St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 18, 2001

A Brand New Start

By Mike Eisenbath

Mike Matheny remembers Matt Morris at his best. He remembers all too well.

"A sinker that would break my bat," Matheny said.

In 1997, Morris was a rookie pitcher with the Cardinals and Matheny a catcher for the Milwaukee Brewers. Morris buzzed him inside with a couple of unhittable fastballs, broke his bat with that sinker and then struck him out on a huge curveball.

"I looked out at him, and he had this great big smirk on his face," Matheny said. "So I didn't care for him a whole lot. It was like, 'I'll see you next time.'"

Alas, no one has seen that Matt Morris for a while.

Although he's only 26, the righthander has been through plenty of baseball adversity the past few years. He made only one start before the All-Star break in '98 because of a strained right shoulder. Then even greater misfortune struck early in spring training of 1999, when he learned he had a torn ligament in his right elbow and needed "Tommy John surgery" to replace that ligament. He missed that season, then worked exc lusively out of the bullpen last year.

Some thought he might be a has-been, a former first-round pick who never would live up to the potential. But now, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan are trying to keep their excitement i n check because it's only spring training, but there's a feeling that Morris might be turning into one of the most pleasant stories in baseball this year.

He's in the starting rotation again. And the smirk is back.

"Until that first day he threw in an exhibition game this spring, Matt was trying to keep it low-key," said George Morris, Matt's dad. "As soon as he made that first start this spring, he called us. I know it was only two innings, but from the first syllable he said on the phone, I could te ll it was a happy time.

"He knew he could be dominating again."

Bigger, better deal

The Matt Morris taking the mound these days isn't the one of a few years ago, though. This is the new and improved model.

"I remember in '97, it was like Little League," Morris said. "You'd come to the park, run outside, you'd throw, you'd hit, you'd play. That's one thing that's refreshing about this year. I'm able to just come to the park, and I don't have to sit in the training room then throw for an hour before I get my arm loose.

"Having an almost three-year span where I wasn't able to be this way, it's given me a different outlook for this spring."

He he will be a better pitcher this year than in any previous year of his life. His surgically repaired right elbow is strong again. Last year, he hadn't built up his arm strength to allow him to be a starter, to log the necessary number of innings. That's not a problem now.

Last year, after the time off the mound, his pitching instincts weren't sharp. Holding on runners, reacting to ground balls, working a count -- he had to think about that all the time. And his muscle memory wasn't sharp, either. He would make a good pitch, but his body didn't know how to automatically repeat it.

Morris is a sinkerball pitcher. Last year, instead of his sinker running in on righthanded batters, it was cutting the other way. Now, he has his release point right, and the ball is sinking the way he wants it. His curveball and changeup are working, as well, because he was able to work on them during the offseason rather than simply worrying about his elbow.

"It's about pitching, now," he said, "not just heaving."

And he couldn't be more grateful for the second chance.

A family affair Diane Morris, Matt's mom, is a secretary at the high school in Middleton, N.J., where Matt was born and lived for several years until the family moved to nearby but just-as-small Montgomery. George Morris is an iron worker in Manhattan and, for 30 years, has made a 140-mile round trip to his job each day.

Years ago, George would take Matt with him to work every once in a while. George recalled one winter day in particular. They were 30 stories high on a construction site.

"We were freezing our butts off," George said, "and I told him I could get him in the union, that I could get him on the job. He didn't want any part of that. I guess the wind up there blew some sense into his head."

Not that the Morris family could complain about their lifestyle. Their priorities went beyond big paychecks and cushy jobs. For example, George and Diane made a point of sitting their family of five down for dinner at 5:30 every evening. That gave Matt and his two older sisters, Stacey and Sherry, a chance to talk about what they did all day, their friends, school . . . and ultimately, sports.

"If we didn't have dinner at 5:30," Diane said, "it was because we were all together at someone's game."

The girls, five and six years older than Matt, were the real stars of the family then. Both had outstanding athletic careers at Valley Central High in Montgomery, particularly in softball and basketball. Each went to small Division I Wagner College on basketball scholarships and continued to make headlines.

"I remember dragging Matt from one field to a gym and then to a soccer game while the girls were playing," Diane said. "All the attention they got -- I always hoped he would at least get a scholarship to college like they did so he could get something for all the time he spent around them."

Matt said, "Summer vacations weren't going to Disneyland. They were going to baseball diamonds and football fields. My parents drove the Caravan with everyone piled in. That's all I knew. And I didn't care about going to Disneyland."

Competitive spirit

Imagine a boy growing up in the long athletic shadows of his two sisters. Their high school scrapbooks were considerably thicker than the one Matt put together at Valley Central, where he was something of a late bloomer. Not that the desire showed up late.

"He is one competitive person," George said. "Actually, I really see that most in him when he gets together with his sisters. You ought to see the Ping-Pong games in our house."

Matt recalled of his youth: "Both of my sisters being older than me, they were able to beat on me for a while. That always burned me up. I mean, when your sisters are making fun of you, you really feel bad."

His sisters have stayed connected to athletics. One is an assistant golf pro in Texas, the other a teacher and assistant athletics director at a community college. They've set a standard that Matt admired. And he worked to pursue the goals they helped him imagine.

George coached Matt's Little League teams, which included current Giants pitcher Joe Nathan. And more than anything, George taught Matt that sports provided a great outlet for his burning competitiveness. In high school, he played basketball and soccer as well as baseball but didn't focus on one until he started pitching as a junior.

He finally grew and filled out as a senior and was drafted by the Brewers on potential, but he chose to take a scholarship to Seton Hall rather than sign -- in part because of his sisters' advice. Three years later, the Cardinals drafted him in the first round, and by 1997 he had become one of the top pitching prospects in baseball.

There is an unusual, mature balance to Morris' life -- he loves baseball but isn't consumed by it. So often, that kind of balance doesn't happen until a player gets married and has children, thus giving him a variety of interests away from the ballpark. Morris has been learning to play the guitar for a while, though. He bought a house in the Jupiter area two years ago during his rehab, and this offseason, becoming more of a Florida guy, he bought a catamaran to spend time on the ocean.

His personality, which includes a combination of laid-back style, sharp wit and sensitivity to the needs of people around him, make Morris one of the best-liked players in the Cardinals clubhouse among teammates.

"Baseball is always on my mind," Morris said. "But if I'm not between the lines, I can't do much about it. There are other things I can do that I enjoy, other things that are refreshing and important."

New year, new experience

Morris missed two things the year he was unable to pitch: that relationship a player enjoys with teammates when going through a season together, and the competition. A certain amount of that returned last year, but it feels new this year.

"This is my sixth spring training, and they are all set up pretty much the same way," Morris said. "For some reason this year, the same works mean something different. The same drills mean something different. I'm trying to find a routine that works for the rest of my career."

In 1999, he would call home occasionally when the Cardinals were on a trip, and his parents could hear the ache in his voice. Sometimes, they were moved to fly to St. Louis in hopes of cheering him up. His mom hears something in his voice that wasn't there a couple of years ago.

"He's much happier with himself this year," Diane said.

He's a complete pitcher again, and he thinks a better pitcher. But it's more than that.

"I just played baseball before, almost took it for granted," Morris said. "I just ran out there like a kid and did whatever felt right. When you get hurt and can't do that anymore, I realized what a big part baseball was in my life. It was a killer not having it.

"It's great to have it back."