The Lost Chords : To Dodgers’ Morgan, All-Star Snub Is Merely Another Source of Rancor

So, they have selected the 1991 National League All-Star team, and Mike Morgan is not on it.

So, Morgan referred to the game as a “joke,” then gave up three hits to the first four batters he faced in an eventual Dodger loss to the San Diego Padres Thursday night.

But it’s over with, right? The Dodgers wonder.

This latest All-Star attack sneaked up on Morgan from behind, and the Dodgers know what happens when somebody sneaks up on him from behind.

It was in August of 1984, in Pawtucket, R.I., where Morgan was pitching for triple-A Syracuse in the Toronto Blue Jay organization. He had no future with the Blue Jays, so he was hoping to impress scouts from other teams. He had given up six runs in the first two innings but had settled down, his team had gotten him back in the game, and before the seventh inning he was on a roll.

But suddenly Jim Beauchamp, the Syracuse manager, came to the mound to remove him.

“I told him I didn’t want to come out, but he took me out anyway,” Morgan said. “I was so mad when I got to the dugout, I grabbed a bunch of bats and helmets and threw them on the ground.”

While Morgan was storming up the runway toward the clubhouse, he felt cold hands on his neck. It was Beauchamp, trying to restrain him from doing more damage.

“I turned around, grabbed him by the throat and put him up against this screen,” Morgan said. “I held him there by his throat and told him if he ever did that to me again, I would kill him.

“You just do not put your hands on me when I’m not looking. You just don’t do it.”

Morgan was also not looking Thursday when the All-Star surprise grabbed him. He was walking through the lobby of the team hotel in San Diego when he heard the murmurs of the young autograph seekers.

“They were saying stuff like, ‘Man, you didn’t make the All-Star team,’ ” Morgan said. “But I hadn’t heard anything, so I didn’t listen.”

Then he walked into the clubhouse, and the dour looks of teammates told him.

Despite being among the National League’s top five in victories, earned-run average and complete games, he was passed over in favor of, among others, the Houston Astros’ Pete Harnisch, who is 5-7.

“When a guy like Mike Morgan does not make it, you have to ask, ‘What do you have to do?’ ” said teammate and All-Star Eddie Murray.

Although Morgan’s teammate, Ramon Martinez, made the team, Morgan has a lower ERA in five more innings pitched, with six fewer walks and as many complete games--four. Martinez has two more victories, two more shutouts and 11 more strikeouts.

“To make the All-Star team would have been the highlight of my career,” said Morgan, who was 9-5 with a 2.48 ERA after getting no decision in Thursday’s loss.

He shook his head.

“But I wouldn’t be standing here with 10 years in the big leagues if I listened to what everybody said about me,” Morgan said. “I’m a winner, and I don’t give a damn what the statistics say.

“Hey, this proves the (All-Star) game is a joke, so I’m not going to worry about it. What the heck, the time off will be good. Do a little golfing, a little fishing . . . “

Mike Morgan’s father did not speak with him Thursday--he wasn’t any closer to him than the

television set in his Las Vegas home--but he knew how much his son was hurt.

“Watching him pitch against the Padres, I could see the disappointment in his eyes,” Henry Morgan said. “In the way he was pitching. In his face. I could see it everywhere.”

Henry Morgan knows that look.

Before this season, Morgan, 31, had the worst winning percentage among active starting pitchers--53-94. He had been traded or shipped away by five different organizations.

Even now that he is finally with one of the most stable organizations in the game, he still feels as if he is on a bumpy ride.

In 1989, his first year with the Dodgers, he led the league with a 1.79 ERA at the All-Star break. A couple of weeks later, after two bad starts, he was in the bullpen.

Last season, he was one of the Dodgers’ best pitchers in the first half, going 9-9 with a 3.47 ERA through July. But he won two games in the last two months and had to earn his spot in the rotation this spring.

“And then did you see this season when he was pitching a one-hitter against Pittsburgh at Dodger Stadium in the ninth inning, and the only people standing for him was his sister and his mother?” his father said. “You ask me, that’s sick. Mike is never appreciated by anybody.”

He is best known for making his professional debut in the major leagues in 1978, pitching for Oakland one week after his high school graduation.

But even then, people remember only that he lost the game, not that he threw a complete game and gave up only two earned runs while his teammates were being shut out, 3-0.

“The only people who say I can’t win are people who never played the game,” Morgan said. “But I guess that’s something I’ve learned in my career. Baseball is not a game, it’s a business, strictly a business. What’s the bottom line. That’s why I have no loyalty to any team or any person.”

That is why Morgan, the lowest-paid Dodger starter at $650,000 per year, has said that if the Dodgers don’t sign him before the end of the season, he will test the free-agent market this winter.

“I would not be surprised if I was not here next year,” Morgan said. “The Dodgers have a shot at signing me now, but if they don’t say anything, I’m looking elsewhere.”

For some players, that statement would be an underhanded method of negotiation. For Morgan, who will not complain about this year’s salary because it was part of a two-year contract he signed in 1989, it is merely fact.

“I’m pretty simple, I don’t play games,” Morgan said. “I’m pretty much what you see. Kind of down to earth. No bull.”

Morgan grew up in Las Vegas, the son of a tile setter. He told his second-grade teacher that he was going to be a major league baseball player. His father worked overtime to make that a reality.

“I would do without clothes, without tools, without everything to help Mike,” Henry Morgan said. “About every night, we would drive around town, trying to find him a schoolyard with lights so I could throw batting practice to him.

“We’d get home late, and I would get up at 5:30 in the morning to go back to work.”

His father would drive his work truck to a diamond during the day, then he and Mike’s mother would drag and water the field so it would be nice for their son’s youth league games. “His mother would be sick--she’s had five operations for a bunch of different things--but she would still stand there at the stove and do Mike’s cooking, and do his laundry,” Henry Morgan said. “I think we gave him everything but our car.

“Actually, I did give him my car one night--a 1969 Chevrolet--and he totaled it.”

Some scouts thought that Morgan, the fourth pick in the June, 1978 draft, signed only because the Athletics promised to send him to the big leagues. But his father said it was because Oakland was close to home.

“Mike had never been nowhere, and so we wanted him as close to us as possible,” said the older Morgan, who negotiated for Mike. “He did not know how to boil water. He did not know how to do anything.”

Not that Henry thought it was a bad idea to go to the big leagues for those three starts. “I figured, it would be like a young boxer sparring with a champion,” he said. “The young fighter would get his nose pounded, but eventually he would learn from the best.”

Others disagreed. “Going right to the big leagues was the worst thing that could have happened to Mike,” said Bob Harrison, the scout who nearly signed Morgan for Seattle that season, and later persuaded Mariner officials to draft him from Toronto. “Many of us thought it ruined Mike. Everybody is seeing now what kind of ability he has--he is one of the best pitchers around. But look how long it has taken him.”

Indeed, by the time Morgan finished his second professional season, he was 2-13. His record has yet to recover.

This was a kid who had made 16 big league starts, yet was still racking up $1,000 monthly phone bills on calls home. And his parents were driving 580 miles to Ogden, Utah, to do his laundry while he played in the minor leagues there.

“I don’t care what has happened; I would do my career exactly the same way,” Mike Morgan said. “I’m still (going to) get my full pension checks like everyone else. I’ve still had my 10 years.

“No matter what happened back then, I have still learned from it, and I’m still surviving.”

One thing that hasn’t changed from those days is Morgan’s blue-collar outlook. His best friends are high school buddies who have moved to Los Angeles, and their idea of a good time is a country music concert.

One of Morgan’s goals, after baseball, is to become a carwash magnate. He owns a Superwash in Layton, Utah, a suburb of Ogden.

“It’s a great place--one automatic wash, three self-serve,” he said. “It’s got it all. Brushless, super soap reverse, spot-free rinse. When I make my millions, I’m buying more carwashes.”

During the winter, he lives in a log cabin in Fruitland, Utah, about 90 miles east of Salt Lake City.

There is no phone in the cabin, so the only way to reach him is at the Fruitland General Store five miles away. Morgan drives down the dirt- or snow-covered road a couple of times a week for his messages.

Because there is no cover on the outside pay phone, he often freezes while returning calls.

“Funny thing, but only the tourists know he’s a baseball player,” said Charlie Kessler, the store owner. “He comes in here like everybody else, on his way hunting or fishing. He grabs a cup of coffee and some hot links and he’s gone.

“In fact, I didn’t even know he was a baseball player until he gave me an autographed picture. Of course, now I’ve got it right there on the wall.”

Kessler has a 12-inch color television set in the store. He and some buddies were planning to watch Morgan in the All-Star game. Like many, they are stunned that he will be missing.

“It’s politics, that’s what I say,” Kessler said with a chuckle. “Course, we’ll still watch the game. Just because he ain’t in there don’t matter in the least. Mike will still be just Mike.”

The Dodgers hope Morgan will agree.