The Kevin Bacon of Baseball

A guest writer for Baseball Primer named Jonathan Daly has suggested that pitcher Mike Morgan is the Kevin Bacon of baseball. That is, he can be linked by a few degrees of separation to nearly everybody in the baseball universe.

Morgan has played for twelve different teams over twenty-one seasons, spanning four decades. Daly estimates Morgan has had close to 650 teammates, which is around 4% of all major leaguers who ever played. Each of those players has a Morgan number of 1. Daly doesn’t count managers and coaches in his linking.

Here’s as close as I’m ever going to get: The only foul ball I ever retrieved was at a rookie league game in Walla Walla, Washington, and was signed by catcher Bob Geren. Geren eventually made the big leagues and was a teammate of Don Mattingly, who was a teammate of Mike Morgan. Thus, my Morgan number is 3.

Roll over, Mike Morgan, and tell Kevin Bacon the news…