RIP Joe Morgan, whose greatest legacy isn’t the Hall of Fame or MVPs, but his size
Anytime your kids thinks they are too short for sports, talk to them about Joe Morgan.
The greatest legacy of the second baseman from Bonham, Texas, isn’t MVP awards or World Series rings, but rather showing everyone you don’t need to be 6-foot-5 to be great in sports.
Joe Morgan stood but 5-foot-7, and looked down on nearly every baseball player who ever lived.
Long before Houstonians had Jose Altuve, they had Joe Morgan. The difference is this time Houston isn’t dumb enough to trade Altuve.
The late Dan Jenkins once told me he didn’t like to read about dead people, so this isn’t going to be a War and Peace.
Like all of you, I am sick of reading about the number of people dying these days, including the glut of Hall of Fame baseball players.
Heaven has assembled quite a lineup in 2020: Tom Seaver. Bob Gibson. Joe Morgan. Whitey Ford. Lou Brock. Al Kaline. God, that’s enough for one year.
Morgan, 77, died on Sunday at his home in Danville, California. He had been suffering from polyneuropathy, a nerve condition. He had been forced to use a cane for some time.
Even if you never watched Joe Morgan, and my memories of his career are faint, his story applies to every parent, scout, coach and player.
Scouts and coaches miss all the time. They missed on Joe Morgan.
If you can ball, you can ball at any size.
Yes, it’s harder to get noticed when you aren’t six feet.
Joe Morgan, a two-time National League MVP, 10-time All-Star, the spark to one of baseball’s most celebrated dynasties in The Big Red Machine, and member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, was ignored coming out of high school.
In high school Oakland, California, he ran track and also played basketball in addition to baseball.
Coming out of high school, he wanted to play pro ball but not a single team was interested. He was not offered a college scholarship to play baseball at a four-year school. He had to go the JUCO route.
Finally, in 1962, a scout for the Houston Colt .45s convinced his organization to give the 19-year-old Morgan $500 a month with a $3,000 signing bonus.
In 1963, he was playing for the minor league Durham Bulls and was the only Black player on the team. His manager put him on the bench in his first game, so Morgan could relax in what was a tense environment.
In that first game, Morgan could hear racist names that were being directed his way, then in the ninth-inning he was called upon to pinch hit, and he hit a home run that won the game.
This was the ’60s in the South, and Morgan had to deal with so much racism he nearly quit. Years later, he admitted the only reason he didn’t quit was that he didn’t want to tell his dad.
He made it to Houston in 1963, and became a regular until 1965.
Although he was a two-time All-Star with Houston, the team traded him to the Reds in November of 1971 in a deal that is widely regarded as one of the best — or worst, depending on your point of view —in the history of baseball.
A lineup that featured Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Ken Griffey, Dan Driessen, George Foster, Cesar Geronimo, Dave Concepcion got its juice from little Joe Morgan.
Morgan played big league baseball until he was 40 years old, and retired after 22 seasons.
Joe Morgan is one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, and no one wanted him coming out of high school because they thought he was too short.
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 11:44 AM with the headline "RIP Joe Morgan, whose greatest legacy isn’t the Hall of Fame or MVPs, but his size."
