Joe Morgan: ‘Little weenie’
May 11th, 2006
Here’s something hilarious about Joe Morgan from The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, by, obviously enough, Bill James.
In April 2000, Major League Baseball aired a promotional spot in which Peter Gammons, pitching, struck out Harold Reynolds. Broadcasting on ESPN on April 19, Joe Morgan was frothing at the mouth about this commercial. “Harold Reynolds was a major league baseball player,” Morgan said over and over … I may be paraphrasing a little, because my VCR wasn’t running. “Harold Reynolds was an all-star. Peter Gammons does not strike him out. It’s just wrong, and I’m not going to keep quiet about it. It’s wrong. Peter Gammons does not strike out Harold Reynolds.”
Dear Joe:
Does the phrase “Get over yourself” mean anything to you? This is not to deny that you were a major league player, and even that you were a better player than Harold Reynolds, who I suppose must have been an All-Star sometime; what the hell, Dave Chalk started two All-Star games. This is not to deny that you were a brilliant player, Joe, but you are becoming a self-important little prig. Grow up, you little weenie. People make fun of one another; this is called friendship. This is life; only self-important little twits take offense at that kind of thing. Jeez, man, get a life. Preferably not on television.
Your friend,
Bill James
Bill James doesn’t know if Harold Reynolds was an all-star or not? How much should we trust this guy with baseball history if he can’t take the time to figure out of H. R. was an all-star. And how about learning to spell the word “quiet”?
Oh, one last thing, James says “Get over yourself,” “Grow up,” and “get a life” to Morgan, then calls him a “self-important little prig,” “little weenie,” and “self-important little twit.” He then has the audacity to sign off as “Your friend.”
Who needs to grow up?
So Bill James doesn’t know how to spell “quiet.”
Did I miss something? Is it “Pick on Diminutive Second Basemen” day?
Um, hey Brett — It was simply a typo on my part.
I figured as much, but I thought it would be more fun to attack James than you, my personal friend.
Consider that particular barb ommitted from my previous post.
Unlike you, I thought James’ response was pretty good.
He’s a terrible color-man… that’s in regards to his commentary in the booth, not that he’s an overly-opinionated black man. I don’t really care that baseball is no longer the “pure” sport it was when he played, nor do I care about hearing irrelevant stories about the Big
RedDead Machine.I’m with Tim. I’ve always hated it when Morgan, the big white ESPN guy, or Reynolds announces a game. I guess you could add Gammons to that, too. Talk about biased -I-could-go-on-for-forever-about-how-terrible-they-are announcers. (Whew.)
Just one of the many reasons I despise ESPN.
Joe Morgan does for baseball commentary what Johhny Miller does for golf. Not fond of either of them.