A visit from Charles Barkley to a dying man, and a picture of them together, decades ago remains an inspiration to a Delco family

Ginny Burbage was working the conveyor belt at a Delaware County FedEx facility in 1991 when she spotted an envelope addressed to Charles Barkley. Burbage was a courier at the time and knew her employer had strict rules about handling clients’ personal information.

But as parcels tumbled onto the belt, she made a split-second decision to push the envelope off to the side. She scribbled down Barkley’s address, put the envelope back, and stuffed the note into her pocket.

The next night, she sat in her big, brown truck outside of a drop box in Morton. She leaned a clipboard against her steering wheel, pulled out a yellow piece of paper, and began to write a letter to the 76ers power forward.

Burbage started with her brother, Tommy Murphy. She explained that he’d been diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, in 1989. Murphy had undergone different types of chemotherapy, and even had a leg amputated in 1990 in an attempt to stop the cancer from spreading.

But none of those efforts worked, and now, doctors told him he had only a few months to live. So Burbage presented Barkley with an idea. Before her brother got sick, he’d played pickup hoops almost every day. He loved the Sixers, and Barkley was his favorite player.

“It would be a dream if you could visit him,” Burbage wrote, “just to make him smile one more time.”

» READ MORE: In 1954, a tiny town handed Wilt Chamberlain one of his three high school losses. This signed syllabus shows he never forgot it.

She put the letter in the drop box, skeptical that she’d receive a response. But a couple of days later, in late September, Burbage’s phone rang.

“Hey,” a voice boomed on the other end. “This is Charles!”

“Who?” Burbage responded.

“Charles Barkley,” he said. “I got your letter. I’ll get in touch with you this week. I want to come by and meet you.”

The Sixers star kept his word. Not long after that call, Barkley, who was unfamiliar with Murphy’s neighborhood, met Burbage near Philadelphia International Airport, then followed her back to her mother’s home in Prospect Park.

He walked into their old, three-story house, ducking his head so he didn’t hit the ceiling. What happened next exceeded the family’s expectations. Barkley stayed for two hours. He sat on Murphy’s bed and talked about basketball and life, as if they were two 20-somethings hanging out at a bar.

Barkley brought signed jerseys and cards and took photos with the group. Nearly 34 years later, Murphy’s six siblings still have those photos hanging on their walls and framed in their living rooms; an unexpected moment of joy with their late brother.

“When my brother passed, we looked at that picture, and we would just remember that moment,” Burbage said. “It made it easier. It was easier to get through, just knowing that he was happy.

“For those two hours, it felt like maybe he didn’t have cancer. You know?”

Murphy was tall, lanky, and good-hearted. He’d played basketball all his life, first with the Boys and Girls Club, and then at Moore’s Lake Park in Delco, better known as “The Hollow.”

In 1989, he twisted his ankle during a pickup game. He was working as a landscaper at the time and didn’t have health insurance, so he decided not to visit a doctor. Murphy tried applying ice to his injury, but the swelling didn’t subside. Instead, it got worse.

» READ MORE: An autographed church bulletin tells the story of ‘faith-filled’ Tug McGraw’s friendship with a priest

His skin turned from a mix of purple and red to dark brown. The inflamed area ballooned over his ankle. A visit to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in the fall of 1989 revealed a devastating diagnosis: Ewing sarcoma, a cancer that was particularly difficult to treat. He was 20.

Murphy began chemotherapy immediately. Doctors attempted to surgically remove the cancer, but it continued to spread. They amputated his right leg below the calf, but that didn’t stop the disease from traveling, either.

By 1990, his odds of survival were slim, but he pressed on, even in the face of physical limitations. In an appointment following his amputation, doctors discussed different kinds of prosthetics for Murphy to use.

Murphy was shy by nature, so he didn’t say much. But his sister, Pam Barr, did.

“The doctors were saying, ‘Well, OK, do we just want something to keep this guy from falling over, or [something that helps him] walk?’” Barr said. “And I said, ‘He plays basketball every day. That’s his life. I don’t know if that helps you.’”

After a few weeks of physical therapy, Murphy was back on the court. He’d play pickup games between cycles of chemo to give him some semblance of normalcy. Of course, it wasn’t the same. He found that his prosthetic was heavy and inflexible, and he could no longer dunk or run like he used to.

But he was still out there, doing what he loved. Murphy kept playing until his body wouldn’t let him. He stopped receiving treatment and began palliative care in the fall of 1991.

At 6-foot-2 and 22 years old, Murphy should have been in the prime of his life, competing at The Hollow every day. Instead, he was confined to his bed, where he’d sleep for hours on end. Meals were brought to his room.

This was his state when Barkley visited. Burbage didn’t tell her brother that the Sixers forward was coming. It was early afternoon, and Murphy was lying down, feeling wearier than usual.

But when Barkley walked through the door, he shot right up.

“Hey!” Barkley said, in his baritone Alabama drawl.

“Charles!” Murphy replied, in disbelief.

» READ MORE: He helped run the Vet for 20 years. Now, pieces of it are in his Delco garage: ‘It was a place I grew to love.’

Barkley shook Murphy’s hand and gave him some signed memorabilia. Murphy’s mother, Virginia, offered the Sixer a Coke and a sandwich. As everyone shuffled into the tiny bedroom, the two men began to talk about the game as they knew it: the NBA, pickup hoops at The Hollow, and local players.

At one point, Barkley noticed that Murphy had a poster of him, mid-dunk, on his bedroom wall. “Nice poster,” he said with a hearty laugh. They took a picture in front of it and a few more with Murphy’s family.

After the photos, the Sixers star and the lifelong fan talked alone for an hour. Barkley walked out of the bedroom, back down the stairs, and into his car. Murphy died 5½ weeks later, on Nov. 10, 1991.

“There were no cameras,” Burbage said. “There was no social media. So nobody ever knew, except for our family and our friends.

“We always said, ‘One day, we all wanted to let him know how grateful we are.’ That’s one of my wishes.”

Barkley was traded to the Phoenix Suns the following summer. While he was popular with many fans, not everyone was sad to see him go. Some fans complained that he wasn’t a team player. Others said he had a bad attitude.

But in the Murphy household, the power forward could do no wrong. A couple of Burbage’s siblings bought Suns gear. Her mother, who previously had shown little interest in basketball, began following Barkley’s games as best she could.

“You couldn’t say a bad word about him,” Burbage said. “If you said anything bad about Barkley in front of my mom, after my brother passed, she would let you have it.”

» READ MORE: Revisiting the Phillies’ Hot Pants Patrol, a sisterhood still going strong

Barr defended Barkley with the same fervor.

“Philly fans are brutal,” she said. “But I would tell them, ‘Nope, I don’t care what anybody says. He’s our angel. We love him to death.’”

Burbage’s daughter, Courtney, witnessed Barkley’s visit, too. She doesn’t remember much — she was only 4 — but has heard the story so many times that she can now recite it by heart. She says it is something akin to “family lore.”

One day, when she was 8, Courtney saw Barkley on her TV screen, in the movie Space Jam.

Aliens robbed Barkley of his “basketball powers,” and he was playing a pickup game with some neighborhood kids. One of the kids stepped up to him, after blocking his jump shot, and said, “Be gone, wannabe.”

“I remember feeling really mad at that girl,” Courtney said. “Because Charles was a saint in my mind.”

Her family still feels this way. They often revisit the Charles Barkley story. Decades later, it has helped them heal. Whenever Burbage misses her brother, she can glance toward her living room wall. Barr can glance toward her living room shelf.

They can see Tommy, with a bright smile on his face, standing next to his hero and his siblings, and know that even at the very end, he was able to find happiness.

The Inquirer is running a series on the stories behind unique pieces of sports memorabilia. If you’d like to submit an idea, please email [email protected].