Like many achievements of the past, Vance Law’s home run in that Monday Night Baseball game in Detroit just traveled a lot deeper into the left-field seats of Tiger Stadium.
That’s because Law now can say he once homered off another Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher – and a former BYU teammate.
Jack Morris’ Hall of Fame election Sunday via the the Modern Baseball Era committee’s vote ended a long wait. The honor makes Morris the most unlikely Cougar athlete to go into a professional sports hall of fame, judging strictly by his college statistics. Basketball’s Kresimir Cosic, football’s Steve Young and golf’s Johnny Miller were big-time stars for BYU.
Morris was just finding himself as a pitcher in Provo, having arrived from Minnesota with a talented, unpolished arm. His brother, Tom, who’s two years younger, pitched for better BYU teams and posted more impressive numbers over a four-year college career, before playing in the minor leagues and becoming a geologist.
Yet at BYU, while posting a 10-9 record and an ERA of just under 5.00 in two varsity seasons (1975-76), Jack Morris displayed the traits that got him into Cooperstown. “He’s probably the fiercest competitor I ever coached — a bulldog, if there ever was one,” said Glen Tuckett, the Cougars’ longtime baseball coach.
Law’s father, Vern, then BYU’s pitching coach, is credited with helping to develop Morris into a fifth-round draft pick of Detroit in ’76. “He earned it,” Vern Law said. “I could see that he had the ability to do it … He had the tools to work with.”
Bill Lorenz, Morris’ high school coach in St. Paul, Minn., once described Morris as capable of throwing the ball though the backstop, with this tagline: “He just couldn’t hit the backstop.”
Vance Law, who played behind Morris in the Cougar infield, said he was “pretty much a one-pitch guy at BYU … and the ball was going everywhere.”
Vern Law slowed down Morris’ delivery and added to his selection of pitches, maximizing the athletic ability that Tuckett says would have qualified Morris to play basketball for BYU (as Vance Law did) or football as a receiver. And Morris’ competitiveness that would become his trademark in the major leagues surfaced in Provo.
“There was no way to get him out of a game,” Tuckett said. “I had to drag him off the mound.”
Morris’ old-school style, the way insisted on finishing games and pitching a lot of innings in the major leagues, ultimately made him a Hall of Famer after he missed being elected for 15 years in the traditional balloting of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. That group will stage its annual vote in January, possibly adding to the 2018 class of Morris and his Detroit teammate, shortstop Alan Trammell.
Tuckett plans to attend the induction in Cooperstown, celebrating the first BYU player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Based on collegiate exploits, the breakthrough might have come from Cory Snyder or Wally Joyner, who had nice pro careers, just not at a Hall of Fame level. BYU also would have claimed Dale Murphy, who attended the school during his minor-league offseasons. But the Utah County resident was not elected Sunday, after being considered with Morris, Trammell and others.
“I also want to acknowledge the guys that were on the ballot but didn’t make it, because I truly understand what they are going through and I feel for them,” Morris said in a media teleconference.
Law, Tuckett and other Utahns who know Murphy were disappointed Sunday, while being thrilled about Morris’ election.
By the middle of his second pro season, Morris was promoted to the Tigers. He pitched in the major leagues for 14 seasons, winning 254 games. In the decade of the 1980s, his 162 wins were easily the most of any pitcher.
Morris is most famous for his 10-inning, 1-0 victory for Minnesota over Atlanta in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. With Detroit, he pitched a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox in April 1984. Vance Law was in the White Sox lineup that day, going 0 for 1 with a walk before being replaced.
Eight months earlier, Law had homered and singled off Morris in Detroit, recording two of Chicago’s five hits in Morris’ complete-game victory. Law didn’t say this, but he also homered off Hall of Fame pitchers Gaylord Perry, Steve Carlton and Bert Blyleven.
In any case, the memory of that solo shot against Morris becomes more meaningful, now that his ex-BYU teammate is a Hall of Famer. Morris has shown loyalty to BYU. He was recognized at halftime of a football game in 1991, soon after his World Series triumph. Speaking at the baseball program’s First Pitch fund-raising dinner in January 2016, Morris was quoted by the Daily Universe as saying, “And to this day, I want you to know how proud I am to say I went to school here.”
Follow @tribkurt