A Big Cog in the Big Red Machine

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Normally I post the music obituaries, because music is my primary love. But I also love baseball. Let me tell you, the Baseball Hall of Fame has taken a pounding in the past few weeks with the deaths of St. Louis Cardinals greats Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and New York Yankees legend Whitey Ford. Today I heard that “Little” Joe Morgan, a big cog in the Big Red Machine of the 70s, passed away. They used to say of the Boston Braves’ famed one-two punch “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” There was no “rhyme” for the Big Red Machine in the 70s, but it generally went Rose, Morgan, Bench, Griffey, Perez, three (or more) runs for the Reds. That was the era I grew up in, and that was my team. Even looking back 45 years, I still don’t think I’ve seen as consistently good a team as the Reds were in that era. You have teams that are around the top of their division all the time, but they’re always getting new players. With the Reds, the biggest change I remember was when Cesar Gerónimo was moved up to batting fifth, moving Tony Perez down to sixth. THAT is consistency. Joe Morgan actually started in the Houston Astros, and he was traded to the Reds (I think for Lee May....going strictly from memory at the moment). Morgan was the total package. He was a speed demon on the bases (they might as well had put him at second when he walked, because he’d be there in a pitch or two), a Gold Glove fielder, and could hit for both power AND average. He made the All Star Team ten times in his career. Once it ended, he became a baseball “analyst” announcer on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball for two decades. Needless to say, his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame was as guaranteed as a stolen base, and he went in on the first ballot in 1990. The Reds released a statement saying they are “heartbroken.” They are. Cincinnati is heartbroken. All of baseball, and all baseball fans, are heartbroken at the loss of one of the best players of the 70s....and maybe all time. Joe Morgan was 77. A typical Joe Morgan highlight reel, this one from the 1976 World Series when the Reds swept the Yankees: