Brace yourself, ladies and gentlemen, there’s actually a halfway favorable item in print today about ESPN’s Joe Morgan.
From the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman.
Maybe ESPN’s Joe Morgan figured everyone back in New York needed a wake-up call. Was that why the Hall of Famer was verbally throwing heat throughout the late show? He started early. While everyone – especially the brainiacs appearing on Al Yank radio and TV – was going gaga over Chien-Ming Wang’s ability to consistently throw the sinker, Morgan, while acknowledging that fact, stuck a warning label on the 25-year-old rookie.
“You have to watch him around the fifth or sixth inning,” Morgan (above) said in the first inning. “Sometimes he drops his arm just a little bit and his sinker straightens out.”
Morgan repeated the same line in the fifth inning, right before Juan Rivera hit a solo homer off Wang.
That same inning, Morgan told the national audience (I assume ESPN’s feed went to Tampa, too) how Yankees GM Brian Cashman – on camera with a radio earplug in one ear (was he picking up Ma and Pa Pinstripe in Anaheim?) – “never gets any credit” for the successful moves (Wang, Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small) that helped the Yankees win the division. “It seems all anyone ever wants to talk about is the fact they have a $200 million payroll,” Morgan said.
Morgan’s respect for Cashman must have shocked some Yankee fanatics. Especially those who believe Morgan and Fox’s Tim McCarver – with his accomplice Joe Buck – spend their days sticking pins in George Steinbrenner voodoo dolls.