Joe Morgan: The Man, The Legend, The Fucking Tedious Windbag

First, a quick impression of Mike Pefrey's Line Drive Party, er, "start" last night:

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

Yee-gads, that wasn't pretty. I haven't seen so many hard-hit balls since...well, ever. Hopefully we can chalk it up to just a bad night, but good lord.

Now if only one one of those line drives could've found their way up to the ESPN booth, I would've been happy. Listening to Joe Morgan for 5 minutes stinks. Listening to him for 3 hours is, in one word, in-fucking-tolerable. Perhaps someone should invent a "Joe Morgan button" for our remote controls. That way, when our team is playing on Sunday Night Baseball, we simply hit the button and can hear our choice of (a) natural crowd noise; (b) a pneumatic drill; or (c) Scott Ferrall, the SNY "Loudmouths," and special guest Stephen A. Smith, all screaming and talking over each other on an endless loop. Any one of these options would be infinitely more pleasurable that listening to this pompous, oblivious blowhard ponder the wonders of how smart he is for three hours.

Here's a sampling of what I think I heard last night:

Miller: And there's a stolen base by David Wright.
Morgan: You know, I've always said the best way to steal second base is to get a nice lead and outrun the throw by the catcher.

Morgan (with the Mets trailing 4-0): The Mets have the firepower to get back in this game.
Morgan (after the Mets score a run): I told you the Mets have the firepower to get back in this game.

Miller: There's a base hit by Utley.
Morgan: You know, I've always said Chase Utley is a great hitter. Great hitters get hits.

Morgan: I've always said that the purpose of a minor league system is to help the big league club.

Miller: And here's a fly ball that will be tracked down by Burrell.
Morgan: You know, back when Abner Doubleday and I were inventing the game of baseball in 1839 -- actually, I invented it and he just sort of stood there -- I always used to tell people that the purpose of the game is to score more runs than the other team. When you don't score more runs than the other team, you're going to have a hard time winning the game, and I think that's what the New York Mets are experiencing right now.

Editor's note: Two of these quotes are NOT made up. See if you can guess which ones. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.