Was a guy who (1) won the MVPs, and (2) at the very moment he was winning MVP's, nobody had any idea how good he was (pre-sabermetrics). See how many guys in baseball history fit those two criteria...
We all kind of figured, he's the most all-around player in the greatest post-1945 lineup, so give him the MVP...
Nobody had any idea at all what the 120 walks meant, the 170-190 OPS+ while serving as the best defensive MI in baseball...
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Morgan was also an Ichiro-smart player, a true team leader in the sense that Ichiro is in the WBC ... the other team would call for a pitchout and Morgan would be sauntering back to 1B, hands on hips... Bill James opined that other teams would call pitchouts just for the joy of watching Morgan decipher it...
Pound-for-pound, maybe the most nature-perfect ballplayer who ever lived.
Picture Ichiro with -- era-adjusted -- 140 walks, 25 homers, winning the gold glove at SS. Joe Morgan was a man-among-boys even on his own Reds teams.
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