This afternoon, word very quickly spread that Joe Morgan will not be returning to ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. Jon Miller won't be returning, either, but it's Morgan who was the bigger news, and before long it was all over Twitter. The news was received on the internet exactly as you'd expect the internet to receive news a popular blog once dreamed of making a reality. It was simple, mass glee.
And of course, overall, it's a good thing. Morgan was neither a very good nor popular announcer, and the broadcast should benefit from his absence, even given that the very listenable Miller is leaving as well. However, there are a few things I feel one must keep in mind as he considers today's turn of events.
(1) Sunday Night Baseball airs, what, 25 times a year? Morgan worked for ESPN, but ESPN aired only a limited selection of games, featuring a limited selection of teams. This isn't going to have much of an effect on your life.
(2) How much did Morgan really spoil for anyone? Those who are irritated by poor announcing almost invariably develop the ability to tune it out. And one could argue that Morgan actually enhanced the broadcast by making it more interactive. Most anyone who knew enough to pick up on Morgan's redundancies or inaccuracies could joke about them with friends, or take them to Twitter or a blog.
(3) Morgan was never the enemy. The enemy is all those opposed to contemporary thought and analysis, and though Morgan was certainly a part of the group, this doesn't work like killing the head vampire. There's always going to be another guy, until there isn't. Lots of people complained about Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, and Ernie Johnson during the playoffs. They haven't gone anywhere.
Morgan's is a symbolic removal, and while symbolic removals have their place and are worthy of celebration, in the end they don't get much accomplished. The war against anti-intellectualism and misinformation rages on, and it will continue to rage on until one day, perhaps, it wins, and we can all get mad at something else.