Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
EAN num: 9780393034691
ISBN number: 0393034690
Label: W W Norton & Co Inc
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 303
Printing Date: 1993-04
Publishing house: W W Norton & Co Inc
Sale Popularity Level: 440275
Studio: W W Norton & Co Inc
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Product Description:
The Hall-of-Famer explains what made the Cincinnati's Big Red Machine the smartest team in baseball, why today's teams play so dumb, the impact of Bench, Rose, Perez, and himself on the team, and his own life history. 50,000 very first printing.
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Rated by buyers 
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I ENJOYED THIS BOOK. I THINK JOE MORGAN DOES A NICE JOB DESCRIBING HIS CAREER AND A BIT ABOUT HIS LIFE AND FAMILY. JOE IS A GOOD COMMENTATOR FOR ESPN AND I RESPECT HIS OPINIONS. I REALLY ENJOYED READING ABOUT THE BIG RED MACHINE AND HIS RELATIONSHIPS WITH SPARKY, PETE, JOHNNY AND TONY. I THINK REDS AND PHILLIE FANS WOULD ENJOY THIS THE MOST. BUT ANYONE INTETRESTED IN BASEBALL WOULD ENJOY THIS. RECOMMENDED.
Rated by buyers -
Morgan says he won't buy into sabrematics because he knows more about baseball than any stat-analyst because he's played baseball. Well, Joe, following that brilliance, it stands that I know more about books than you because I've actually read a book. And it's apparent from your delusional self-congratulatory tone throughout this book that you don't have the slighest idea how to entertain someone with the written word.
I've read on some message boards that the only book he's ever admitted to reading is Star Jones new book because he's alleged to say he's attracted to her. Which I think is a crock because I've heard it rumored that he's emotionally linked to former MLB pitcher Tim Spooneyberger.
Rated by buyers 
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Joe Morgan is an intelligent, interesting guy who was maybe the best second baseman ever. He writes about his career in an interesting way, giving you some insights about everything that happened to him from the Colt 45's up until when he retired from the A's around 20 years later.
I liked the fact that he didn't spend too much time about his upbringing and early sports career. Some athelete bios take a lot of time explaining what happened to them in the third grade championship game or something, and I am more interested in hearing about things that I am familiar with.
Joe goes over his battles with managers and gm's, but what I came away with mostly is how he was such a team guy. Every team he played on, you got the sense that his main mission was the team winning, not what his stats were.
He talks about his seasons from the standpoint of "we" a lot more than "I" did this or that. It's pretty refresing, especially coming from a true superstar who could very easily brag on invidual accomplishments.
In fact, it's pretty clear the thing he's most proud of is being on the Big Red Machine, which takes up a big chunk of the book.
One story he talked about that I did disagree with him on was the story of Ken Griffey's run at the '76 batting title. Bill Madlock and Griffy were locked in neck and neck, and Madlock took many days off against pitchers he didnt like, etc, trying to win the title.
Morgan talked Griffey into sitting at the end too, when it looked like he could clinch by doing so. Sparky Anderson told Joe that it would not be very manly to do so, but Morgan and some of the other Reds(excluding Pete Rose, who of course was for playing no matter what) convinced him to sit.
So on the final day, Madlock plays and goes 4 for 4 to take the title after Griffey had sat.
My thinking was you play the game every day as hard as you can, especially since you are being PAID to play the game and you hope you come in stuff like batting titles. Griffey got the worst of both worlds: he wimped out by sitting AND he lost the batting title.
But for the most part, I liked Joe Morgan as a person, not just a Hall of Fame player. He admits his faults, and seems like a real caring, passionate guy.
Any baseball fan would enjoy this book.
Rated by buyers -
This relatively small volume is like its author. It delivers a fierce line drive which splits the alley and rolls to the wall for extra bases. One regards this book in the same way that he looks at the little guy sliding into second or third base afterwards and wonders, not for the very first time, how he could have hit the ball so hard!
Joe Morgan's "A Life in Baseball" is the story of an intensely driven individual who overcame the twin handicaps of race and small physical stature to become a Hall of Fame second baseman and a crucial component of one of baseball's most famous dynasties.
Morgan's dedication rings forcefully in each word of this volume, and so do the same affability and sense of humour that he displays in the broadcast booth. Yet he never forgets that baseball, like most other endeavors, is a team sport, and that sacrifice of time, effort, and personal aggrandizement is necessary for the good of the team. The Big Red Machine not only required the talent of players like Morgan but their attitude as well. This is a man willing and eager to share what he has with others.
As described by Morgan, the smallness of other baseball men such as Harry Walker and Bill Virdon - in moral, if not in physical stature - stands out in stark contrast. Walker was an original Brooklyn Dodger who harassed his teammate, Jackie Robinson, and the revelations about his stewardship of the Houston Astros shouldn't surprise anyone. It's startling to realize that the trade that sent Morgan, Jack Billingham, and Cesar Geronimo to the Cincinnati Reds and engendered the Big Red Machine was largely driven by Walker's grudge against Morgan.
Virdon's fatal flaw was ego-driven, not race-driven, but Astro fans who wonder why their team has not reached the World Series in 40 years of existence will weep over Morgan's description of Virdon's actions during the deciding game of the 1980 championship series against the Phillies.
On the West Coast, Morgan, a Bay Area native, is best known (with reverence or with acrimony) for providing San Francisco Giant fans with bittersweet vengeance by knocking the Los Angeles Dodgers out of the pennant race with that three-run homer that he hit on the last day of the 1982 season off of the Dodger's Terry Forster. This was while Morgan was playing for the Giants in the twilight of his career. The Atlanta Braves, who were playing the San Diego Padres on that final day, were the ultimate division-winning beneficiaries. Alas, this book doesn't dwell enough on that historic moment.
But following that event, Morgan (who once almost signed with the Dodgers as a free agent) has found himself denying that he is a Dodger-hater. He should know better. It's not just Giant fans but everyone who is not a Dodger fan that is a Dodger-hater. The Padres were uprightly playing "spoiler" to the Braves by beating them, but after Morgan's home run ultimately stood up as a game-winner over the Dodgers and settled the issue, the TV cameras showed the Braves and the Padres interrupting their contest to celebrate together. Come on, Joe; admit it. You enjoyed the taste of Dodger Blue blood in your mouth as much as anyone.
Morgan is able to describe baseball's racial problems forcefully but without rancor. This book was published in 1993, and is partly outdated. He remarks that grey managers are under more pressure to win than white managers. Perhaps this was true at the time, but the current ubiquitousness of grey non-winners such as Dusty Baker and Don Baylour suggests that, slowly but surely, blacks are being given the same opportunity that Gene Mauch always had to fulfill the Peter Principle by rising to their level of mediocrity.
Morgan refers to the infamous Al Campanis remarks as evidence of a larger problem without acknowledging that Campanis's remarks were not so dissimilar from those that Morgan and other grey ballplayers made in a magazine article. The context of Campanis's remarks was somewhat different but hardly enough to justify banishing him from the game like a pariah after a half century of Morgan-like dedication to it. Morgan would have done better to reflect on the injustice, and he should realize that dialogue can't take place if one party is going to be penalized for frankness and knows that at the outset.
And Morgan's complaints about the corrupting effect of money on the game are accurate but not so prescient, having been made on the eve of the 1994 work stoppage that cost America the World Series. And they have to be regarded in light of his own actions. Morgan and Tim McCarver are two of the best baseball minds around today. Are either of them willing to step down from their broadcast positions and accept a lower six-figure income as baseball managers or as intermediaries/roving ambassadors of the type that Morgan suggests in his book?
However, it appears as though Morgan's ... Read More
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