Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, 77, dies
Reds star played with Giants, A’s late in career
Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, one of the greatest second basemen in baseball history has died at 77.
Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, one of the greatest second basemen in baseball history and a spark plug for the Cincinnati Reds’ Big Red Machine, has died. He was 77.
A family spokesman said Morgan passed away Sunday night in his Danville home. The cause of death was complications from non-specified polyneuropathy, a nerve condition.
Morgan, who was overlooked growing up in Oakland because of his small stature, grew froma 5-foot5, 140- pound high school star at Castlemont into one of baseball’s giants on the diamond.
What he lacked in size he made up for with his talent and an unwavering desire to outwork anyone else around him.
A 5-foot-7 dynamo known for flapping his left elbow at the plate in the majors, Little Joe could hit a home run, steal a base and disrupt any game with his daring.
“I’ve always felt my size was a plus because it made me work harder,” Morgan once said. “I had to prove I could do the same thing the bigger guys could do. The only way I could do it was to work harder.”
He led the Reds to back-to-back World Series championships in 1975 and ’ 76 while being named the National League’s Most Valuable Player in both seasons. Morgan was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1990 on the first ballot.
Morgan, a 10-time All-Star, played for both the Giants and the A’s during his 22-year career. In fact, he hit one of the most memorable home runs in Giants history on the last day of the 1982 season. He endeared himself to Giants fans by smashing a dramatic, game-winning three-run homer against Los Angeles at Candlestick Park that knocked the hated Dodgers out of the postseason.
No matter where he played,
though, Morgan always maintained a home in the East Bay.
After his playing career, Morgan became a familiar face on baseball broadcasts across the country as an analyst for both NBC and ESPN, where he teamed for years with Giants announcer and fellow East Bay product Jon Miller. Theywere a TV tandem for 21 years.
Morgan had been a special advisor to the Reds’ baseball operations department and CEO Bob Castellini since 2010.
“The Reds family is heartbroken. Joe was a giant in the game and was adored by the fans in this city,” Castellini said. “He had a lifelong loyalty
and dedication to this organization that extended to our current team and front office staff. As a cornerstone on one of the greatest teams in baseball history, his contributions to this franchise will live forever. Our hearts ache for his Big Red Machine teammates.”
He completed Cincinnati’s two-time World Series championship team, driving a club featuring the likes of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez to back-to-back titles.
Morgan’s tiebreaking single with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 7 in 1975 gave the Reds the crown in a classic matchup with Boston, and he spurred a four- game sweep of the Yankees the next season.
His Hall of Fame teammates and manager readily acknowledged he was the
one that got it all started.
The smallest cog in the Big Red Machine was its most valuable piece.
“He was just a good major league player when it didn’t mean anything,” Sparky Anderson once said. “But when it meant something, he was a Hall of Famer.”
In a 22- year career through 1984, Morgan scored 1,650 runs, stole 689 bases, hit 268 homers and batted .271. But those stats hardly reflected the force created on the field by the lefty-swinging No. 8.
Confident and cocky, he also was copied. His habit of flapping his back elbow at the plate — an effort to keep the elbow high and the swing straight — was imitated by many a Little Leaguer in Cincinnati and beyond.
“Joe wasn’t just the best second baseman in base
ball history,” Bench said. “He was the best player I ever saw and one of the best people I’ve ever known.”
Health issues had slowed down Morgan in recent years. Knee surgery forced him to use a cane when he went onto the field at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park before the 2015 All-Star Game and he later needed a bone marrow transplant for an illness.
In his prime, Morgan helped to revolutionize the game with his quickness and many talents, especially once he hit the turf at the Reds’ old Riverfront Stadium.
“He meant a lot to us, a lot to me, a lot to baseball, a lot to African Americans around the country, and a lot to players considered undersized. He’s the first modern- day (Jose) Altuve,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said.