A family spokesman and team said Monday that Jan Morgan, the obscure powerhouse that led Cincinnati’s ‘Big Red Machine’ to run in the mid-1970s, has died, a family spokesman and team said Monday.
He was 77 years old.
Morgan died Sunday at his home in a suburb of San Francisco, Danville, California, according to a family spokesman.
Red Reds CEO Bob Castellini said in a statement that the Reds family is heartbroken. “Just the game was a huge one and it’s very much loved by the fans of this city.”
A native of Auckland, named National League MVP in 1975 and 1976, this season Cincinnati won the World Series title in both seasons.
Following a 22-season career in 1990, the Houston Colts .45, the Reds, the San Francisco Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Ak Cland Anne were inducted into the Bezab’s Hall of Fame in 1990.
The 10-time L-Star game selection was an all-around offensive force, with 268 home runs and 689 base steals. He also had a keen eye on the plate, and the clock forced him to walk 1,865 times, making his career base twenty percent.392.
Morgan was also a wizard on defense, winning five Gold Glove Awards as his league’s best fielding second baseman.
The lineup of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” teams was full of terrific hitters Morgan, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and George Foster, and defensive stallwarts like Dave Conception and Cesar Geronimo.
Carlton Fisk is known for running away from the left-field foul pole that won Game 6 for the 1975 World Series, the Boston Red Sox. An NBC camera dramatically waved to Fisk, begging for a daily stay.
But it was Morgan who delivered the decisive championship-winning blow, breaking the -3-tie in the game with RBI singles in the ninth inning. This run-scoring hit brought home teammate Ken Griffith to the future Hall of Fame father. Canned Griffi Jr.
Morgan has died less than a week after the Hall of Fame New York Yankees pitcher Whitney Ford died at the age of one.
This is a developing story, please refresh here for updates.
Associated Press Contributed.
