David McMurray overseas Tamworth's June baseball carnival

It was a time that included the start of the 71-year-old's deep relationship with Tamworth. He was 12 years old when his family moved from Walcha to Tamworth after his late policeman father was transferred there.

"If you look at today's society, I believe there was a lot more respect for people [in years gone by]; a lot more respect for people's properties," McMurray said.

His father, Syd, who rose to the rank of senior sergeant, and his policeman son, Cameron, used to compare the different policing eras.

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"People in authority received the respect that was due to them," McMurray said of his father's era. "I think all that is really a bit sad [now]."

Five years after arriving in Tamworth, the father of three started playing baseball. Now, 54 years later, he will oversee an event that he has been intimately associated with since the beginning of his baseball journey.

As president of Tamworth Baseball Incorporated, McMurray heads the committee charged with running the 54th edition of the June long weekend carnival.

While he laments the lack of respect given to people in authority today, he is a highly respected figure in the sport he loves. He is, according to Tamworth A-grade player-coach Andrew Ferris, "extremely dedicated" to the game.

The three-day carnival gets under way on Saturday with a record 54 teams and more than 750 players. McMurray has been involved in every one of those carnivals, including as a player and an umpire.

The perfectionist in him - honed when he worked as an aircraft mechanic for East-West Airlines at Tamworth - compelled him to put his hand up to become Tamworth Baseball president in 2021 so he could implement improvements. Those improvements include new batting tunnels and bullpens.

For the past nine months, McMurray has been engaged in the fight of his life: he was diagnosed with brain cancer in August last year. In a recent Facebook post, Tamworth Baseball said he was "now on the downhill stretch of his treatment plan and things are looking positive".

"I'm feeling good," he said, adding: "It's a health scare that nobody wants to face these days, but I'm going along nicely."

McMurray - a former general manager of Tamworth-based bus manufacturer Phoenix Buses - fears not being able to fulfil his desires due to old age. He and his wife, Leonie, are caravan enthusiasts.

"They'll probably come a day when I have to stop doing that because it's time to hang up the steering wheel, so to speak," he said, adding that he would have to "slow down" eventually.

But on the weekend, this loyal baseball servant will be in full flight - and amen to that.

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