Amazon.com: Long Balls, No Strikes: What Baseball Must Do to Keep the Good Times Rolling: Joe Morgan: Books

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The 1998 season was a year of wonders, to be sure, but attendance remained lower than it was before the '94 strike, 14 clubs suffered box-office declines, and the TV ratings for the World Series were in the tank. "Baseball is back," Hall-of-Fame second baseman Joe Morgan observes, "but it's not back all the way." One of the National Pastime's most engaging and entertaining explainers--as broadcaster, author, and spokesman--Morgan steps up in complexity from the basics of his last effort, Baseball for Dummies, to take some candid swings at what's right with the game these days, what's wrong with it, and how the wrongs can be righted. Naturally, he insists that baseball's owners and the players union put their house in order, and here he's not afraid to point fingers and name names. He hates that an owner like the White Sox's Jerry Reinsdorf can cry "about the lack of fiscal responsibility" in the game and then break the bank 18 months later to sign Albert Belle, a move that was so expensive he had to dismantle his team to pay for it. "Who," asks Morgan, "twisted his arm to do that?" Nor does he keep still about baseball's less-than-excellent record on minority hiring in executive and managerial positions. On the field, he strongly advocates a return to more base stealing and a higher mound, the dumping of the DH, and a less fluid strike zone. In a nice touch, he recruits the opinions of prominent baseball names--like union head Donald Fehr, manager Dusty Baker, executive Mike Veeck, and pitcher David Cone--and then comments on them. He presents a strong case for why former teammate Pete Rose's only admission to the Hall should be by ticket.

For Morgan, the 1998 season opened a window, but that's all it did. "How we utilize this opportunity," he writes, "will determine whether baseball can reclaim its title as the National Pastime, or will become a sport that has passed its time." --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly
"Baseball is back, but it's not all the way back," writes Morgan. Having proved himself one of baseball's shrewdest television analysts for both ESPN and NBC, the Hall of Fame second-baseman brings his intelligence and knowledge to this savvy state-of-the-game evaluation of where baseball is and where it should go. With the help of Lally, Morgan convincingly argues that baseball's magical 1998 campaign was an aberration and that the game needs to revamp itself if it is to retain the popularity thrust upon it last year by Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and the remarkable success of the New York Yankees. Baseball junkies will appreciate his host of suggested improvements, ranging from raising the pitcher's mound (which was lowered after pitchers dominated the 1968 season) and standardizing the strike zone (which the league is trying to do this season) to a plea for more aggressive baserunning. They'll also find compelling his list of players who should be in the Hall of Fame (including two of his Big Red Machine teammates, Tony Perez and Davy Concepcion) and his criticisms of certain managerial chestnuts. Morgan intelligently discusses the game's labor issues, explaining the history that produced the players' union, while simultaneously arguing for a revenue-sharing plan that would give small-market teams a chance to compete. A provocative chapter notes the insidious ways in which raceAand racismAstill affect the game, both on and off the field. Tart and thoughtful, Morgan's opinions will be relished by anyone who knows and loves the game. Author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Long Balls, No Strikes: What Baseball Must Do to Keep the Good Times Rolling (Hardcover)

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