9102090826
DETROIT FREE PRESS
911024
Thursday, October 24, 1991
METRO FINAL
1C
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO METRO FINAL CHASER EDITION, Page 1C
Copyright (c) 1991, Detroit Free Press
GOOD OL' JACK MORRIS HE'LL NEVER CHANGE
WORLD SERIES, DAY THREE, GAME FOUR
ATLANTA -- Before I talk about Wednesday night's game, or about my
newfound appreciation for country music, which they play all the time down
here, including my personal favorite -- "She Called Herself a Georgia Peach,
But All I Got Was the Pits" -- I guess I should tell you about my reunion with
Jack Morris, our old Detroit pitching pal, whose very presence makes reporters
break out in hives.
Personally, I always got along with Jack, mostly because, when he called
me a jackass, I called him one back. But I hadn't seen him since he'd left
Detroit. I'd missed his return to Tiger Stadium in May, when he gave up seven
runs in the first inning and, naturally, screamed at the media. "You wouldn't
be talking to me if I won! You're only here because I lost!"
It was this sort of cheery attitude -- along with his constant money
complaints -- that made Tigers fans, when they learned Morris was jumping ship
to Minnesota after all those years in Detroit, respond this way: "So? What's
for dinner?"
Morris was sitting by his locker. I approached.
"Hi, Jack."
"Hello, Mitch."
"Miss me?"
"No."
"Miss Detroit?"
"I had enough of people blaming me for everything."
"Happy here?"
Sneer. "What do you think?"
Moon over Osaka
OK. Maybe it was a stupid question, since Morris already has three
post-season victories and is hailed as the missing ingredient that made the
Twins click. I sure hope, with all that spotlight, he has learned to dress
better than he did in Detroit. Jack's wardrobe, which included a mink coat,
leather pants, a green sports coat, and cowboy boots, always made him look, to
me anyhow, like a cross between a pimp and Buffalo Bob. "Man makes all that
money, still dresses like that?" a teammate once said, sighing.
But I did not ask Jack about his clothes. It's hard to explore such topics
with 400 reporters stampeding toward a naked relief pitcher to ask whether it
was a slider or a curve that the batter hit halfway to Texas. Dumb questions?
I saw Greg Olson being interviewed by a Japanese TV man, who asked, through a
translator, whether Greg would show the audience how limber he was.
"OK," Olson said. And he bent over, pulled his head through his legs, and,
from under his butt, looked up at the camera and said, "How's this?"
I'm sure they loved it in Osaka.
This reminds me: Wednesday I touched on the difference between the
baseball "poets" (who could romanticize tobacco juice) and us regular
reporters. Another example: The poets, who follow the game all year, as well
as in their sleep, get to sit in the real press box during the World Series,
while the rest of us are sent to a makeshift section way out in deep right
field, upper deck. They call this the Auxiliary Box. I call it Nicaragua.
On Tuesday night, when Game 3 went into extra innings, the press box poets
could hardly control their typing fingers:
"It's like Chicago-Detroit in 1907!"
"Like Fred Snodgrass dropping the ball in 1912!"
"Oh . . . rapture!"
Meanwhile, out in the Auxiliary Box, writers were glaring at their
watches, watching deadline and, more important, last call at the hotel bar
disappear. "COME ON, JERK!' they yelled at each batter, "HIT THE BLEEPING
THING OUT AND GET THIS OVER WITH!"
But back to Morris.
Once upon a time, Jack was just another hot prospect coming out of high
school in Minnesota. And once upon a time, John Smoltz, who pitched opposite
Morris Wednesday night, was a just another hot prospect coming out of high
school in Lansing. One man signed both of them to their first professional
contracts. On Wednesday afternoon, that man was sitting in the lobby of the
Marriott Marquis Hotel, his legs crossed, a drink on the table in front of
him.
"So I guess we have you to blame for tonight's game?" I said.
"Yeah," said Bill Lajoie, "they ought to let me throw out the first ball."
Call it the Lajoie matchup
Maybe they should. It was Lajoie's instincts that helped nudge these guys
toward stardom, although -- unlike some baseball men who say, "I knew the kid
was great the minute he tied his shoes" -- Lajoie confesses Morris and Smoltz
were just good guesses. "You never know what's gonna happen after you sign
them," he said.
What happened, of course, is that both blossomed, both started in the
World Series Wednesday night, and neither works for the Tigers anymore. Nor
does Lajoie. More reasons to feel good about Detroit baseball.
But we are not here for that. We are here to ask the most important
question of the day: Who in the heck is Mark Lemke, and why is he winning the
World Series all by himself?
The answer can be found by bending over looking up from between your legs
and asking a Japanese translator. Which is where I'm heading now.
NEXT: GAME 5, OR BRAVES NEW WORLD.
COLUMN