St. Louis Post-Dispatch
May 29, 2001

Morris Wins, Brewers Whine--All Because He's Competing Hard

By Jeff Gordon

After Milwaukee Brewers slugger Geoff Jenkins pounded a 400-foot foul ball in the first inning Monday, what was Cardinals hurler Matt Morris supposed to do?

Scrape the sauce off a meatball and serve it up there with garlic toast?

If he pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, that would have been the polite thing to do. But Morris is a Cardinal and his team is trying to get back into the playoffs.

So Morris came inside and plunked Jenkins on the shoulder. This act of aggression outraged the Brewers _ how dare the Cardinals come inside to them! _ and tempers flared.

On-deck hitter Jeromy Burnitz popped off in the direction of Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who pretty much lives for such confrontations. The benches emptied, Bobby Bonilla got to throw a stiff arm and various hotheads were ejected.

And at the end of the game, with the contest on the line, Jenkins whiffed with the bases loaded.

The Cardinals pitched inside, the Brewers complained . . . this pretty much explains why The Home Team is postseason-bound and Milwaukee isn't.

Professional sports are meant to be played hard. After all, the point at this level, at these prices, is to win. And intimidation is an integral component of winning.

We're not here to endorse vicious and reckless play. Pitchers shouldn't throw the ball at or behind the batter's heads. Basketball players shouldn't send each other cart-wheeling head over heels into the photographers.

Pass rushers shouldn't aim for the side of the quarterback's knee and hockey players shouldn't check each other head first into the boards. Only cowards deliver cheap shots.

That being said, fans don't pay the big dollars to watch glad-handing and back slapping. They pay to watch athletes, male or female, compete as hard as they can on the field, court or ice rink.

Why did the Cardinals get back into postseason play last season? Because general manager Walt Jocketty assembled a veteran pitching staff and pitching coach Dave Duncan convinced the fellas to pitch inside more consistently.

Pat Hentgen revived his career by coming inside more. Garret Stephenson enjoyed a breakout season by coming in to hitters. Darryl Kile put his Mile High misadventures behind him by learning how to pitch aggressively again.

During the previous few seasons, the Cardinals employed young hurlers who possessed lively arms but no clue. Manny Aybar and Jose Jimenez would embarrass one hitter, then let the next one go deep.

Why? They didn't move batters off the plate with any regularity. They let guys dig in. They were dreadful situational pitchers. They didn't take the mound with the attitude that they remained in charge with each and every pitch.

Now Morris and Dustin Hermanson are trying to pick up where Hentgen and Stephenson left off. They both have terrific arms and they are both starting to maximize their potential by pitching tough.

Look, the Cardinals aren't being evil here. Hitters have gotten way too comfortable in the last decade or two. They stand on top of the plate decked out like extras from "A Knight's Tale." They jump into pitches.

Pitchers have been forced to go further and further outside to get outs. Umpires widened the strike zone to include pitches virtually out of the reach of hitters, even when they lunged over the plate.

Now major league baseball is trying to correct all that. The high strike has returned _ to the consternation of hitters who count everything over the belt as head-hunting _ and the Greg Maddux Outside Strike is disappearing.

Pitchers are being forced to come inside more, to the horror of batters. (Well, to the horror of everybody but Fernando Vina, who is making a career out of stepping into pitches to get on base.)

The Cardinals are working especially hard at working inside. So when Jenkins jacked a Morris pitch, just missing a home run, Matt decided to cut into Jenkins' comfort level.

This is baseball's equivalent of putting a helmet on the quarterback at every chance, finishing your checks against enemy defensemen and contesting every drive to the basket. All of this has an honorable place in sports.

Morris competed a bit harder than the Brewers liked, which is why the Cardinals are serious contenders . . . and why the Brewers remain pretenders.