Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Murray Cheston HAINES
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - October 29, 1994
Deceased Name: MURRAY HAINES, VETERAN CRICKETER AND CURATOR OF A CRICKET MUSEUM \
Murray C. Haines, 89, of Chestnut Hill, a cricket aficionado who played the game until he was 72 and then became secretary and curator of Haverford College's cricket library, died Wednesday at Cathedral Village, a retirement community.
Mr. Haines, a trust officer at Philadelphia banks, took up the sport of cricket at William Penn Charter School and became captain of the team. He also played for Haverford College.
During his college years, he took part in an international match at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1924 (against the Incogniti, a highly regarded English team) and toured England with the Haverford team in 1925.
An imposing, large-framed man who stood more than 6 feet tall, Mr. Haines continued to play for more than 50 years, much of the time with the Fairmount Cricket Club. He served for a time as club president.
His good friend and fellow cricketer, Amar Singh, who played with him on the Fairmount club 40 years ago, said that even at 50 Mr. Haines was extremely agile and athletic.
He played three positions, Singh said. He was a "good, right-armed, medium-paced and steady bowler (pitcher)"; he played first slip, a position behind and to the right of the batter to stop hard-hit foul balls; and he was a "steady, right-hand bat."
Mr. Haines played his last game when he was 72. "I was playing in bifocal glasses, which is not the best thing to play in, and . . . to run a lot of runs in cricket is pretty tiring," he told a reporter in 1987.
But his consuming passion for cricket didn't simply go away just because he put down the bat and ball. Before long, Mr. Haines was knee-deep in cricket books, magazines and memorabilia at the C.C. Morris Cricket Library.
The library, housed at the McGill Library on the Haverford College campus, had been founded in 1969 by 25 devotees of the sport, including Mr. Haines.
He was fascinated by the game's history, especially its early years in the United States and at Haverford College, where cricket was first played in 1834.
"It wasn't an official college game in those days," Mr. Haines said.
College officials didn't approve of it, either, he said. They thought of it as a waste of time and a bad influence because, in England, it was associated with drinking and gambling.
Mr. Haines was a native of Philadelphia and a longtime resident of Chestnut Hill, where he was a member and vestryman at St. Paul's Church. After graduating from Haverford in 1925 with a degree in engineering, he spent 18 years with Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. in Allentown.
He returned to Philadelphia and to school in the mid-1940s, earning his law degree through an accelerated course at Temple University in 1946.
He then worked for 20 years in the estate department of the Corn Exchange Bank, the Girard Trust Co., and the Philadelphia National Bank.
His wife, Margaret Belknap Haines, died in November 1990. Mr. Haines is survived by two sisters.
In keeping with his wish, no public services will take place.
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