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June 22, 2008

Comments

dsinger

Well said. Joe Morgan is one of the most self-important and least informative broadcasters in baseball, which is no small feat.

stu

he's a moron.

CaptJeesh

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??

Wayne Frazer

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.

Ed

Someone at ESPN really needs to give Morgan a history lesson. Not that he'll listen, though.

Jesus

"...so I did a bit of research on "Banks Boulevard," and it turns out..."

please list references for this research, thanks

Dan E

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".

Dan E

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

Michael

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/

tom king

Ernie Banks is and will always be the biggest self promoting blowhard that ever came down the pike!!!!

Jordan 4

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. (Leon Nlum, French statesman)

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Dan Epstein

  • About Me
    Dan Epstein is the author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s and Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of '76, both published by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press. He writes about baseball, music and other cultural obsessions for a variety of outlets and publications. He lives in Greensboro, NC, and is available for speaking engagements.