Dumb Things Joe Morgan Says, Part…

…well, I lost count. The guy amazes me sometimes; it’s like if Larry Bird became a broadcaster and we discovered that the guy had no clue about how you win basketball games, or if it turned out that Bill Clinton didn’t know anything about politics.
Anyway, today’s gem was a bit of historical ignorance. John Miller was discussing headfirst slides – mainly in the context of guys going headfirst into first base – and Joe was contributing some sort useful color, discussing his own preference until late career for sliding feet first, and how great base thieves like Lou Brock and Maury Wills always went feet first. Then Joe declares that the guy who popularized the headfirst slide was Omar Moreno.
Now, OK, maybe Moreno was the first big time base thief to go mostly headfirst, I don’t remember. But most of us would consider it faintly ridiculous to discuss who made headfirst slides more popular without mentioning the man who was synonymous for decades with the headfirst slide, who indeed made it his signature: Pete Rose, of course. How could Morgan, who played side by side with Rose for seven seasons in the prime of their careers, have possibly forgotten Rose? It boggles the mind.