A former teammate in Tampa Bay once pegged Charlie Morton as possessing “ultimate dad vibes.” A good thing, a very good thing, indeed, seeing how a dad vibe plays so much better in pro sports than a dad bod.
Wherever he has gone in baseball – from the Braves to Pittsburgh, to Philadelphia, to Houston, to Tampa Bay and back to the Braves – Morton has evoked a lot of fond reviews. Because, c’mon, who doesn’t like Charlie Morton, a salt-of-the-earth guy?
But to be clear, Morton came back to the Braves to reinforce their starting rotation. He didn’t come back to be anybody’s daddy. He already has that role covered. See the 4:30 wake-up call Friday morning, that being the whimpers of his youngest daughter.
“We have four kids (ranging in age from 7 to 2) and two dogs, and usually somebody is up at some point during the night,” Morton said. He’d be up for hours Friday before making the 45-mile drive from his home in Bradenton, Fla., to the Braves’ North Port training site for the start of another baseball workday.
When the Braves signed the 37-year-old Morton to a one-year, $15 million deal, they were looking to add a little age and experience to their oh very young staff. In Morton, they got a pitcher with impressive postseason credentials – he has four wins in elimination games and is 7-1 with a 2.27 ERA in his past 10 postseason starts. For the same price, the Braves also acquired a guy who has sampled the full banquet of the major league experience, everything from the rubber chicken to the chocolate fountain.
In the right hands, that kind of experience can really serve a young staff. And Morton feels that a part of his job description now is to lend it freely. If he can get along with everybody at the same time, so much the better.
“I’ve pitched in meaningful games. I’ve done some things that actually matter in the game. That gives me a responsibility and maybe some credibility in the clubhouse, where I didn’t feel like I had that before,” he said.
“Responsibility No. 1 is to be a teammate and friend and somebody that people want to be around. Good atmospheres and good clubhouses win more games, it’s just how it goes. I can help out there, too.”
Morton’s first start of the spring was scheduled for Saturday, but was pushed back by rain. He’s back where he began, some 13 years after coming up to the majors with the Braves, and nearly two decades since the team made him its 2002 third-round pick.
It is a span that has allowed him to go from: “I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I was dealing with doubts and fears and all that stuff. I was really just trying to throw strikes, not hit anybody and not embarrass myself. That was true for a couple years.”
To: “Now in spring training I’m using that time to get a feel for my pitches and get my body and arm in shape. Now I have a better feel for how to be myself in the clubhouse.”
If you Google any list of worst trades in recent Braves history, you’ll likely find mention of the 2009 deal that sent Morton, outfielder Gorkys Hernandez and pitcher Jeff Locke to Pittsburgh for outfielder Nate McLouth. It would have looked so much better in retrospect if only Morton hadn’t been so resilient and so receptive.
The path that led Morton back to the Braves dips and weaves and is not for the weak of stomach. And when he retraces it, he is true to every turn, proud of difficulties that made him.
Asked what the Morton of 2021 might tell the one who broke in with the Braves in 2008 after six long years in the minors, he isn’t so sure he’d tell that kid to change anything. “It took me a while, not to just grow as a person, but also professionally and physically,” he said. “I don’t know what I would tell the younger me, other than to just roll with the punches, you’ll be better for it.”
Morton is unsparing when replaying some of those punches. For instance, that wasn’t just a low point in 2010 when Pirates sent him to the minors after he was 1-9 in his first 10 starts, with an ERA over 9.00. That, in Morton’s words, was, “Probably one of the worst years of my generation, I’m not exaggerating. ... Like historically bad. Maybe not the worst, but one that would be on the leaderboard.”
That wasn’t a merely a helpful suggestion the next spring, when Pirates coaches showed him video of Roy Halladay’s delivery, with a tip to drop his arm a bit, change the tilt of his head slightly to more closely mirror the Halladay model. “That,” said Morton, “changed the course of everything for me because I finally had an identity.”
Throw in Tommy John surgery, and surgical repairs to both hips and a hamstring that has cost him wide swaths of playing time, and you have more complications than can be found in any two seasons of “Yellowstone.”
Everything for Morton, all the work to find himself as a pitcher, all the belief in the power of being a positive clubhouse influence, seemed to point to the 2017 postseason with Houston. Yes, there was the stigma of the sign-stealing scandal. But there also was this, as then-Astros manager A.J. Hinch told the Tampa Bay Times: “I’ve never seen an entire team rally behind one person the way that we did around Morton in 2017.”
He won three starts that postseason, including the decisive World Series Game 7 against the Dodgers. With that, rightly or not, the popular perception of Morton changed, from journeyman to clutch performer. His postseason record (7-3) is a good deal sexier than his career regular-season mark (93-89).
Moving on to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019, Morton had not taken a loss in five consecutive postseason starts, until the Dodgers got him in Game 3 of last year’s World Series. So, yeah, he wouldn’t mind another shot at them.
There’s a simple satisfaction in the reputation he has been able to rewrite.
“It’s nice to be able to say I was able to do it, I was able to cross the line, take the ball and do my job,” Morton said. “It’s rewarding for me because there were so many times in my career I didn’t think I could pitch consistently in a regular-season game, let alone (in the postseason) with an entire city and fan base watching those games.
“Your peers are watching those games, too. They want to know if you’ve got it. Everybody wants to know if you can play in the playoffs. To know you’re able to do it, that’s the most rewarding thing.”
Those peers are getting younger all the time. As he looks around the Braves clubhouse now, Morton spots the likes of 23-year-old Mike Soroka, 22-year-old Ian Anderson and 23-year-old Bryse Wilson. And he loves what he sees.
“To know where I was at that age and to see what they’re doing – they’re so far ahead of where I was. I can somehow relate, but not really,” he said.
But if there’s one thing any dad can certainly understand: The kids, they grow up so quickly.
