I Hate Joe Morgan

Joe Morgan on his very best day, is a totally incompetent baseball announcer for ESPN. On a normal day, he is a self-important hack who fabricates facts on the fly, refuses to even attempt to understand the most basic ideas about baseball theory and uses his stage and baseball stature to be a vindictive prick. I could write books on why I hate Joe Morgan. The main reasons are that he hates my favorite baseball player of all time, Ryne Sandberg (snubbed him at the HOF), hates the Cubs (a rival from his days with the Reds) and he is totally ignorant when it comes to statistics, sabermetrics and apparently history.

I watched my 1st place Cubbies beat the hell out of the 1st place White Sox this past weekend. On Sunday I got together with some of my Cubbies friends (and 1 Sox fan) to grill out and watch the game. We started up the grill around the 5th inning and it took some prodding to get the fire going. While that was happening, Baby Patterson hit his first Major League homer. I saw it happen, but missed the ensuing conversation on ESPN because I was watching from the porch. Sadly, despite my respect and admiration for Jon Miller, I typically tune-out on the audio for ESPN Sunday Night games anyway because I hate Joe Morgan.

The thing that I missed was a comment by Little Joe that fully enrages me. Read this blog excerpt:

In the fifth inning, when Eric Patterson hit a two-run homer into the wire basket that overhangs the right field wall, Morgan referred to the basket as "Banks Boulevard," and then went on to talk about how many Ernie Banks homers ended up in the Wrigley bleacher baskets back in the day - the implication being, of course, that many of Ernie's 512 career homers were cheapies, and that he would have hit considerably fewer without the help of those right- and left-field baskets.

The problem, of course, is that the baskets were installed in 1970 to keep bleacher bums from falling on the field and hurting themselves while reaching for homers. Ernie Banks only hit 7 more home runs in Wrigley Field after the baskets were erected in 1970 and we have visual confirmation that 2 of those homers did not land in the baskets. This means that at the absolute most physically possible, 5 of Ernie Banks' 512 home runs were hit in the Wrigley Field's basket. That, is probably also quite a stretch since you would be hard pressed to convince me that all 5 of the homers that we don't know where they landed, landed in the basket. It is totally conceivable that 0 of Ernie's 512 home runs ever fell in to a basket in Wrigley Field.

It brings up so many questions, but the most prominent is, why is Joe Morgan going out of his way to slander Mr. Cub? It speaks to my suspicions that he just hates the Cubs for some reason. Actually I have several theories on that, but it could also be homer envy. Joe Morgan only hit 268 career homers, just under half the amount that Mr. Cub hit. Honestly, that doesn't really make sense either. You could probably drive yourself nuts trying to figure this moron out. Just add it to the list of utterly ridiculous things this idiot has ever uttered while being a "professional" windbag.

thanks to: http://lavieenrobe.typepad.com/la_vie_en_robe/2008/06/basket-case.html