Mt. Morris Has Been a Bit Quiet : Tigers’ Ace Doesn’t Blow Off Steam--He Comes Out Smokin’

I know that I can’t be perfect all the time but I still strive for perfection. I know that I can’t be a robot, but when you’ve been successful most of the time you carry that with you.

--JACK MORRIS

Slowly and surely he has learned to curb the temper, emotions and quest for perfection that earned him the nickname of Mt. Morris.

There are fewer eruptions, but the label still seems appropriate, though in a different context.

He is Mt. Morris in tribute to being at the pinnacle of his craft, the best pitcher of the decade.

No one can match his 135 victories in the 1980s or his 152 wins since the start of the 1979 season. No one else has posted a 26-5 record over his last 35 starts.

At 12-3, a workhorse and winner, Jack Morris has made the $1-million raise he received in salary arbitration look like a bargain.

In a year of recycled pitching, he has made the four clubs that rejected his free agent overtures last winter look like fools.

The Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and Angels all rebuffed that barnstorming attempt to sell his services, forcing Morris to return to the Detroit Tigers through arbitration, a process in which he received a $1.85-million salary, satisfying his desire to match Fernando Valenzuela as baseball’s highest-paid pitcher.

Now Morris is likely to become the first pitcher to receive $2 million in salary.

From whom?

By returning to the Tigers Morris preserved his free-agent eligibility, but he reflected on the events of last winter and the fact that a decision on the player union’s collusion grievance is still pending and said:

“I’d be stupid to try to predict what’s going to happen next winter.

“I do know that money will never change what I want and expect from myself. I won’t be happy unless I’m giving 100%.”

With anybody else it would be a cliche, but Morris is the personification of giving that 100%.

Said Tiger teammate Kirk Gibson: “Jack Morris is the fiercest competitor there is.”

Said Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson, weighing the possibility that Morris will be making $2 million soon: “I don’t think anybody’s going to mind it because he’s like Dr. J and Magic and Kareem and Walter Payton. People aren’t envious of the guys who go out and do it. The problem now is that there’s been so much of the other that it has just about killed it for the guys who deserve it.”

It was killed by the alleged collusion. Morris confronted it in the wake of a 21-8 season in which he went 14-2 over his last 18 starts, improving on a career that has seen him win a minimum of 16 games while pitching a minimum of 241 innings for 6 straight seasons, eliminating strike-shortened 1981 when he merely went 14-7 in 198 innings.

Morris has discussed his emotions, his response to the free-agent freeze out, at length. He ultimately decided he had done everything he could do for himself and the union and accepted the Tigers’ arbitration offer rather than going beyond the Jan. 8 deadline that would have prevented him from re-signing with Detroit until May 1.

“I still believe there’s not a team in baseball that couldn’t use me,” Morris said. “I still believe the owners got together to see that it didn’t happen. I appreciated the support of the union and the players who had gone through free agency before me, but I felt I had gone as far as I could go in helping establish the case for collusion. I felt I had done enough proving and saw no sense in waiting until May to pitch.”

At the time, in returning to the Tigers, Morris said he would play his heart out for the fans, his teammates and himself, but “I will not expend an ounce of energy for the organization.”

Morris now sat in a corner of the Tiger clubhouse and smiled.

“I was speaking emotionally,” he said. “I tend to do that. I mean, how do you separate the organization from your teammates and yourself. I also said that when I went between the white lines nothing else would matter expect the job I had to do. That’s the way it’s been.”

Sparky Anderson said he wouldn’t have expected anything less, that he wasn’t apprehensive regarding Morris’ continued ability and desire to produce for the Tigers.

“He has the pride of five people,” Anderson said. “A lot of pitchers walk through the door hoping to win. He walks in knowing he’ll win and gets very hostile when he doesn’t.

“He’s the best pitcher I’ve ever had and the hardest working pitcher I’ve ever had. He’s probably the best athlete on this team. You never have to worry about how he’ll report to spring training. You never have to tell him to do something twice.

“In my eight years here he’s missed two starts. He had a problem with his neck earlier this year and never missed a turn. I’ll bet you can’t name me five other pitchers who would have been pitching. I mean, he doesn’t compete any differently today than he did when he first came here. He keeps everybody alive. He expects you to bust your butt the way he does. He has no less temper or demand for perfection, but he does a better job of controlling it.”

Jack Morris throws a 90 mile-per-hour fastball, a hard slider, a biting forkball. Yet when people talk about his repertoire they always start with his competitiveness and intensity. The way he goes about it is best illustrated by the fact that he is a consistent victim of home runs. He has allowed 22 in 17 starts, and in four of those starts he has given up three home runs.

There is simply little finesse to him. He hates walks. He’s going to challenge the batter with his best stuff.

“When the day comes that I feel I can’t get a fastball by a hitter when I want to, then I’ll have to change my whole philosophy and go through an adjustment period when I’ll probably give up more home runs than I do now,” Morris said. “The way it is, I’m saying, ‘Here it is, it’s you or me.’ ”

Morris is saying it, however, only when he can’t be severely hurt. Fifteen of the 22 homers have come with the bases empty, the other seven with only one runner on.

Morris tends to be a different pitcher with the game on the line. It has to do with his concentration, which is why his earned-run average generally wavers in the mid-3s.

Said Anderson: “Jack tends to get lazy. He tends to get bored when he doesn’t think there’s a challenge. He gives up runs in situations which he doesn’t perceive as significant. We’ve been on him about that.”

Morris shook his head in agreement and said: “I catch myself coasting rather than taking command, which is something I’m trying to get better at. But I also think that ERA is the most deceiving stat there is. What happens if a fielder loses the ball in the sun and three runs score. No error. Charge it to the pitcher. I’ve always felt I got paid on wins and losses.”

Jack’s father, Arvid, tended to accept only wins. A retired systems technician from St. Paul, Minn., he drove his two sons toward athletics, often rewarding good performances with steak, poor performances with hamburger.

Jack challenged anything, including the ski jump, occasionally reaching Olympian lengths. He attended Brigham Young University on a baseball and basketball scholarship and signed with the Tigers after being drafted on the fifth round after his junior year in 1976.

Younger brother Tom also went to BYU, eventually signed with the Chicago Cubs, spent two years in the minors, then returned to school, recently acquiring a Ph.D in geology from Wisconsin.

Now 32, Jack Morris remains driven by his father’s philosophy.

“My dad always told us that if you’re going to do something, it doesn’t take any more time to do it right,” Morris said. “It’s the American way, at least it used to be. My dad showed me how to be a winner. He was tough on us, but to this day I love him for it. I think the reason he pushed us so hard is that he could see we had the talent.”

Morris would have to learn that there might be times when the talent would betray him. He would have to learn that teammates and umpires and people in general were only human. He kicked the mound. He threw the resign bag. He glared at and fought with umpires. He said his teammates were devoid of hunger and called them quitters. He berated the organization for failing to make significant trades.

Mt. Morris could be expected to erupt two or three times a season--or week. Former catcher Lance Parrish, often frustrated and annoyed, characterized his relationship with Morris as similar to a soap opera.

Parrish once stormed to the mound and said to Morris: “When you act like this it reflects on the whole team. When you act like this nobody wants to play behind you. You’re a great pitcher, a leader. You’re too good for these kind of tantrums.”

Now?

“I can’t say that I’ve done a 180-degree turn,” Morris said, having raged through the dugout and thrown his manager’s clipboard after his last loss. “I still have the desire and commitment I had when I was younger. I never want to be all smiles after a loss. I’ve still got that fire in me, but I’ve got more control of it. I’ve been through some tough times and learned that you have to accept what comes your way.

“I may never change everything people have heard about Mt. Morris and all that, but I have a better understanding now of how to channel my energy. Call it experience and maturity. I used to get emotional and take myself out of games. Now I use that energy on the hitters. I know umpires are going to make mistakes, you just hope it doesn’t happen with the game on the line. I’m more relaxed, I don’t take it home with me as much anymore. I try not to even think about it until I get to the park on the day I’m pitching.

“It comes down to how you want to be perceived. I don’t want to be looked on as arrogant, hot-headed or a flake. I’m like everybody else. I want to be known as a guy who played hard, who had pride and who gave 100%.

“I know what baseball people think of me and that’s recognition enough. I’d like to win the Cy Young Award some day, but it’s not a major goal. I’ve seen a lot of pitchers jinxed by it and I don’t want to be subconsciously thinking about that.

“My long-range goal is simply what it has always been: take care of myself and see what happens. If I keep the same approach and conditioning program (he follows a 40-minute martial arts routine daily) I feel that I can be successful for a few more years anyway.

“People talk about 300 wins and the Hall of Fame, but those kind of things are still overwhelming to me. I still can’t grasp them. I’ve done a lot of good pitching and I’m still not even halfway there (to 300). I can only applaud guys like Carlton, Seaver and Sutton. Anybody who doesn’t vote for them for the Hall of Fame should be shot. Three hundred wins is 300 wins.”

Sparky Anderson believes that Morris’ numbers would be even more impressive if he pitched the majority of his games in the Astrodome or Busch Stadium or a spacious park less demanding than Tiger Stadium. As it is, he is more than halfway to 300. He will be seeking his 157th win when he faces the Angels at Anaheim Stadium Thursday, a final tuneup for an expected assignment as the American League’s starting pitcher in Tuesday night’s All-Star game.

The suspicion is that Morris, a man for any season, would prefer to be hunting, riding a snowmobile or fishing on the 32-foot boat that he keeps at the Lake Michigan retirement home he bought for his parents. The suspicion is that the Angels, like most every other club, would prefer to have Mt. Morris off scaling some other heights.