CNN - Hall of Famer suggests baseball bent on self-destruction

(SALON) -- "Baseball at its best is a sport of continual anticipation," writes ballplayer-turned-broadcaster Joe Morgan in his new book. This is the season when baseball fans, especially those who only follow the game casually or occasionally, find the level of their anticipation kicked up a gear. Baseball's annual post-season tournament has now yielded the four teams competing for a spot in the World Series, in which the two survivors will do battle during the last week of October. American intellectuals have exhausted themselves (and their readers) by viewing the end of the baseball season as a metaphor, but it remains irresistible. As an edge returns to the weather across most of North America and our hemisphere begins to slide into the darkness, the summer-long dream state of baseball is suddenly transformed into a tense, structured drama with a certain conclusion.

But as Morgan is here to tell us, there is another, deeper narrative running under the surface of baseball history at the moment, and for all its familiarity it's not a comforting one. The star second baseman for the Cincinnati "Big Red Machine" championship teams of the mid-1970s, Morgan has become one of the most astute observers of baseball in his current job as a television commentator for NBC and ESPN. He wasn't mentioned among the best baseball broadcasters in Roger Angell's lengthy encomium to New York Yankees announcer Tim McCarver in a recent issue of the New Yorker, a regrettable omission that may result from Angell's East Coast bias. (Just as inexcusably, Angell also didn't mention longtime San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's voice Lon Simmons, whose droll, deadpan delivery and unbridled passion for the game sustained me through many a languorous California afternoon.)

Morgan isn't a self-styled Renaissance man in the McCarver manner, tossing around snippets from Milton and Shakespeare while watching a manager argue with an umpire. Nor is he a typical ESPN wag quoting hip-hop lyrics and "Simpsons" episodes. A poor speaker when he began his broadcasting career, Morgan has developed into an articulate, if blunt, spokesman for the spirit of old-fashioned hardball. His basic mode is that of a guy in a work shirt who dropped in at the barbershop to jaw with his buddies about the dumb-ass things the manager did in last night's game or debate the finer points of the hit-and-run play.

Morgan reminds me a little of the stern black athletic coaches and vice principals who populated my school district when I was growing up. They commanded us like drill sergeants, demanding that we study hard, play hard and not talk back, then mystified us by charming our mothers with an almost courtly politeness. I'm sure there are certainly problems with this model of masculinity, but it seemed a lot more attractive than the monosyllabic-jarhead Caucasian variety.

There's still a stereotype in sports that black athletes have natural talent and white athletes are "heady" players who work hard. Morgan defied this mold by outworking everybody and employing his moderate athletic gifts to become one of the best all-around players of his era. He hit for power, he hit for average, he stole bases and manufactured runs and he was one of the toughest, smartest defensive second basemen the game has ever seen. He was a relentless fireplug, respected by opposing players and hated by opposing fans. (Just ask any Boston Red Sox supporter about Morgan's play in the 1975 World Series.) In retirement, Morgan has added to his tactical and strategic understanding of the game by learning the baseball industry -- the realm of team owners and executives, league officials, marketers and player agents -- inside and out. He has long been a voice in the wilderness regarding baseball's shameful off-field treatment of African-Americans. (Of the 35 major league managers hired since 1993, exactly one has been black or Latino.) But the unbearable whiteness in the stands and the executive suites isn't the only problem he sees today.

Baseball's predicament has forced Morgan into the role of sage, although his mind is more practical than philosophical. His essential message in "Long Balls, No Strikes" (written with Richard Lally, who also co-authored Morgan's "Baseball for Dummies") is that the abyss into which Major League Baseball stared during the disastrous players strike of 1994 is now staring back. For all the sport's renewed popularity and prosperity after the 1998 season -- in which Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa obliterated the single-season home run record and the Yankees won an unbelievable 125 games -- the baseball business, Morgan argues, is still bent on self-destruction. When the current labor agreement between players and team owners expires in 2001, Morgan foresees a "long war" between the two sides, and suggests that "it's doubtful that the game can survive another lengthy walkout."

Next page | The death of Major League Baseball: A good thing?

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