RIP Joe Morgan

Gullett went seven innings in an exhibition game, and McNally six. How things have changed in 35 years.

 

All true. Ir was common among both fans and reporters to see Morgan as the best player on the Machine. People laughed at the idea he was underrated back in the Ford administration.

 

This is a good point - I should clarify that I didn't mean to suggest that Morgan was underrated in his time, but only that he looks even better with today's advanced stats and analysis. I'm thinking more of the balance of his career apart from his MVP years. I'm not sure his always high OBP and walk totals were as valued as they would be today.

 

My dad stopped watching baseball sometime in the early 90s so whenever the guys from his time of really watching the sport die I'll always chat with him about them and when I told him about Morgan he told me he never thought he would see a better second baseman than Jackie Robinson....until Joe Morgan.

Then he went on for about 40 minutes..."He could do anything....run, hit, hit for power, field, throw, draw walks....anytime you needed him to get on base he could do it. If you needed to him to get to second, he would get a hit and steal, walk and steal or hit for a double...he would just figure it out."

And he kept going on and on...It's was pretty cool.

 

I only ever had one interaction with Joe Morgan, at the 1997 expansion draft for the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks in Phoenix. It was a weird sort of free-for-all where you just randomly walked up and talked to random people in this ballroom at a Scottsdale hotel. I was, what, 21 years old? Barely started my career and was dropped into a room with all of these famous baseball players where you just cold walked up to them to ask questions. Joe gave me a good 10 minutes and couldn't have been kinder and more engaging.

 

I’ve decided to regale my son someday with stories not about stars, but random journeymen.

“Kid, let me tell you about the weird smirk Joe Randa had when he stepped into the box and how Ron Coomer looked like a UPS delivery driver.”

 

Kaline was 85
Gibson 84

 

Baseball reference says the player most similar to Joe Morgan is Lou Whitaker
Do your job, veterans committee

 

I never knew this

 

Found this on a Facebook page: Joe Morgan is the 6th HOFer to pass in 2020. This has only happened once before, in 1972, when Dave Bancroft, Gabby Hartnett, Jackie Robinson, Pie Traynor, George Weiss and Zach Wheat died.

 

I was a senior at Michigan State in 1975
A bunch of us lived in a house off campus
The house was divided for Game 6
Reds fans watched on the upstairs TV
I was with the Red Sox fans in the basement
When Bernie Carbo, who was a year ahead of my sister at Livonia Franklin High, hit his game-tying homer, the woman who was studying in the middle said the scream from both rooms was so loud the walls were shaking

 

The article I got that info from was posted after Kaline's passing -- I don't know if it was written in response to that, since it wasn't noted