MLB Offseason 2010-11
- Thread starter Mr. Laser Beam
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I can't believe this passed underneath my radar: ESPN is overhauling its Sunday Night Baseball team. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan have been told that their services are no longer required for television broadcasts, though Miller was offered the chance to work the radio booth (which he declined). Speculation is that Dan Shulman and Orel Hershiser are in line to take over.
It sucks to lose Miller, as he's easily one of the best play-by-play voices working today (he's really been dragged down by having to deal with Morgan's bullshit).
But Joe Morgan is out of a job. Thank you, God.
Looking forward to hearing Miller on the weekends now for the Giants. That will be fun.
Joe Morgan was such a terrible announcer, I won't miss him. If he wasn't talking about himself, he was blatantly getting something wrong about the guys he was describing, didn't do his homework. Or even better, when he's trying to tell you what is ABOUT to happen, and then usually the exact opposite occurs...
Short version: Because he's an arrogant piece of shit entirely preoccupied with showing off how smart he supposedly is and how great of a player he was, rather than actually analyzing the action on the field, like a color commentator is supposed to do.
Long version: Morgan sits in front of his microphone and babbles whatever nonsensical horseshit comes to his head. He has actively campaigned on the air to keep players such as Ryne Sandberg and Bill Mazeroski out of the Hall of Fame, because he's part of the retarded school of thought that says, "Well, if someone else enters the Hall of Fame, that means that my standing isn't as good, anymore." (Morgan, on at least one occasion, returned a blank ballot for his Veterans Committee vote.)
He doesn't do his homework, at all. Here's a fun trick -- if you can find any footage of Joe Morgan in the booth on Sunday Night Baseball, look at what was in front of him. Answer: It was nothing. Joe Morgan was baseball’s highest-paid network analyst, a man with a weekly forum during the only game being played at the time, and he never had anything in front of him: No notes, no press packets from the teams' media relations departments ... well, okay, he occasionally had a scorecard, but thanks to the magic of high definition, you could see that it was blank. He had a blank scorecard as a prop. So instead of actually prepping for his work, he just sat in his chair and babbled incoherently for three hours. I mean, the guy once said that Hank Aaron was known for hitting ground balls. He constantly said that the Cubs' minor league players came from Ohio (it's actually Iowa, but I guess no one can tell those two states apart).
It wasn't until last year that he even started talking about on-base percentage as a metric for determining a player's value, which was really hilarious, considering that Morgan certainly didn't have a tremendously high batting average during his playing days (.271), but he could get on base at a great clip (.392 over his 22 seasons). He'd go on and on and on about how batting average was everything, and people like Billy Beane placed too much emphasis on walks, without even realizing that it was his ability to walk that made him worth a shit.
Hell, speaking of Beane, it was hilarious to hear Morgan rant and rave about Moneyball as though it were The Satanic Verses, both on television and in his online chats. He called it "hogwash" on multiple occasions (despite admitting that he had never read it, and had no intentions of doing so), and said on more than one occasion that Billy Beane had written the book (when, as we all know, Michael Lewis did).
I vividly remember one occasion in 2007, when Morgan really elevated himself from "moron" to "actively trying to be a shitpiece."
It was during a Sunday night game that Morgan went on a long-winded, utterly insane diatribe about the outfield basket in Wrigley Field, the one intended to keep drunk fans from falling out of the bleachers and onto the field. Anyway, Morgan starts babbling that when he was playing (because, as we all know, the players of his era were far better than anyone playing today), "everybody" in baseball referred to that basket as Banks Boulevard, because Ernie Banks hit "so many of his homers into that basket."
Okay, fair enough, but see if you can discern the problem from these facts:
- Ernie Banks was on the Cubs' roster from 1953 - 1971. He hit 512 home runs during that time.
- Of those 512, Morgan insisted that a lot of them landed in the basket at Wrigley Field.
- Therefore, without the basket, Banks wouldn't have had anywhere near 512 home runs.
However:
- In 1970 and 1971, Ernie only played in 111 games for the Cubs. This is important because:
- The basket wasn’t installed at Wrigley Field until May 1970.
- Banks hit only eight home runs at Wrigley Field in those two seasons, and one of them was in April of 1970, well before the basket went in.
Therefore:
- Of Ernie Banks' 512 career home runs, the most that could have landed in the basket is a grand total of seven. (And Banks' 500th home run, one of the eight hit in Wrigley Field during those final two seasons, didn't land anywhere near the basket, which gives us six.)
- Some quick math tells us that six of 512 indicates that, at the very most, just over one percent of Banks' career home runs could have possibly ended up in the basket.
So, obviously you can see why Morgan insisted on calling it Banks Boulevard, because the facts certainly bear it out. It's not because of his perpetual "hurr Reds hurr" babbling. (Another great bash on Ernie Banks: He once said that Banks won two MVP awards on last-place teams, which is false, as Banks won his MVPs on fifth-place teams in 1958 and 1959; the first MVP on a last-place team was Andre Dawson.)
Basically, Morgan represented everything that's wrong with sports broadcasting today. He has no problem whatsoever letting a fact get in the way of an opinion (as evidenced by his ongoing campaign to get Dave Concepción in the Hall of Fame, an idea so patently absurd that it's hilarious), and he isn't even aware of most facts because he doesn't do any research, instead barfing out whatever nonsense comes to mind while he's in the booth (this will always make me laugh). His biases have always been plainly apparent, and he makes no effort to hide them on the air, which makes him completely unprofessional when it comes to being a national analyst, as an analyst's job is to be intelligent, up-to-date on current events and trends, with the authority to correct people when they make incorrect statements and to do so using opinions and especially facts based on evidence in the record. In his years on the air, Morgan failed completely and utterly at that assignment.
So, yeah. Fuck Joe Morgan, and I hope I never hear him on the airwaves again.
Long version: Morgan sits in front of his microphone and babbles whatever nonsensical horseshit comes to his head. He has actively campaigned on the air to keep players such as Ryne Sandberg and Bill Mazeroski out of the Hall of Fame, because he's part of the retarded school of thought that says, "Well, if someone else enters the Hall of Fame, that means that my standing isn't as good, anymore." (Morgan, on at least one occasion, returned a blank ballot for his Veterans Committee vote.)
He doesn't do his homework, at all. Here's a fun trick -- if you can find any footage of Joe Morgan in the booth on Sunday Night Baseball, look at what was in front of him. Answer: It was nothing. Joe Morgan was baseball’s highest-paid network analyst, a man with a weekly forum during the only game being played at the time, and he never had anything in front of him: No notes, no press packets from the teams' media relations departments ... well, okay, he occasionally had a scorecard, but thanks to the magic of high definition, you could see that it was blank. He had a blank scorecard as a prop. So instead of actually prepping for his work, he just sat in his chair and babbled incoherently for three hours. I mean, the guy once said that Hank Aaron was known for hitting ground balls. He constantly said that the Cubs' minor league players came from Ohio (it's actually Iowa, but I guess no one can tell those two states apart).
It wasn't until last year that he even started talking about on-base percentage as a metric for determining a player's value, which was really hilarious, considering that Morgan certainly didn't have a tremendously high batting average during his playing days (.271), but he could get on base at a great clip (.392 over his 22 seasons). He'd go on and on and on about how batting average was everything, and people like Billy Beane placed too much emphasis on walks, without even realizing that it was his ability to walk that made him worth a shit.
Hell, speaking of Beane, it was hilarious to hear Morgan rant and rave about Moneyball as though it were The Satanic Verses, both on television and in his online chats. He called it "hogwash" on multiple occasions (despite admitting that he had never read it, and had no intentions of doing so), and said on more than one occasion that Billy Beane had written the book (when, as we all know, Michael Lewis did).
I vividly remember one occasion in 2007, when Morgan really elevated himself from "moron" to "actively trying to be a shitpiece."
It was during a Sunday night game that Morgan went on a long-winded, utterly insane diatribe about the outfield basket in Wrigley Field, the one intended to keep drunk fans from falling out of the bleachers and onto the field. Anyway, Morgan starts babbling that when he was playing (because, as we all know, the players of his era were far better than anyone playing today), "everybody" in baseball referred to that basket as Banks Boulevard, because Ernie Banks hit "so many of his homers into that basket."
Okay, fair enough, but see if you can discern the problem from these facts:
- Ernie Banks was on the Cubs' roster from 1953 - 1971. He hit 512 home runs during that time.
- Of those 512, Morgan insisted that a lot of them landed in the basket at Wrigley Field.
- Therefore, without the basket, Banks wouldn't have had anywhere near 512 home runs.
However:
- In 1970 and 1971, Ernie only played in 111 games for the Cubs. This is important because:
- The basket wasn’t installed at Wrigley Field until May 1970.
- Banks hit only eight home runs at Wrigley Field in those two seasons, and one of them was in April of 1970, well before the basket went in.
Therefore:
- Of Ernie Banks' 512 career home runs, the most that could have landed in the basket is a grand total of seven. (And Banks' 500th home run, one of the eight hit in Wrigley Field during those final two seasons, didn't land anywhere near the basket, which gives us six.)
- Some quick math tells us that six of 512 indicates that, at the very most, just over one percent of Banks' career home runs could have possibly ended up in the basket.
So, obviously you can see why Morgan insisted on calling it Banks Boulevard, because the facts certainly bear it out. It's not because of his perpetual "hurr Reds hurr" babbling. (Another great bash on Ernie Banks: He once said that Banks won two MVP awards on last-place teams, which is false, as Banks won his MVPs on fifth-place teams in 1958 and 1959; the first MVP on a last-place team was Andre Dawson.)
Basically, Morgan represented everything that's wrong with sports broadcasting today. He has no problem whatsoever letting a fact get in the way of an opinion (as evidenced by his ongoing campaign to get Dave Concepción in the Hall of Fame, an idea so patently absurd that it's hilarious), and he isn't even aware of most facts because he doesn't do any research, instead barfing out whatever nonsense comes to mind while he's in the booth (this will always make me laugh). His biases have always been plainly apparent, and he makes no effort to hide them on the air, which makes him completely unprofessional when it comes to being a national analyst, as an analyst's job is to be intelligent, up-to-date on current events and trends, with the authority to correct people when they make incorrect statements and to do so using opinions and especially facts based on evidence in the record. In his years on the air, Morgan failed completely and utterly at that assignment.
So, yeah. Fuck Joe Morgan, and I hope I never hear him on the airwaves again.
^ "I sense hostility, Captain." 
^ "I sense hostility, Captain."
A question was asked. The question was answered.
Javier Vazquez off to the Marlins. Can't say I'll miss him. 
He owns the NL East. Braves are stupid for letting him get away.
^ He must feel much more at home in the NL than the AL, because he pretty much bit the big one as a Yankee.
^ Quite. Why would anyone want to leave a team with which they've just won a world championship?
So much for team loyalty.
So much for team loyalty.
^ Quite. Why would anyone want to leave a team with which they've just won a world championship?
So much for team loyalty.
There's not a player out there that won't chase the money and contracts. It's just a business to them.
^ Quite. Why would anyone want to leave a team with which they've just won a world championship?
So much for team loyalty.
Because teams are so loyal to players.
All the Braves legends played for somebody else. John Smoltz skipped town to play for the Red Sox and Cardinals when he wasn't offered a multi-year deal. Tom Glavine played for the rival Mets. Greg Maddux went back to the Cubs, then to the Dodgers and Padres and Dodgers again.
Hank Aaron played for the Milwaukee Brewers. Babe Ruth played for the Braves for his last season.
The fans love the teams more than the players.
Hank Aaron played for the Milwaukee Brewers. Babe Ruth played for the Braves for his last season.
The fans love the teams more than the players.
^ Unless you're an uneducated Mariners fan. Then you say, "I'd rather see Griffey go 0-4 with 4 strikeouts than not play at all." True quote from a so-called fan.
No such thing as loyalty. Who were the last Hall of Famers who played their entire careers for the same team? Tony Gwynn? Cal Ripken? Anyone think it's possible Jeter will finish his career in another uniform?
Part of it is chasing the money. Another part is still thinking you can play when the team you're on thinks otherwise. I was surprised Bernie Williams didn't try to land on another team when he thought he could still play but the Yankees didn't.
^ Quite. Why would anyone want to leave a team with which they've just won a world championship?
So much for team loyalty.
No such thing as loyalty. Who were the last Hall of Famers who played their entire careers for the same team? Tony Gwynn? Cal Ripken? Anyone think it's possible Jeter will finish his career in another uniform?
Part of it is chasing the money. Another part is still thinking you can play when the team you're on thinks otherwise. I was surprised Bernie Williams didn't try to land on another team when he thought he could still play but the Yankees didn't.
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