R.I.P. "Moose" Morton (1930-2014)

mabrowndog

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Dec 23, 2003
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For most of his life, he was Rev. Guy Morton Jr., a southern baptist pastor in Ohio.
 

 
But in his earliest adult years, he was "Moose" Morton, a strapping young catcher from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, eponymous son of an ex-major league pitcher (who won 98 games over an 11-year career with Cleveland, but died suddenly when his only child was just 5 years old), and an up-and-coming Red Sox prospect.
 

 
Rev. Morton died this past Sunday, May 11, at age 83. 
 
After earning a baseball scholarship to Alabama as a pitcher, where Butch Hobson's dad Clell was on the team, Morton was signed by Boston's farm director Johnny Murphy. It was the summer of 1949, right after his freshman year, and the 18-year-old's bonus was $6,000. However, a lingering shoulder injury from his high school football days left him without the ability to pitch as effectively. Offered his choice of several new roles by the club, he opted to become a catcher since the Sox lacked system depth at that position. Moose spent two seasons in the minors with the Sox' Class D affiliates in Marion (OH) and Kinston (NC) before having his baseball career interrupted by the Korean War. He served two years in the U.S. Army as a platoon sergeant in the 31st Division, 167th Regiment, stationed at Fort Jackson (SC) and Camp Atterbury (IN).
 
Morton returned to the ball field in 1953, breaking camp with Class B Roanoke (VA) in the Piedmont League, hitting .302 and slugging .444 with 8 HR and 16 doubles in 87 games. He earned a late-season promotion to Class A Albany (NY) in the Eastern League, but struggled with a .225 average and just 3 extra-base hits in 89 at-bats.
 
As a 23-year-old, Moose busted out with authority in 1954 for Class B Greensboro, hitting .348 and slugging .625 with 38 doubles, 32 home runs, 120 RBI and 302 total bases. He finished second in the Carolina League in batting average, but the other five stats were all tops in the circuit, earning him MVP honors.
 
That dominating performance prompted a September call-up to Boston, where the Sox were well out of contention. They'd entered the month in 5th place, 16 games under .500 and 37.5 games behind the first-place Indians. After several days of riding the pine and warming up pitchers in the pen, Moose, wearing jersey number 39, finally got his chance. It came on September 17 at Washington's Griffith Park against the Senators. The Sox fell behind early after starter Frank Sullivan yielded 4 runs in the 2nd inning, three on the only career home run by the opposing starting pitcher, lefty Dean Stone. When Sullivan's spot in the batting order came up with one out in the 3rd, and Teddy Lepcio on second after a lead-off double, manager Lou Boudreau sent Moose up to pinch-hit.
 
As he recalled to author Richard Tellis:
 
 
"I remember going up. I had a lot of confidence; I wasn't scared. I was well-schooled and had done this before ... I remember [Stone] pitched from a full wind-up. I saw the ball well, and I had good cuts."
 
I wish the rest of this chapter of his story involved one of those "The Natural" light-tower shots with dramatic symphonic music accompanying a misty-eyed slow-motion trot around the bases.
 
But it doesn't. Mighty Moose became Mighty Casey and struck out swinging on all three pitches he faced.
 
 
"I just didn't do it ... I swung at them all -- one, two, three. I think the last one was a slider above the belt. I was a high-ball hitter, and I swung over it."
 
In the top of the 4th, Boudreau opted not put him in the field defensively, as mainstay Sammy White finished out the 8-0 loss behind the plate.
 
And that was that. Despite his youth, and all that promise, Moose Morton never played in the major leagues again. After moving up a level to Class A Montgomery (AL) for 1955, he regressed and was unable to replicate his impressive power. His batting average dropped 85 points, while his slugging percentage collapsed 211 points to a pedestrian .414. He went from 38 doubles to 13, and from 32 homers to just 10. Granted he had 350 at-bats compared to 483 the year before, but the writing was on the wall. He was dealt to the same Washington team he'd whiffed against, and would go on to play five more years in the minors for the Senators and Milwaukee Braves before hanging up his shin guards and chest protector after the 1959 season.
 
I have no idea why the Sox didn't play him more that September to see what they really had on their hands, instead of wastefully relegating him to a single plate appearance and letting that stand as their sole data point. (In Morton's words, "Boudreau thought my swing was too long, and he was probably right. I guess he was reluctant to use me again.") Maybe it would have made a difference in how his baseball career turned out, maybe not.
 
Nonetheless, Moose lived the one moment, the one wish, that the fictional version of Moonlight Graham so craved. I don't know if he got to stare down the Senators southpaw on that Friday afternoon, or if he squinted at a sky so blue it hurt his eyes just to look at it. But I doubt Morton felt any tingle in his arms, since he didn't connect with the ball. He didn't run the bases, or stretch a double into a triple, or flop face-first into third, or wrap his arms around the bag.
 
Long after that relatively meaningless whiff in the nation's capital, Moose reflected on the outcome:
 
"I didn't feel anything particularly about it. It was just another day's work. I had struck out before. I had the philosophy of Mickey Owen. He was the old Dodgers catcher, who I met when he was managing Norfolk. He said, 'I'd rather have a good swing and miss it than a half-swing and bounce it back to the pitcher.' That's the way I felt."
 
Okay, so he didn't live the wish in the fairy-tale manner that Graham so eloquently envisioned. But while I'm not much of a religious sort, if the guestbook at his obit page is any indication then Moose certainly went on to lead a Moonlight-esque post-baseball life -- in the service and support of others. He earned bachelors and masters degrees at the University of Alabama, was married 63 years to wife Jean (who survives him), raised three kids, and saw a dozen grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren come after them. Along the way, he taught school, coached sports, started youth baseball leagues in Ohio and Alabama, and counseled generations of church congregants for 55 years.
 
That's a far more meaningful stat line.
 
R.I.P., Reverend.
 

terrynever

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I had a high school physics teacher named Jake Eisenhart who faced 2 batters in the big leagues in 1944 for Cincinnati. Got one out, walked one, never pitched again in the big leagues. He was 21. Liked to ref intramural hoop games. Fouled me out in the first half once and later gave me a D in physics. He was a hard man.