Joe Morgan is God's Punishment for Something

I don't know who called the Astros/Braves debacle but when I heard Chris Berman polluting the airwaves during the All Sox tilt, I felt a chill of horror go down my spine. Joe Morgan had the Yankees/Angels game. I felt the sadness but then realized Lost would be on. [Lost is an amazing show and if I have to miss some innings during the playoffs to see what's goin down with Locke, the hatch, and The Others, so be it! 4 8 15 16 23 42, baby!] I tuned in to the game at the top of the 5th inning, which was just in time to hear Joe remind the masses that he's an addlepated twit. The Yankees were up 1-0 and had A-Rod on 3rd and Gary Sheffield at the plate.

"A-rod is a feared hitter and he's probably the better hitter, but Sheffield is a more feared hitter because of how hard he swings the bat."

While I tried to determine how braindead one had to be to make that comment, Joe topped himself. "Their [the Angels] major concern is to keep A-rod from scoring." Keep the baserunner from scoring? How fucking novel! Could you imagine if announcers in other sports did this as well? "The Patriots' major concern is keeping Peyton Manning from throwing a touchdown." I take that back. Other sports do have mental defectives calling games. Maybe John Madden can join Joe in the booth and they can have a stupidity rumble while they eat turducken. We can call it the Senility Games and make the gold medal event the Battle of the Obscenely Obvious.

So after letting up a run, Lackey retired the rest of the order and Wang went back to the mound. The camera panned in on Brian Cashman, which prompted Joe to wax poetic about the GM's financial genius. You see, Cashman saved the pitching staff with Chacon, Wang, and Small! Even more worthy of praise was Cashman using the *gasp* MINOR league system to find the latter two! Could you have guessed a farm system could be used to call up prospects and not just trade them for expensive has beens? It's crazy, I know. Bravo, Cashman, for doing your bloody job. While Joe continued fellatio, Juan Rivera, a prospect Cashman traded for Javier Vazquez, went yard on Chien-Ming Wang. This little tidbit was lost on Joe but who cares? His road of logic is purely legit. Foolish man builds pitching staff with $100M of damaged goods and one-trick ponies --> Pitching staff goes on the DL --> Man panics; Fears for job --> Man acquires pitching staff from minor league system and the Colorado Rockies --> Patchwork staff is successful --> Man is genius... Good call, Joe!

After Cashman came or Joe realized that Wang got rocked, I can't remember which, the conversation transitioned to the Macha release in Oakland. Neither Jon Miller nor Joe Morgan could make heads or tales of it. Was it a firing? Was he released? Did he quit? Apparently, "negotiations ended after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract" was too ambiguous for the duo and the booth got quiet until the top of the 9th with Jeter up to bat. The Yanks were down 5-3 and it was time for Mr. October. Joe said, "Derek Jeter makes things happen. He's been shutout at the plate tonight and he doesn't walk or steal much but he makes things happen." *Strike* "You can really count on him to do it for you." *Strike* Joe never explains how. He never has an analysis but a non-walking, non-stealing shutout Jeter makes things happen. When #2 struck out, Joe said, "I mean, he really makes it happen." It was like Jeter hit a gamebreaking triple and wasn't actually on his way back to the dugout. Around this time, I muted the telly and watched the rest of the game in silence.

The good thing about the playoffs is we're about to have a 6 month vacation from Joe Morgan. I know I said that about Stephen A. Smith, only to be bashed in the face by "Quite Frankly," but unless ESPN schedules a Celebrity Deathmatch between Joe Morgan and Michael Lewis, I think we can all be assured of a peaceful off-season.