Who is the man: Joe Morgan managed one of his better seasons with the Astros in 1970, setting what was then career highs for runs, doubles and runs batted in. He was voted an All-Star for the second time in his career.
Can ya dig it: This is a very different card, especially by card standards of the day. There are three people in this photo and you can't see the faces of any of them.
Right on: First card of Series 3. You will see 41 more action cards in the set (excluding the World Series subset), all of them in Series 3 and 4.
You see this cat Morgan is a bad mother: The first player I ever knew to win back-to-back MVP awards. That left an impression.
Shut your mouth: I think I screamed this at the TV for Morgan more than any other national broadcaster.
No one understands him but his woman: The fact that Morgan is anti-"Moneyball," yet was one of the most "Moneyball" players of all-time is the most fascinating "generations clashing" baseball story of the present day. Writer Joe Posnanski's contention that Morgan's disagreement with Bill James-style baseball analysis is rooted in "us versus them" "they didn't play baseball" beliefs is spot-on and sad.
(A word about the back): Look at all that talk about walks. The man knew how to get on base.
This is a cool card picture and one I don't recall seeing. I have a Topps book that has all cards through 1985 or so, so I know I have seen it but I definitely don't recall it. One more reason to go after the 1971 set.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest memory of Morgan was a game winning HR on the last day of the season to knock a certain team out of the playoffs, remember this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYQ3FOECa8
I remember it enough not to click on the link. I've raged about Morgan's behavior in that game at least a half-dozen times on one blog or another.
DeleteThe catcher in the picture is Jerry Grote of the New York Mets.
ReplyDelete