SIMPLY THE BEST - I sat down at a table at the Lighthouse Restaurant in Lewes last Friday night on a crowded deck stocked with legends of the fall and fallen legends. There were classmates from the Lewes High School class of 1960. Leonard Maull and Jack Beckett were driving stories like old Packards and I like those guys, but for the last 30 years I’ve been eager to meet the man most old-timers consider the best ever athlete to come out of the region. And there he was, Johnny Morris, just laughing at stories told by his school chums, knowing half of what he heard was actually true.
Morris was a three sport standout for Lewes and is still fit and rangy with big hands and athletic angular face. John signed with the Phillies out of high school and was assigned to a rookie league.
“You thought you were something until you got there and realized that half the guys wouldn’t make it past the first year.”
John’s humble answers were interrupted by real stories by Leonard and Jack, like the time he went to McGee Motors in Georgetown with enough cash to buy a brand new, $6,000 car which they wouldn’t sell to him because he was too young to be carrying that kind of cash.
Morris, a 6-foot-2, 195-pound left-handed pitcher, got a decent signing bonus in the 20 to 25K range, although when he was finally called up to the majors in 1966 his salary was $6,500 per year.
“I met the Phillies in the Astrodome, which at that time was considered the Eighth Wonder of the World,” Morris said. “Then late in the game I got called in to pitch. I threw a strike to Rusty Staub then he topped a ball back to me and I threw him out.”
Amazingly, Chris Short, three years ahead of John at Lewes High School, was a 20-game winner on the 1966 Phillies.
Morris pitched in relief for Baltimore in 1968 with a 2.56 ERA and the next year was left unprotected and picked up by the new Seattle Pilots, who remain the only Major League franchise to move after just one season, becoming the Milwaukee Brewers.
John told a funny story of getting a start against a star-studded Yankees team and late in the game a banged up Mickey Mantle came off the bench to pinch hit.
“I said to myself just throw a strike. I did and he took it. I’m not bragging, but I struck him out and I said to myself, ‘if I never do another thing I can always say I struck out Mickey Mantle.’”
Morris stayed in and won the game.
Somehow I choked up like a slap hitter with two strikes. Here was a guy sitting on a deck in Lewes surrounded by old friends and hundreds of others just hanging out. And he’s a local guy who struck out the Mick. I mean, how cool is that?
John had an eight-year Major League career, finishing his last three seasons in San Francisco with a career 3.95 ERA. I told him I coached his son-in-law Mike Hilligoss who is married to John’s daughter Tina. John then talked like a proud grandpa about his grandchildren. He lives in Arizona.
“I come back every summer and there is just no place in the world like Lewes,”John said. “These old friends of mine can make me laugh like nobody else can.”
JACK HERN - There he was sitting on a tailgate behind a cauldron of boiled hotdogs and tray of chicken wings. A bright red Phillies cap told the story.
“I have been a huge fan my entire life,” said the Irish Eyes legend of the kitchen.
Jack graduated from Rehoboth in 1961 and when I told him that the day before I had met Johnny Morris he didn’t even flinch.
“Yeah, I know him. Left-hander, signed with the Phillies right out of high school.”
SUSSEX SYNCHRONICITY - They don’t call him Speed because he’s fast, however, The Captain is like lightning because he flashes like white heat but never lingers. Last Friday night he was scheduled to arrive at Lewes Beach at 6 p.m., but by 5:10 he was in the parking lot in pirate garb having just parasailed across the bay at 200 feet give or take.
“My feet are cold,” Speed said in typical glib fashion. And when an actual tropical parrot appeared out of the crowd, Speed showed no inclination to share the spotlight because a parrot is a parrot in any hemisphere. But how many 6-foot-5, 83-year-old guys are world champion Punkin Chuckers, have jumped a motorcycle through a ring of fire on 80th birthday, have owned a street sweeper and parasailed across the bay?
It appears that none of the coordinated rendezvous times with vessels were achieved last Friday, and if that’s not Sussex County perfection I don’t know what is?
SNIPPETS- I saw lots of agony on the faces of runners at the Fathers Day 5K last Sunday, including three throw-ups, several bleeding nipples, some screaming thigh chaff and many moving in bone-on-bone segmentation because skeletons don’t like to run on roads. they prefer the exercise of Aquasize. I still like runners and I used to do a lot of it, but just like lifeguarding you have to know when to stop. Go on now, git!
