HA!

Although it's true that I can probably count on one hand the number of baseball commentators who I can stand to listen to, let alone enjoy, I really have no patience for Joe Morgan. I'm not as fired up about it as those guys over at FireJoeMorgan.com, but any time I try to watch a game on ESPN, I end up muttering my own commentary back at the TV thanks to his "unique blend of ignorance, inexplicable anger, arrogance, and haughtiness." He's just an idiot, of the Tim McCarver school, who ruins my baseball-viewing pleasure. So it was with a special kind of glee that I read this column by Phil Mushnick of the NY Post, (writing about last Sunday's game) to learn that Morgan's also a big fat liar:

Cardinals-Phillies was part of ESPN's pathetic "Sunday Night Baseball" coverage. The Phillies were about to become the first Major League Baseball team to 10,000 losses. And Joe Morgan, ESPN's No. 1 baseball analyst, a fellow whose wisdom is often laced with convoluted, confounding and contradictory nonsense, was moved to tell a national audience about the significant role he played in Phillies history.

The year, Morgan told us, was 1964, that calamitous season when the Phillies blew a 61/2-game lead with 12 games left by losing 10 straight. Morgan said he made his major-league debut late in '64, against the Phillies. And it was in that game that his RBI single beat the Phillies, extending their infamous losing streak to eight or nine.

Morgan added that Phillies manager Gene Mauch was so upset he threw over the buffet table in the clubhouse, hollering that his club had just been beaten by "a Little Leaguer!"

Great story. But unless Morgan was confusing himself with Reds rookie infielder Chico Ruiz, it never happened. As several readers were moved to write, the Phillies played the Reds, Braves and Cardinals during that losing streak; Houston wasn't in the mix.

Furthermore, Morgan, though called up in 1964, did not have an RBI that season for Houston.

And he did not make his big-league debut in '64, either. That came Sept. 21, 1963, when he went 0-for-1, pinch-hitting against the Phillies. The next day, Morgan did have an RBI single to beat the Phillies, but those Phillies were well out of the race and not in the throes of a historic collapse; they'd actually won four of their previous five games.

Get your story straight, Morgan. Or--even better--shut up!