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Rating: 
Summary: A smoking line drive!
Review: 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 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 humor 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 black managers are under more pressure to win than white managers. Perhaps this was true at the time, but the current ubiquitousness of black non-winners such as Dusty Baker and Don Baylor 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 black 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 suggestion has since been adopted since that is essentially the role that Tom Lasorda and others have been playing. Finally, I can only give Morgan a mediocre grade for his discussion of the "Pete Rose" issue. Yes, Pete was probably guilty of betting on baseball, Morgan says. Yes, he lied about it. Yes, Pete has failed to address his actions with the requisite humility and penitence, wrongly regarding his banishment from baseball as another tough fastball to be hit; another catcher to be ploughed through. But Morgan weakens and says that Rose should STILL be allowed entry into the Hall of Fame because of what he has meant to the game, blah, blah, blah. That's only a "C plus" response. By comparison, another of Rose's Cincinnati teammates, Johnny Bench, once gave an "A" response. "When should Rose be admitted to the Hall of Fame?" Bench was asked. "When he's innocent," Bench retorted. Write it down in Big Red letters, Little Joe.
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