Former Reds great cherished Astros ties
HOUSTON — Joe Morgan became a two-time World Series champion and a baseball Hall of Famer in Cincinnati, but he learned to play like an All-Star in Houston, where fans and former teammates Monday mourned him as one of their own on the occasion of his death at age 77.
Morgan, who played for the Houston Astros from 1963-71 and again in 1980, died Sunday at his home in Danville, Calif., a family spokesman told the Associated Press. The spokesman said Morgan suffered from a nerve condition.
He joins a sobering number of baseball greats who have died in 2020, including Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Tom Seaver, Al Kaline and, among his former Colt .45s and Astros teammates, Jimmy Wynn and Bob Watson.
While best known for his years with Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” of the 1970s, Morgan took considerable pride in his years in Houston, where he refined his talents as an archetype of the faster-paced style made possible by the installation of artificial turf in the 1960s and ’70s.
He was an eight-time All-Star in Cincinnati and played on the Reds’ 1975 and 1976 championship clubs but spoke fondly of his team in Houston last year when he was inducted into the Astros’ Hall of Fame.
“Most people think of me as being part of the Big Red Machine, which I’m very proud of,” he said. “But I try to tell people that I learned to play baseball in the Astros organization. When I went to Cincinnati, I already knew how to play. All the things I did blended well with that team, but I learned the things I learned in Houston.
“When I left here the first time, I didn’t want to leave, and I said hopefully I’ll come back and help them win a pennant. We got close (in 1980). I was able to accomplish a lot of things, but it all started right here in Houston.”
Born in Bonham in Fannin County, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, Morgan grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but returned to Texas when he was signed by the Colt .45s as a free agent in 1962 after the team’s first year of existence.
He played in a handful of games with the team in 1963 and 1964 and made it to the big leagues for good in 1965, the team’s first year in the Astrodome.
Bob Aspromonte, a member of the original Colt .45s, said Morgan had talents that belied his diminutive size and his youth when he joined the team in September 1963, two days after his 20th birthday.
“What a tremendous talent in the way he played the game on the field and the way he handled himself off the field,” Aspromonte said. “It was fun to be around him and to see such talent. He was one individual who never should have been traded from Houston.”
After that final season in Houston, Morgan played four more years with the Giants, Phillies and Athletics before retiring after the 1984 season with a lifetime batting average of .271, 268 home runs, 1,650 runs scored, 1,133 RBIs, 689 stolen bases and an on-base/slugging percentage of .819.