1 Happy St

Ralph (NYC): Joe, with the emergence of Delmon Young and how dominant he's been since his call-up, do you think that he'll be the starting RF'er for the Rays next year? Also, how do they fix their pitching?

Joe Morgan: I haven't seen him play at all, I've seen his highlights. I've had plenty of people tell me that he's a special player. He seems to have what it takes to be a star in the big leagues.

Perfect. He hasn’t seen him play at all. Some things never change. It’s a good thing Derek Jeter doesn’t play for the D-Rays.

Frank Jones (Modesto): Joe, have you had a chance to see much of the Dodgers this year? They really turned the franchise around when they stopped evaluating players based on stats and started finding guys who played hard and knew how to win. Do you think they can win the NL?

Joe’s answer to Frank was pretty boring and meaningless, but I wanted to include this question just to show that the readers are finally getting hip to him. Frank prefaced his question by making sure Joe had seen the Dodgers play. Brilliant.

ian (Miami, FL): How about them Marlins. Can you say Wild Card. What you think Joe???

Joe Morgan: Well, they can because they have strong pitching and they have Cabrera as their stabilizer in the middle of the lineup. Yes, they can. A couple of weeks ago, I predicted the Phillies, with the leadership of Ryan Howard.

Yeah, it’s Ryan Howard’s leadership. It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s hit like 2000 HR’s this year.

Robert (Brentwood): Joe, who do you think has the most intangibles of anyone in baseball?

Seems like a leading question to me since Joe loves intangibles over actual player talent, but I must admit that I admire the spirit that Robert from Brentwood shows here by asking it, almost like he’s hoping for nonsense. A smart idea that I wish I’d thought of.

Joe Morgan: I'm not sure what you mean with intangibles. It's a term that's used to describe a player that don't hit a lot of homeruns or drive in a lot of runs and it doesn't show up in a box score, but still has an impact on the game. With that said, there are a lot of players out there that fit that bill.

In other words, they suck at baseball, but they have a hot wife who shows up on the occasional road trip.

Andrew (WI): Hello Joe. How many bases do you think you could steal against today's pitchers and catchers if you were still in your prime? Thanks.

Joe Morgan: That's a difficult question. I have no idea. All I can say is that I could steal a base any time I needed to. That's a tough question.

That’s unedited. He really said that.

Jeff (Eagle Mountain, UT): Joe, who would you rather have as your catcher for the next 15 years: Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, or Russell Martin?

Joe Morgan: It's like with Liriano and Harden and some of these guys. It's too early to tell who is going to be consistent year in and year out.

It’s a good thing Joe’s not a scout or a GM.
“Hey Joe, you have the first pick in the draft. Who you taking?”
“Can I wait 10 years or so before I pick? I want to see which of these kids will be good first.”

Joe’s Final Thought:
Joe Morgan: I know a lot of people think that certain pitchers should be considered for the MVP award, but I disagree, the Cy Young award is for the best pitcher. No matter how many HRs Ryan Howard hits, he can't win the Cy Young award, so why should a pitcher win the MVP?

Even though I'm pretty indifferent to just about every individual off-season award because there's never a formula to win any of them, you have to appreciate Joe's logic here in comparing the Cy Young Award's criteria to the MVP's. Maybe Joe doesn't realize that Cy Young was a real person who was also arguably the greatest pitcher of all time. Then again, maybe Joe is just mad that the MVP Award isn't named after Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, or Tony Perez.