The Futility Infielder

Sometimes, when I do design work, it's necessary to use chunks of filler text in place of actual live copy. The idea is that a designer can make decisions about the form an layout will take before the final content is determined. In QuarkXPress, the primary page-layout software I use, there exists a tool called Jabberwocky which spews random text (or "jabber") for this very purpose. An even simpler method is to use a block of scrambled Latin text called lorem ipsum. Both produce the same effect, text that typographically stands in for English, but won't be mis-identified as live copy and accidentally get published. There's history in this; apparently this lorem ipsum text dates all the way back to the metal typesetting of the 1500s.

Sometimes, after working on this site late at night, I spend a few minutes suspended in that zone a few inches above sleep, dreaming that I'm reading some fascinating words about baseball. Inevitably, I either fall asleep and forget those words entirely, or I wake up, only to realize that my brain has been poring over complete nonsense, lorem ipsum as if written by Bill James, perhaps.

And sometimes I just sit down and watch ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, listening to the incessant inanities spouted by Joe Morgan. It's the same difference.

By now it should be apparent to anyone paying attention that the man identified as one of the smartest ever to play the game has developed a not-so-slow leak in his brain. Either that, or everything we've learned in the past twenty Bill James-enlightened years about baseball is a complete crock of shit, and only Joe Morgan, keeper of the flame, knows this.

Morgan's a Hall of Famer who could do it all -- hit, hit for power, run, field and throw. He played on one of the all-time great teams, he won World Series rings, he now works alongside one of the game's great announcers in Jon Miller, he's got a pleasant voice with a bit of Texas twang, and at first listen, he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But listen more closely and you're liable to hear a man who steps all over everything we thought we -- and he -- knew about baseball.

No one has kept a closer eye on Morgan's profound disenlightenment than Mike Carminati of Mike's Baseball Rants, and no one sums up the Morgan paradox better than he does:

Morgan, as a player, was the epitome of everything sabermetric: a power-hitting middle-infielder who got on base and stole bases at a high percentage. As an analyst, however, he's a sabermetrician's nightmare, foregoing everything but batting average, RBI, and pitching wins to evaluate a player. Worse yet, his spurious logic and inability to answer a direct question make him the Reverend Spooner of baseball analysts.

Like a vulture who's been circling a desert highway in search of fresh carrion, Mike tears into every Friday's ESPN Chat with Joe Morgan for fresh insight into the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly of what Morgan's foisted on unsuspecting chatters. Here's a sample exchange from the most recent one:

Sam (Ypsilanti, MI): Joe, I'm a big fan! In your column about the AL West, you note that the A's "Big 3" have been more vunerable than in the past. But look at their ERAs - Hudson 3.08, Mulder 3.26, and Zito 2.92. Struggling? These three are what is holding this team to a good record! Zito's 7-5 record overshadows that he is 1st in the AL in BAA (.197). What gives?

Joe: I don't think I said struggle.. I said they were more vulnerable. ERA's are just a personal thing. Wins and losses are what the game is all about. BA and BAA are personal stats. Those guys don't walk out and win three games in a row anymore.

[Mike: Ypsilanti from the old Border League? Yes, ERA's a personal thing. Personally Joe dislikes ERAs. Wins are what matter to Joe. Don't explain to Joe that the A's have won one more game than last year to this point. Don't tell Joe that Mulder is having the best year of his young career and has three more wins than he did at this time last year. Don't tell Joe that Tim Hudson was 5-6 at this point last year. Don't even tell Joe that as he was writing this the A's were preparing to win their seventh—not third—straight.

Look, the Big Three and still the Big Three. Their strikeout ratios are all down but besides that there are no possible complaints.]

I wish I could say that's the only thing in the chat session for which Joe deserved to be raked over the coals, but then that would mean there's nothing else to read on Mike's site, and the evidence there has proven quite the contrary.

Not that Mike is the only one taking Joe to task. Travis Nelson of the Boy of Summer blog did his own entertainingly snarky take on a Morgan chat a few weeks ago. An angry mob of Baseball Primer posters recently compiled an extensive laundry list of Morgan's more glaring flip-flops and flubs. Now Aaron Gleeman of Aaron's Baseball Blog has his own axe to grind. A couple of weeks back, Aaron took Joe to task for failing to realize that Oakland A's GM Billy Beane did not write the bestseller Moneyball and yet foisting that disinformation on the public. Joe liked the mistake so much he made it twice: "I wouldn't be Billy Beane first of all!! I wouldn't write the book Moneyball!"

Jumpin' Jeebus Cripes! As Aaron wrote, "He not only had his facts wrong and he not only was upset with someone as a result of something they didn't do, but he was making a big deal of the situation, on a national stage(s), over and over again, based on his incorrect facts."

Morgan wages a disinformation campaign that would do a Propaganda Minister proud. Everything Joe believes now, he always believed, despite whatever he's on record as having said last week, and woe to you if you point that out to him. Take this exchange from another recent chat:

Stevie Ridzik (D.C.): Dig your work Joe...But one bone to pick, how can you say "the Blue Jays rely mainly on home runs." when they lead the league in BA-SLG-OBP-OPS-RUNS-RBI and are only 3rd in taters?

Joe Morgan: Listen to what I say and do not put somebody else's words in my mouth. I said they have a chance of winning because they have a great offense. I'm not sure where you got that. It seems that people want to put words in my mouth.

It should be noted that in the previous week, Morgan had this to say:

On offense, the Mariners are getting hits in clutch situations while featuring the hit-and-run, the sacrifice bunt and the sacrifice fly. This is in contrast to the Toronto Blue Jays, who rely mainly on home runs.[emphasis added]

Joe Morgan, History's Greatest Monster, Q.E.D.

Okay, he's not History's Greatest Monster. But with every passing week, Morgan continues to carve himself a reputation as a baseball reactionary, a boor and a bore. For those of us who grew up admiring his brand of heads-up baseball, it's sad to watch. But when a man's got the ear of a baseball-watching nation and he continues to shovel such a high volume of bullshit, he deserves to be called on it. Intelligent baseball fans are doing just that.

After doing his thorough job taking apart some of Morgan's recent gaffes, Gleeman notes that Morgan's actually written a book himself. On the ghost of Wally Post, I swear I am not making this up: Baseball for Dummies.

Say it ain't so, Joe.