January 28 2011 Last updated at 01:10 PM ET
For the better part of his life, Joe Morgan has spent his summer Sundays at the ballpark.For two decades, starting when he was out of high school, it was as a player. Since 1990, it's been as a broadcaster.
Now that's over. With ESPN declining to offer Morgan and his longtime compatriot in the "Sunday Night Baseball" broadcast booth, Jon Miller, contracts for 2011, Morgan is entering a new phase of his life.
He's accepted the offer of Walt Jocketty to join the Cincinnati Reds as a front office adviser. Morgan, whose Hall of Fame career was launched when he helped form Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in the 1970s, has long had a locker in Cincinnati even after his retirement.
Morgan said he will for the first time have some time this summer for himself and for his family. And for golf.
"I've been doing this since I was 18, every summer," Morgan said on a stop in Seattle Wednesday. "I've never had a summer with any time off. I've already got a trip arranged to St. Andrews (Scotland, considered by many the home of golf). I'm looking forward to that.
"I'm also looking forward to working with just one team. This will be a different experience for me."
Morgan, a 10-time All-Star and two-time MVP as second baseman for the Reds, has traveled the country many times over as a baseball analyst the last two decades for ESPN.
All that time getting in and out of airplanes and never being in the same place for more than a couple of days has taken its toll.
"I will miss the broadcasting," Morgan said. "But I won't miss the travel, all that getting on airplanes. It will be great to get away from so much travel."
And what will he be doing for the Reds?
"We're still talking about that," Morgan said. "However it turns out, it'll be good."
John is a National Baseball Writer for AOL FanHouse. He covered the Seattle Mariners from 2000-2009 for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and seattlepostglobe.org and the Oakland A's for two decades at the Oakland Tribune and The Daily Review (Hayward, CA). He is a multiple Associated Press Sports Editors award winner for his baseball coverage. A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he is a Hall of Fame voter.
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