murray would have fit in nicely had he returned to the Orioles.

"If Eddie had gone to Baltimore, he would have driven in runs, hit some home runs and given some great leadership," May said. "I can't see how any team would be better off without Eddie Murray, when you look at the years he's had and the things he's done. Eddie's one guy who at the end of every day can look into that mirror and tell himself he did everything he could do that day to help his team win the game."

The bum rap

Ron Shapiro, the attorney who negotiates Murray's contracts, is a longtime friend of his client.

"As a player and a human being, Eddie Murray gets extremely high grades," Shapiro said. "Not in press relations, I would grade him low in that area, but in every other area, he's really one of baseball's hidden treasures.

"He's done a lot for people, things you don't even hear about. He's always been a doer. He's never been a sayer. He's the product of a bum rap. He's a sensitive man. People see athletes as all muscle and lacking sensitivity. Eddie's a very sensitive individual."

Even if Murray is unsure of the response he will receive May 6 at Camden Yards, Shapiro said he is not.

"It will be overwhelmingly positive," Shapiro said. "There will still be a few who will get on him, but it will be overwhelmingly positive. There will always be some naysayers, some haters who choose to only look at the negative side. But in the end, when Eddie has finished playing, everyone will realize what a great career he had, what a great contribution he made to the game and the communities he played in, and what he has done on the field is what will endure."

Shapiro expressed no regrets Murray did not return to the Orioles, the organization in which he spent 16 years, including four in the minors, the organization Shapiro knows best.

"Things have a way of working out," Shapiro said. "Eddie's as happy as I've seen him in a long time. The kids over there are leaning on him, relying on him. Over there, he'll be blamed for nothing. Here, he would have been blamed for something as normal as going into a slump."

MURRAY'S STATS

OC

New Cleveland first baseman Eddie Murray's career statistics:

Yr. ... Club ... ... Avg. ... ... HR ... ... RBI

'77 ... Orioles ... .283 .. .. .. 27 ... ... 88

'78 ... Orioles ... .285 .. .. .. 27 ... ... 95

'79 ... Orioles ... .295 .. .. .. 25 ... ... 99

'80 ... Orioles ... .300 .. .. .. 32 ... ... 116

'81 ... Orioles ... .294 .. .. .. 22 ... ... 78

'82 ... Orioles ... .316 .. .. .. 32 ... ... 110

'83 ... Orioles ... .306 .. .. .. 33 ... ... 111

'84 ... Orioles ... .306 .. .. .. 29 ... ... 110

'85 ... Orioles ... .297 .. .. .. 31 ... ... 124

'86 ... Orioles ... .305 .. .. .. 17 ... ... 84

'87 ... Orioles ... .277 .. .. .. 30 ... ... 91

'88 ... Orioles ... .284 .. .. .. 28 ... ... 84

'89 ... L.A. ... .. .247 .. .. .. 20 ... ... 88

'90 ... L.A. ... .. .330 .. .. .. 26 ... ... 95

'91 ... L.A. ... .. .260 .. .. .. 19 ... ... 96

'92 ... N.Y. (N) .. .261 .. .. .. 16 ... ... 93

'92 ... N.Y. (N) .. .285 .. .. .. 27 ... ... 100

Tot. ... ... ... .. .289 ... ... 441 ... ... 1662