Joe Morgan

[kairos12]

I saw him first as a Houston Colt45 in 1964. A year before the Astrodome opened. He was the ultimate gamer and pro.

He was the greatest player I ever saw live.

He was the fundamental cog in The Big Red Machine, one the greatest gatherings of baseball talent ever.

Good-bye Joe. You were the greatest.

[underpants]

1. I had his autograph multiple times when I was a kid

I don’t know if we “knew someone” or if we were just early on to this but we used to get all their autographs probably every game we went to.

We’d walk over to a parking lot that was their parking lot. I remember it was not the ground floor. There’d be maybe 5 or 6 families there. The players came out pretty much in a small amount of time and they’d sign hats, programs, even bats.

Joe was a regular as were Concepcion Griffey Foster the pitchers and yes Pete Rose. All the time. Johnny Bench rarely was there “he’s busy” one of them would say if asked - probably icing his knees and reviewing with the pitching coach.

I had at least 5 maybe 10 sets of most everyone. We moved a lot and it really wasn’t a thing so I threw them away over the years.