It's fairly well-established by now that listening to Joe Morgan and Jon Miller calling a game for ESPN is about as pleasurable and edifying as repeatedly hitting yourself in the temple with a rubber mallet. Miller actually wouldn't be so bad by himself — though his pedantic attempts to "properly" pronounce the names of foreign players can get pretty tiresome — but Morgan is teeth-grindingly awful. Morgan, a Hall of Famer and certainly one of the best second basemen in history, is capable of spinning an interesting yarn — so long as it involves Joe Morgan and/or his days with Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine". The rest of the time, he basically alternates between dyspeptic annoyance at Miller for stating an obvious point, and finding new and ever more cranky ways to minimize the accomplishments of those on the playing field.
During tonight's ESPN broadcast of the Cubs-White Sox game — i.e., the final installment of the Cubs' three-game sweep — Miller and Morgan hit all the predictable bum notes, including lots of references to 1908, 1908 and 1908. (Yeah, guys, we know; Cubs haven't won the World Series in awhile. A hundred years, in fact. Great angle. Maybe you can also throw in some Steve Bartman references later in the broadcast — oh wait, you already showed that footage during the pre-game? My bad!)
But then Morgan did something completely bizarre: In the fifth inning, when Eric Patterson hit a two-run homer into the wire basket that overhangs the right field wall, Morgan referred to the basket as "Banks Boulevard," and then went on to talk about how many Ernie Banks homers ended up in the Wrigley bleacher baskets back in the day — the implication being, of course, that many of Ernie's 512 career homers were cheapies, and that he would have hit considerably fewer without the help of those right- and left-field baskets.
This was one of the weirdest things I've ever heard, so I did a bit of research on "Banks Boulevard," and it turns out that Lil' Joe has been beating this particular non-existent horse for years, claiming that, back when he played, "everybody" referred to the baskets as Banks Boulevard. What's especially bizarre about Morgan's claim is that those baskets didn't even EXIST until May 1970, when they were affixed to the top of Wrigley's outfield walls — not to increase Banks' home run output, but to keep drunken Bleacher Bums from spilling their beer (or themselves) onto the warning track.
It's also an easily verifiable fact that Banks only hit seven homers at Wrigley between the time those baskets were installed and his retirement at the end of the 1971 season. And of those seven, there's footage of Banks' 500th homer flying fairly deep into the bleachers; which means that, at the very most, six out of his 512 career round-trippers landed in the basket. And which means that Morgan has no fucking idea what he's talking about. I know he has no love for Ryne Sandberg — i.e., the one player of the modern era who might have been Morgan's equal as a second baseman — but what could he possibly have to gain by implying that Banks' home runs needed help getting out of the park?
I also have no idea why, since this is apparently an error that Morgan consistently perpetuates, someone at ESPN hasn't had a word with him about it, because this reflects really poorly on both Morgan and the network. Seriously — if Morgan's making this "Banks Blvd" shit up, then he's a grade-A asshole; and if he sincerely believes his tall tale to be true, then he's veering dangerously into Grandpa Simpson territory. "Three wars back we called Sauerkraut 'liberty cabbage,' and we called liberty cabbage 'super slaw,' and back then a suitcase was known as a 'Swedish lunch box.' Of course, nobody knew that but me..."
Well said. Joe Morgan is one of the most self-important and least informative broadcasters in baseball, which is no small feat.
Posted by: dsinger | June 23, 2008 at 02:58 PM
he's a moron.
Posted by: stu | June 23, 2008 at 04:55 PM
As most people know, Joe Morgan is a complete idiot! He was a very good player but is an absolutely horrible announcer. His latest comments are just another example of his ignorance. I have met Ernie Banks, who is one of the nicest people in the WORLD, and don't understand why Joe Morgan could say anything even remotely derrogative...Maybe he's jealous nobody ever called him Mr. Red??
Posted by: CaptJeesh | June 25, 2008 at 08:39 PM
If ESPN were ever to market a drinking game based on the number of easily correctable errors Joe Morgan makes in the average broadcast, I'd have a permanent suite at the Betty Ford Clinic.
Posted by: Wayne Frazer | June 25, 2008 at 09:43 PM
Someone at ESPN really needs to give Morgan a history lesson. Not that he'll listen, though.
Posted by: Ed | June 26, 2008 at 01:17 AM
"...so I did a bit of research on "Banks Boulevard," and it turns out..."
please list references for this research, thanks
Posted by: Jesus | June 26, 2008 at 02:20 AM
Jesus —
For Banks' career stats (along with his game logs and home/road splits, which will tell you exactly how many home runs he hit at Wrigley, and when), go to his player page at BaseballReference.com:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/bankser01.shtml
For info about when (and why) those baskets were installed, please check out Stuart Shea's excellent Wrigley Field: The Unauthorized Biography.
http://www.amazon.com/Wrigley-Field-Unauthorized-Stuart-Shea/dp/1574889419/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214487988&sr=1-1
I also looked all through Shea's book and Peter Golenbock's Wrigleyville: A Magical History Tour of the Chicago Cubs — and several books about baseball stadiums, including Josh Leventhal's Take Me Out to the Ballpark and Marc Sandalow and Jim Sutton's Ballparks: A Panoramic HIstory — and found no reference whatsoever to "Banks Blvd" in either of them.
By the way, I lived on the north side of Chicago from 1980 to 1993, and went to more Cubs games over those years than I can count. Not once in that period did I ever hear anyone — either at Wrigley or anywhere else — refer to those baskets as "Banks Blvd".
Posted by: Dan E | June 26, 2008 at 07:16 AM
Oh, and for the part about Joe "beating this non-existent horse for years," check out this August 2005 entry from the blog Joe Morgan Watch:
http://joemorganwatch.blogspot.com/2005/08/making-stuff-up.html
Posted by: Dan E | June 26, 2008 at 07:24 AM
I love Jon Miller. You really need to hear him broadcasting Giants games without being hindered by that blowhard. A's fan though I am, I'll cop to the Giants having a far superior broadcasting team thanks largely to Miller.
But I couldn't agree with you more about Joe Morgan. Everytime ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts an A's game, I've got to here that putz drone on and on about how the A's don't steal bases, Bill Beane never should have "written" Moneyball and the better team didn't win the 1972 World Series.
Here's a good piece about him from a few years back:
http://www.sfweekly.com/2005-07-06/news/say-it-ain-t-so-joe/
Posted by: Michael | June 27, 2008 at 03:40 PM
Ernie Banks is and will always be the biggest self promoting blowhard that ever came down the pike!!!!
Posted by: tom king | January 19, 2010 at 04:57 PM
Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. (Leon Nlum, French statesman)
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