Final Card Friday: 1994 Jack Morris

I saw Jack Morris pitch three times at Tiger Stadium, all in the mid-1980s. The first time I saw him, he went nine innings, gave up an unearned run, and got the win. The second time, Morris went eight, gave up five earned runs, and got a no-decision (though the Tigers won the game). The final time I saw him pitch, he went nine innings, gave up four earned runs, and got the loss. That was Jack Morris. It wasn’t always pretty, but he got the job done. He was a winner…the winningest pitcher of the 1980s with 162 victories.

During his eighteen year career, Morris won 254 game, for the Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, and Cleveland Indians. His most memorable moment was his 10 inning complete game victory over John Smoltz in game seven of the 1991 World Series. However, for those who saw him pitch year in and year out, they knew Morris was a workhorse. Eleven times in his career, Morris reached double digits in complete games. In 1983, he lead the AL with 20. Morris’s 175 career complete games are the most since the AL expanded in 1977. Throughout baseball history, countless pitchers have broken down with injuries, but Jack Morris did not.  He was an ace who averaged 33 starts and 16 victories a season, and helped his teams win three World Series titles.

Jack Morris’s final APBA card is representative of his career. If you feed Morris’s career averages into Steve’s APBA Computer, you’d get a Grade C/5 (Y) Pitcher (see card at right). His 1988 season is nearly a perfect match to his career averages.  This is why, for so long, Morris was on the fringe of Hall of Fame induction. Not once did Morris earn Grade A Pitcher from APBA. He never won a Cy Young Award either. Jack Morris was never the BEST pitcher in the league, but he was consistently ONE of the best pitchers. In his prime years, he was consistently a Grade B Pitcher, which in most APBA replays, will win a solid number of games.

I understand the arguments for Jack Morris NOT being in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, I’m pleased that he’s finally being inducted. Even though his numbers don’t stack up sabermetrically, I felt like Jack Morris was a Hall of Famer when I watched him play.

As Roger Craig said in Inside Pitch, “There are Opening Day pitchers and pitchers who start on Opening Day. Jack Morris is probably the best of the former…better [on Opening Day] than Don Drysdale, Jim Bunning, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Don Newcombe, and Carl Erskine.”

Jack Morris had a savage will to win. It was such an intense drive to win that it cost him relationships and allies in the media. However, there’s no doubt where he stood with his teammates and peers. Danny Knober summed it up well in Numbers Don’t Lie when he said, “You can argue where Morris should rank on a list of baseball’s best pitchers – his many near-misses in Hall of Fame voting stand as evidence that plenty do argue – but Morris’ status among those who played with him remains unchallenged. In a big game, they all wanted Jack Morris on the mound. Year after year, when Jack Morris was on the staff, there were never any questions about who was the ace. He was the guy you wanted on the mound in Game 1 in October. He was definitely the guy you wanted on the mound in Game 7 in October.” In early 2018, Jack Morris was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by a committee of his peers. After eighteen long years of waiting for his call to Cooperstown, that’s exactly how it needed worked out.