Jim Morris understands better than most aspiring professional ballplayers, the road to MLB success is often littered with detours.
The 21 games tossed and 15 innings of relief work pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999 and 2000 didn’t come easy for Morris. Five years of toiling in Single-A ball, across seven seasons in the minor leagues, weren’t signaling a bright future in the game, let alone a roster spot on the MLB level. After being granted free agency from his Chicago White Sox minor league deal in the fall of 1989, it would be another decade before Morris would find himself once again looking for attention from scouts about a pitching job.
But, in following through on a promise as coach of his high school baseball team after they won their district championship, Morris was out to make them proud, and rekindle a dream that he'd had since childhood. Impressing Tampa’s scouts enough with his continuous 98-plus mph throws at a public tryout, the physical science teacher packed up his notebooks, and put away his pens and pencils at Reagan County High School in West Texas to be a pro once again.
“When you take a pay cut from teaching (Morris was assigned to Tampa’s Double-A affiliate in Orlando, Florida), you’re not making money at all,” Morris told The Epoch Times on Monday. “As soon as I signed my contract they sent me to Florida, to get back in pitching shape. It had been 11 years since I had played in a real game instead of coaching one. I found out that at 35 my arm was like lightning. The rest of my body was 35.”
While Morris’ curvy ride to his MLB “cup of coffee” isn’t ordinary, it was unique enough for Hollywood to come calling. Two seasons removed from baseball, and the Walt Disney Studios produced the 2002 film “The Rookie,” starring actor Dennis Quaid, who portrayed Morris.
Last month, another Jim Morris-like story unfolded in Cincinnati, when Bryan Torres made a delayed MLB debut for the St. Louis Cardinals. After 11 years battling long bus rides and low wages in more than 500 minor league games and another 200 playing in independent ball, Torres never-give-up attitude finally paid off at the Great American Ballpark. Playing in both games of a road doubleheader, St. Louis’ rookie reached base multiple times, including clubbing his first MLB home run in the ninth inning of Game 1. The professional high Torres undoubtedly must have experienced on his initial taste of being a big leaguer in May is one that Morris expects to never forget.
“I joined the team in Arlington, Texas. Before I could go into the Tampa clubhouse I had to sign my contract when I arrived at the ballpark. Plus, the club gave me 10 days of meal money in advance which was more than coaching and teaching in West Texas paid me in a month and a half. I could get used to this,” said Morris, who last appeared for the Devil Rays in a May 2000 game at Yankee Stadium to finish his MLB career with no wins or losses.
Morris easily remembers walking into Tampa’s clubhouse and future Hall of Famer and new teammate Wade Boggs being one of the first to come upon to him, with a welcoming—“So, you’re the crazy science teacher we have been hearing about for months now. Man, this is the best story I have ever heard.”
The awesome feeling of reaching his life’s dream of being on an MLB club, and having the likes of Roberto Hernandez and another future Hall of Famer Fred McGriff among his teammates, as well as slugger Jose Canseco, to include Morris in a pregame stretch was unreal.
Prior to Torres’ MLB debut this season, and well past Morris’ storied entrance with the Devil Rays, in 2023 the Pittsburgh Pirates also had their own baseball “rags to riches” minor league promotion that captivated the game. Drew Maggie, with 13 years of minor league service time, at age 33, finally received “the call” in early April 2023. The three games that Maggie appeared in made sports headlines and tugged at the hearts of people not necessarily being die-hard baseball fanatics. A victory of that quality rarely goes unnoticed.
“In 1985 I was getting $7 or $10 a day; meal money. Twenty years later when I was in Orlando and later Durham (North Carolina), I think we got $20,” Morris recalls. “But, then you start paying the clubhouse guys in the cities you visit, and that cuts into your budget. In the early 1980s the lower minor leagues were nothing more than a high school baseball game. 20 years later, the minors are as big as the major leagues.”
The overall theme of “The Rookie” involves Morris getting a second chance at grabbing at a dream. Morris looks back at that Tampa tryout as a blessing when he was 35.
“I got to look at my dream with fresh eyes. Having to learn life in between baseball readied me for that second chance. All because of that group of teenagers in West Texas it happened.”
For all the superstars reaching once-thought unmatchable records, when a Morris, or a Torres, or a Maggi case presents itself in the big leagues, suddenly launch angles, bat speed, spin rates, and ERAs willingly take a back seat. Ordinary players have purpose, and can have motion pictures made about them, too.
