Joe Morgan

ManagerJoe Morgan (217-184 in 2 1/2 seasons with the Red Sox).1990 record88-74, first place, 2 games ahead.1990 offensive leadersBA: Wade Boggs ... ... ... .302HR: Ellis Burks... ... ... . 21RBI: Ellis Burks.. ... ... . 89SB: Ellis Burks... ... ... .. 9@1990 pitching leadersWins: Roger Clemens......... 21ERA: Roger Clemens........ 1.93

ELECTED BY BBWAA PLAYERS Hank Aaron, 1982 Luis Aparicio, 1984 Luke Appling, 1964 Ernie Banks, 1977 Johnny Bench, 1989 Yogi Berra, 1972 Wade Boggs, 2005 Lou Boudreau, 1970 George Brett, 1999 Lou Brock, 1985 Roy Campanella, 1969 Rod Carew, 1991 Gary Carter, 2003 Roberto Clemente, 1973 Ty Cobb, 1936 Mickey Cochrane, 1947 Eddie Collins, 1939 Joe Cronin, 1956 Bill Dickey, 1954 Joe DiMaggio, 1955 Carlton Fisk, 2000 Jimmie Foxx, 1951 ...

Yesterday was a rough day for Joe Morgan.Both Joe Morgans. The one who (mis)manages the Red Sox and the one up in the ESPN announcing booth sitting next to Jon Miller.Morgan the analyst watched as a series of Boston pitchers fed first-pitch fastballs to Fred McGriff, a notorious first-pitch fastball hitter. The result was four straight singles.Suddenly, Freddie, who has been known to go AWOL in September, is a presence again.Toronto's Manny Lee slapped a single to leftfield and, with the play laid out before him, got tossed out by yards as he attempted to stretch it into a double.

You would think that a channel that traffics in nostalgia would be sensitive to the issue of a face lift, but the folks who run ESPN Classic are plowing on with a whole new look. Starting Monday, the new ESPN Classic won't look like your father's ESPN Classic, what with new logos and graphics, but it will continue to show your father's favorite games, along with some new programming. "Right now, it [ESPN Classic] is potluck viewing, and that won't work anymore," said Mark Shapiro, the channel's vice president and general manager.

Cardinals: Ray Lankford was shaken up and had to leave the game in the bottom of the seventh when Luis Alicea backed into him while chasing a pop-up in center. . . . Mike Morgan made a rehab start for the Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate at Louisville on Tuesday night, losing to Iowa, 4-2.Cubs: Ryan Sandberg's two homers gave him 247 as a second baseman, pushing him past Joe Gordon for the third highest total in major-league history at that position. Joe Morgan (266) and Rogers Hornsby (263)

While other managers were in danger of losing their jobs, most people thought the Boston Red Sox's Joe Morgan was safe. Now he's out, too.In a surprising move, the Red Sox fired Morgan yesterday and replaced him with former Boston third baseman Butch Hobson."

Giants manager Roger Craig is happy the club is remaining in San Francisco, but he doesn't think he fits into the plans of the new ownership group."I have a feeling they'll go with a younger manager," said Craig, 62. "I feel they might make a clean sweep."Craig, who has an agreement with owner Bob Lurie to manage the Giants through the 1993 season, was referring to a change at the top, including president and general manager Al Rosen."I talked with Al in Arizona today, and he said he didn't know what would happen.

What would a baseball season be without a chance to sit in the stands and punch tiny holes in a computer card? The tradition continues this year with balloting for the 1994 All-Star Game, July 12 at Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium. This year's voting, which continues until June 27, is being supervised by The Baseball Network. Network chief executive officer and president Ken Schanzer spoke recently with The Sun's Mark Hyman.Q: How many ballots are out there?A: Sixty-five million. That's up significantly from last year, when some 38 million were printed.

Joe Morgan, who became manager of Fair Lanes Ritchie on July 5, gives a whole new meaning to the cliche "a new broom sweeps clean."Already the old carpeting has been torn up from the concourse and replaced. The bar is being refurbished, and the old air conditioner will be replaced.When Morgan says, "I'm here for the bowler," you have to believe it.Joe Morgan has been bowling since he was 9. He carries a 153 average with a high game of 254 and a high set of 599."I know I'm not a great bowler," Morgan said, "but I'll be bowling in the Monday Night Men's Continental League and probably some other leagues as well.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Unlike last season, the Boston Red Sox began the American League Championship Series yesterday with a bang. Though they weren't playing, the Red Sox fired native son manager Joe Morgan and hired Triple A manager Butch Hobson.The Red Sox maintain they fired Morgan after 3 1/2 seasons so they could hire Hobson, not because they blamed Morgan for the team's disappointing second-place finish (84-78). "No way Joe Morgan is the scapegoat for the season," general manager Lou Gorman said.

Joe Morgan says that he and Bob Costas have yet to do their best work as a baseball announcing team. If they manage that feat during this week's American League Championship Series telecasts, sports television may not get much better than what we're going to hear.The ALCS will effectively serve as Costas' and Morgan's first extended work together as a duo because Bob Uecker, suffering back ailments, decided earlier this year not to work NBC telecasts.With only two men occupying the booth, rather than three, the movement of the telecast should be more to each of their liking, which, in turn, should make for a better broadcast.

The pundits say that good teams, in pressure situations, take their game to "another level," and that maxim is just as true for broadcasters as it is for athletes.For ESPN, this week's Division Series are the equivalent of a World Series, and the all-sports channel is televising these games, and especially yesterday's Orioles-Mariners game, at a world-championship pace.With all due respect to Fox, which does a pretty good job in its own right, no one can bring to the table the intensity and passion for baseball that ESPN can and has this week.

You've no doubt heard that inside the heart of every actor is a director waiting to spring free. Well, there likely has been no more flamboyant actor on the baseball stage in the past 30 years than Reggie Jackson, and he is itching to direct.What the Hall of Fame slugger really wants to direct, however, is a team, as either a general manager or even an owner, and just as a director needs a great play to get exposure, Jackson is hoping his new gig as an ESPN analyst will be the thing to get him noticed.

It's often been said in the athletic arena that to simply throw a collection of talent together without letting it develop as a unit is a prescription for disaster, and that theory has often been proved correct.That can also be true in sports announcing, if the roles aren't clearly delineated. NBC's baseball troika of Bob Costas, Joe Morgan and Bob Uecker is a solid example of how it can work when you put talented people together, making sure they know their roles and perform them.It's been clear throughout their Division Series and American League Championship Series work that Costas, the play-by-play man, is at the helm, with Morgan providing the serious analysis and Uecker along, mainly, for the comic relief.

There are eight teams still scratching for berths in the World Series, and there are three entities -- Fox, NBC and ESPN -- clawing it out for the mythical title of best baseball network.For all practical purposes, the battle is over. Neither NBC nor Fox, despite their best intentions and some pretty good talent, can match the attention to detail that ESPN can give to the sport.Yesterday's Orioles-Indians clash, with the network's Sunday night crew -- producer Phil Orlins, director Marc Payton and announcers Jon Miller and Joe Morgan -- provided textbook proof of why ESPN is so good at baseball.

Cardinals: Ray Lankford was shaken up and had to leave the game in the bottom of the seventh when Luis Alicea backed into him while chasing a pop-up in center. . . . Mike Morgan made a rehab start for the Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate at Louisville on Tuesday night, losing to Iowa, 4-2.Cubs: Ryan Sandberg's two homers gave him 247 as a second baseman, pushing him past Joe Gordon for the third highest total in major-league history at that position. Joe Morgan (266) and Rogers Hornsby (263)

BOSTON -- Joe Morgan has done something that Joe Cronin, Dick Williams, Darrell Johnson and John McNamara couldn't do; he has finished first twice with the Red Sox.This is no small achievement. Cronin, Williams, Johnson and McNamara would tell you that the second one is harder. None of those men lasted two full seasons after managing the Sox to the top. It's clear that once you win in Boston, expectations are high.Morgan leads the Red Sox into the playoffs for the second time in three seasons, and that makes him the most successful Boston manager in 74 years.

It's Independence Day, one of the holiest days on the baseball calendar, and Joe Morgan, one of the game's top students, not to mention its best television analyst, has been thinking about its problems.Morgan, a Hall of Fame second baseman, most noted for his days as a catalyst in Cincinnati's Big Red Machine attack of the mid-1970s, won't offer solutions. That's for the professionals who run the game to do, he says, but Morgan knows what some of the problems are.One of them is that both the players and the owners have taken the fans for granted.

It's Independence Day, one of the holiest days on the baseball calendar, and Joe Morgan, one of the game's top students, not to mention its best television analyst, has been thinking about its problems.Morgan, a Hall of Fame second baseman, most noted for his days as a catalyst in Cincinnati's Big Red Machine attack of the mid-1970s, won't offer solutions. That's for the professionals who run the game to do, he says, but Morgan knows what some of the problems are.One of them is that both the players and the owners have taken the fans for granted.

The NBA plans another formal expansion next year, with the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies coming aboard, but one of its broadcast partners, Turner Sports, is expanding a lot sooner.For the 1994-95 season, which begins tomorrow night, the good folks at Turner, who begin a new four-year NBA contract, have added a third night of coverage, Thursday, and a second channel, TBS, to their usual TNT Tuesday and Friday basketball sessions.The two networks will carry a total of 70 regular-season contests and nearly 50 playoff games, with doubleheaders on TNT and TBS during the early rounds.