skyking162

Who doesn’t love to hate on Joe Morgan and the rest of the ESPN baseball crew? I don’t see any hands, so here’s a little gift.

FIRE JOE MORGAN (note the brilliant URL) is one of my favorite blogs of all time. A team of five guys points out the ridiculous comments spoken and written by the likes of Joe Morgan, John Kruk, Harold Reynolds, Joe Morgan, occassionally Peter Gammons, and Joe Morgan. It’s the only blog where I regularly laugh out loud while reading it.

The cornerstone of the blog is Ken Tremendous’s breakdown of Joe Morgan’s weekly web chat. Here’s a snippet from Tuesday’s analysis:

Joe Morgan: The guy that wrote Moneyball can’t teach me about the game. That is what I meant. If you haven’t been on the field, why should I read your book? How can that person teach me about the game? I learn plenty about the game everyday. Every Sunday night I learn something. The game changes almost every day. But I’m still not going to read Moneyball or books written by people who haven’t been on the field or really experienced what goes on in the game of baseball.

KT: This is one of those, “How many ignorant things can I jam into one answer?”-type answers. Let’s break it down.

1. The guy that wrote Moneyball can’t teach me about the game. You don’t even know his name. How do you know he can’t teach you about the game? You literally don’t know who he is.
2. If you haven’t been on the field, why should I read your book? Well, gosh, I don’t know. Because…you are an Emmy-winning baseball broadcaster, and that book is probably the most important (mainstream) book writen about baseball in the last 20 years?
3. How can that person teach me about the game? Something new in the Joe-vs.-”Moneyball” war just occurred to me: Joe has not considered the idea that the book contains analysis by people other than its author. In other words, if Billy Beane were the author of the book and not its primary subject — and those of you diehard Joe-vs.-”Moneyball” war fans will no doubt remember several interviews with Joe where he did indeed think that was the case — would he read it then? Beane played on the field. He satisfies Joe’s insane demand that only former players can “teach” us anything. Jeremy Brown, Jason Giambi, Scott Hatteberg — nearly all of the book’s subjects played the game. So this ridiculous line of thought on Joe’s part is actually more meaningless than I previously believed, because Joe doesn’t even know enough about the book to understand that it is not just Michael Lewis pontificating about baseball. It is actual players discussing the game Joe loves and refuses to learn about. I thus would like to invite someone, next Tuesday, to make this point in a question to Joe, and then we’ll start some real fireworks, by gum.
4. I learn plenty about the game everyday. Every Sunday night I learn something. The game changes almost every day. Three nice little tidbits here, the first two of which, from my empirical info-gathering, seem wholesale false, and the third of which would, to most normal people, indicate that constant information gathering and research in all media would benefit someone who desires to be an “expert,” and thus, theoretically, compel the quotation’s author to go out and read “Moneyball.”
5. But I’m still not going to read Moneyball or books written by people who haven’t been on the field or really experienced what goes on in the game of baseball. See note #3, supra.

Or how about this exchange?

Ben, Philly: Can you go to any baseball game you want any day you want? If so, can you please kidly request that I have such a luxury?

Joe Morgan: I can’t just walk in! But I have a Gold Pass. If you play for 8 years you get a Gold Pass that allows you to go to any game. But you have to call in advance. They will leave you two tickets. That doesn’t work for playoffs and World Series though! That reminds me, I don’t know where mine is! I need to find it.

KT: I’m guessing Bud Selig stole it back. Or maybe Jon Miller burned it.
Chad(WI): Would you be willing to sell me your gold pass?

Joe Morgan: No! It’s a very cool thing.

KT: That you lost.

Really, check it out. When I came across the blog last year, I spent all afternoon reading through the entire archives and laughing so hard I cried.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.