Joe Morgan, the Hall of Fame second baseman who was the National League’s Most Valuable Player for two consecutive seasons and the engine of the Big Red Machine — as the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s, one of baseball’s most powerful teams, were known — died on Sunday at his home in Danville, Calif. He was 77.

James Davis, a family spokesman, said the cause was nonspecified polyneuropathy. Morgan had a bone-marrow transplant in 2016.

Morgan’s was the latest in a string of recent deaths of Hall of Fame baseball stars, following those of Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford.

For younger fans, Morgan may be mainly familiar as a television commentator, most memorably for ESPN, for which he shared a Sunday night broadcast booth with Jon Miller for 21 seasons. For anyone who saw Morgan play, however, especially in his finest years with the Reds, his performance on the field is far more memorable.

Source: New York Times

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