Dear Mr. Morgan

I have the utmost respect for what you accomplished as a player during your career. Believe me, that’s not something I say lightly.

Players with career OBPs over .390 are certainly special and worthy of the Hall of Fame.

As a player, you served the game well. As a broadcaster, though, you have anything but Hall of Fame credentials.

You are regarded so often as ESPN’s top analyst and are the spotlight of its Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts. But the broadcasts are filled with ignorance, and your ESPN chats are an embarrassment.

I realize that I am stepping somewhat on the toes of the FireJoeMorgan.com Web site with this post, but I needed to say this myself.

Please, discontinue your service as a baseball broadcaster, commentator, and analyst. You do so little of all three, anyway.

Last month the Phillies lost their 10,000th game and you claimed to be responsible for their tailspin back in 1964. You said, on the air, mind you, that you came up for your first big league at bat late in the season against the Phillies and got your first hit and RBI during their fall from first.

What possible reason did you have to lie?

Your first big league at bat came on Sept. 21, 1963, not in late ‘64.

You also added that Phillies manager Gene Mauch was so upset about being beaten by “a little leaguer” that he kicked over the buffet table.

Again, why the theatrics? Why the lie? You’re a Hall of Famer, Mr. Morgan.

Our troubles don’t end there.

It’s one thing to share your opinions with other people. It’s another to be flagrantly wrong when you do so. Allow me to provide an example.

During your weekly ESPN chat two weeks ago, a fan asked this:

Rick SD: Do you think there is often too much weight and kudos given to individual stat data accomplishments in what is supposed to be a team sport?

Your response:

Joe Morgan: Finally somebody that understands the game. You’re right. Statistics are overrated. What you do to help your team win is what it’s all about. These stats like OPS, it doesn’t tell you what you do for the team. To my opinion, to help the team, you drive in runs or score runs. That helps the team. That’s how you should be judged.

It’s one thing to argue against looking too much into statistics. It’s another to argue against a stat like OPS and then claim that stats like RS and RBI are better indicators of a player’s value to his team.

OPS tells us how productive an individual is. Runs scored and RBI tell us how productive the players around you are. How is that possibly better?

There’s one more chat question and answer I’d like to share with you. It’ll force you to think back to late April of 2006. The question:

Patrick (St. Louis, MO): You stated in your last chat that because you’ve been around the game for so long, there isn’t much more anybody can teach you about it. It seems like you’re saying that everything in baseball is known already, whereas I feel that there is plenty that we don’t know, especially with advances in sports medicine, the ability to use technology to evaluate defense more accurately, and the increasing availability of pitch-by-pitch data to study long-term trends in the game. Don’t you owe it to your listeners to listen to new arguements and research, especially if they are intelligent and logical? You seem to have the notion that a lot of the objective analysis being done now is trying to get rid of traditional scouting, but most sabremetricians feel that both are essential to get the best results.

Your reply:

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.

Again, this isn’t anything people haven’t pointed out before, but this really bothers me, Mr. Morgan. Outside the fact that you didn’t even know the author’s name, you refused to even acknowledge that different viewpoints about baseball analysis exist. Believe it or not, Moneyball has had a tremendous influence on the way baseball scouts, GMs, and managers go about the game today. Isn’t something that causes such a profound revolution in thought worthy of at least acknowledgment? At the very least, the book is an interesting look into the way Billy Beane shaped the A’s during his time as general manager. But the failure of the author to align himself to your thoughts on the game caused you to shun the book. And that’s a shame.

You should be ashamed.

If you’re going to share your thoughts and opinions on a pedestal as grand as ESPN, please, at least, be accurate and open-minded in your discussion.

Or, just stop sharing your thoughts and opinions altogether.

Sincerely,

David Just

P.S. I’m serious. Please stop. Now.