Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Great Moments In Announcing


So I'm watching the Twins/Blue Jays game, taking in the usual repartee between Dick & Bert, when Jack Morris slides over from the radio booth to add his insight on the game. Of course this lasts for about two minutes, as the conversation shifts to the 1991 World Series (I guess Boof Bonser giving up hits is boring). The announcers start to relive Morris' game 7 brilliance, when he brings up his experience on the 1992-1993 Toronto Blue Jays. That's when I heard something along the line of this:

Dick (to Morris): What was it like being apart of the 2nd walk-off homerun in World Series History?

Jack: It was great obviously. A lot of us knew Joe personally. Of course he didn't really have to hollywood it up like that. But it was a great moment.


Hollwood it up? The man just won the World Series. Aren't you supposed to jump up and down? And I'm not sure, but I don't think that Jack Morris was sitting there stoically when Gene Larkin lofted a fly ball towards the left-centerfield gap and Dan Gladden jogged into an awaiting sea of white, crimson and navy at home plate (aaah, that feels good!!!). I don't really know what Morris was thinking about, but my intuition says that he had some jealousy for Carter or even the entire team. In 1993, he was 7-12, with a 6.19 era for the Blue Jays and didn't appear in a single playoff game. I couldn't figure out if he was injured or just dropped from the rotation, but he made his last start on September 9th of that year. I think Morris wished it was him in that moment, ala 1991, and he holds some hostility for not being able to participate in that great scene.

For some reason this really fired me up because it was such a strange thing to say. I shouldn't have been surprised because minutes later Morris also mentioned that he thought that the increasing reliance on the bullpen is just a trend and in a while workhorses who pitch 300 innings in a season will be back in vogue. Not happening Jack! Pitcher's don't pitch as many innings because the teams are afraid that their multimillion dollar pitchers will get injured. I suppose Morris would counter this by adding that the escalation of salaries is cyclical as well and pretty soon the players will go back to the wages of the Rockford Peaches. Alas, this just gives me more reason to watch sports on mute with killer tunes blaring on my philips sound system in the kitchen.

*Hat tip to Bear for calling me out because I acted like a little girl when
Jesse Crain lobbed a ball into left field when they had Scott Rolen picked off of second.

No comments: