It's really hard to understand why Morgan would say that. If he's deliberately lying, it's a stupid lie, because it's so easy to check. But at the same time, if he's not lying, then he's forgotten the circumstances of his first major-league hit, and event which every major-leaguer I've ever heard talk about says that you never forget. Not only has he forgotten the circumstances, he's forgotten what year he started his major-league career, which is really hard to believe.

I've said before that we all have a great capacity to believe that things we wish were true actually are. Can it be that he wants his first big-league hit to have been really important, and so has convinced himself that it was? Could this be a story he started telling on the banquet circuit, just because it sounded good, and over the years has told it so often that he forgot it wasn't true?

Whatever, it's really hard to understand why he'd say this.

Nah. I can believe that he brain-farted. I mean, if Bert can remember facing major league teams when he was still in high school, why can't Joe Morgan boof up a date/circumstance in an off-the-cuff, on-the-air comment?

I'd have to imagine that doing color commentary on games open all sorts of opportunities for misstatements. (1) you have to think and talk on the fly and (2) these are mostly ill-educated former ballplayers, so see point number 1.

add to the above: how many of you "older" parents can remember instantly the dates of (1) your kids' births; (2) your wife's birthday; (3) your anniversary? These are all life-changing events of at least as much significance to us as a major-league debut should be to an ex-ballplayer.

I know that I have to stop and think about each of the above (unlike my wife who, being a woman, remembers dates, phone numbers, what I was wearing, etc. about each of a myriad of events that I can barely remember having happened at all).

I'm giving this one to Joe. It was 44 freakin' years ago. If someone asked me the circumstances of my first HS football reception, I couldn't do it. I could maybe tell you most of the info about my longest reception, but I know I wouldn't get that all right, either.

That said, Joe has to cover his tracks by saying something like, "To the best of my recollection..." Anyone who's an AARP member knows to say that much.

Even if I concede that he could have just forgotten the circumstances of his first big-league hit, there's more to it than that. He didn't just forget, he transformed it, in his mind, as something that led to one of the most memorable events in major-league history---the collapse of the '64 Phillies. That would seem to say something about him.

Could this be a story he started telling on the banquet circuit, just because it sounded good, and over the years has told it so often that he forgot it wasn’t true?

That seems most likely to me. There's a reason we have expressions like "tall tales" and "fish story" in our language. I'd guess Joe is just succumbing to human nature.

I'm sure it was a great thrill for him to beat the Phillies with a walk-off in his first game in the majors, a feeling, as well as the general circumstances of the feat, he'd never forget. Over the years, maybe he liked the story a little better if he also got the hit in his debut at-bat, then it was even more impressive if he fudged the year to add some historical weight to the hit. Until recently, he could count on knowing that few would take the trouble to dig through old box scores and an encyclopedia to check on his account, and who did it hurt if he embellished a story about himself to entertain and impress the folks?

Now, he probably either hasn't adjusted to the new Retrosheet world, or, as you say, he's just forgotten that his story stretches the truth.

This story will be in Rob Neyer's lastest book about "Tracers". They're a type of story he used to write when he was Bill James's assistant in which he takes a story from an old-time ball-player and shows how easily it can be proven that 90% of the details are wrong. Rob was giddy when he heard this story because it was such an easy target.

Seriously. No idea on the release date.

I saw this when it came out. The full story is something about the Phillies manager (Mauch?) throwing a tirade and flipping over a table in the clubhouse because they gave up a game-winning hit to a short rookie (Morgan).

Given those details, which would have been impossible for Morgan to witness or know, I suspect he was told of this story by others at a later date ("Hey, remember that first hit of your's, late in the season, to win the game for the Astros? Well, that sent the Phillies into such a tailspin..."), and perhaps multiple individuals added different details and re-affirmed the fudged date. It seems plausible, it was a long time ago, at the beginning of a long, eventful career -- and I doubt Morgan is the type of guy to comb through Retrosheet box scores to verify this kind of thing.

Not excusing Joe, but it was probably an honest mistake. FJM should really focus on Morgan's true sins -- like the ridiculous Billy Beane book-writing accusations.