Brook Morrison: So Dad, the editor of The Islander, Lisa Neff, suggested we sit down for a father-daughter interview about how playing America’s favorite pastime helped our family find their paradise island and I’ve got a lot of questions.
Jim Morrison: OK. Well, I don’t know any Pirate player who wasn’t excited to get to be in spring training at Anna Maria Island.
Brook: Makes sense. Let’s start at the very beginning of when you were bit by the baseball bug.
Jim Morrison: The baseball bug started early. My mom played catch with me most often. I would beg her to play catch and I played on the Temple Terrace Little League team for a few years. One day in seventh-grade, we were out shopping and ran into a coach and stopped to talk. Later that day, she told me coach said I was too small to play sports and should quit because I was so small for my age.
Brook: How did that make you feel?
Jim Morrison: You know, the comment stuck with me but I didn’t give it much thought because my dad encouraged us to listen to ourselves and eventually, I managed a full scholarship to Georgia Southern.
The Pirates tried to draft me in 1971 but I didn’t sign because the contract was low and kept playing college ball, when, in 1974, I made the best decision to date: I married your mom … and also signed with the Philadelphia Phillies and started playing winter ball in the off-season in South America because it was pretty good extra money at the time.
Brook: Where?
Jim Morrison: In 1975, I played A-ball in Puerto Rico and then in Santo Domingo in 1976 under Jim Bunning — great guy and hall of famer — and in ’78 and ’79 I played winter ball in Maracaibo, Venezuela, and then was traded to the Chicago White Sox, where I still remember my first rack of baby back ribs and you were a little squirt.
Brook: That’s weird considering I’m only 35. LOL. Some of my first memories are in Chicago … running around with neighborhood kids. You must have thought you’d be there a while because you and mom bought a house, no?
Jim Morrison: Yep, and we had spring training near AMI in Sarasota, which was the best of both worlds.
Brook: So what was the trade to the Pirates like?
Jim Morrison: I was shocked when it happened because it was unexpected. It was 1982, me and Wayne Nordhagen had our bags packed waiting to leave for a flight to Oakland when the phone rang and the other line said, “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for the Sox but you’ve been traded to the Pirates and have 72 hours to get there.”
Brook: That must have been surreal.
Jim Morrison: It absolutely was.
Brook: And for Mom to pack up the house with two kids and start fresh in a new city like Pittsburgh. I vaguely remember living in a hotel for a few months.
Jim Morrison: Your mom’s a saint. Thankfully, it worked out great and the Pirates were the most happy-go-lucky team I ever played on. …
Brook: So when did we head to AMI?
Jim Morrison: During the first year of spring training we lived off of 43rd Street in Holmes Beach next to fellow Pittsburgh Pirates player Don Robinson and his wife Rhonda while a group of players waited for houses to be built in a new development at the time called Perico Island.
Brook: I remember those days making new friends and living the life of Riley.
Jim Morrison: It was fun to be on the island and I’d go fishing in our off-time with Milt May, Bruce Kison and Mike Quade. I remember Hal Chasey took me on my first cast-netting experience and I caught one mullet (laughs).
Brook: Do you remember when you and Milt took the kids fishing and you gave me a mullet eyeball? So gross, yet fascinating.
You were always joking around, having fun and making us laugh. I used to ask other kids which team their dad played for because as a kid I thought everyone’s dad played baseball!
You and Mom encouraged a sense of quiet confidence in me and my brother and sisters. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I started to process how growing up an MLB kid was not the norm.
The message you ingrained in me as a kid was definitely the Golden Rule and to treat others with respect and kindness.
Jim Morrison: That mentality came from my dad who loved people so much he would give anyone the shirt off his back. My mom too. …
Brook: So tell me when you decided to retire from baseball and move to Florida permanently.
Jim Morrison: Well, in 1988 I was emotionally roasted. I remember playing for the Braves and seeing the Pirates manager Jim Leyland on the field and telling him I’d love to go back to the Pirates. And Leyland said we should talk. And then shortly after that convo, his father passed and I felt it was inappropriate to pursue it and resigned.
Brook: Maybe people don’t quit often enough.
Jim Morrison: It wasn’t easy. A senior baseball league opened and I started playing for them. Then during that time one of the managers connected me to a head-hunter for baseball in Milan, Italy, and we spent 1990 in Italy traveling and eating pasta and listening to your brother’s “jokes.”
Brook: That was unforgettable and molto bene but what happened when we got back?
Jim Morrison: Flipped some houses and bought a hotel in Port Charlotte before getting a phone call asking if I wanted to return to baseball in 2000 working with the Phillies minor leagues.
Brook: How long have you worked for the Rays?
Jim Morrison: Since 2006, when I started as a minor league manager and currently a minor league infield instructor for the young Latin American players and extended players.
Brook: Well, at 70 years young, you’re giving it a good go, Dad. It was just five years ago when you had a major accident while headed to a Rays meeting and Mom called me in London saying we almost lost you.
I remember talking to you that day and making a private decision to spend more time with family and reconnect, so I brought Oliver to Anna Maria Island in 2019 and we ended up staying and connecting with the island community. It wasn’t easy and I’m still adjusting but you’re worth moving countries for, Dad, and it’s a gift for Oliver to grow up with family.
Of course, you’re one piece of the puzzle — Mom, James, Sarah and Molly, their spouses, niece and nephews are worth it, too.
You have given me the gift of adventure, unconditional love, knowledge that there is a whole wide world out there to explore and the wisdom to treat people equally (and a reminder not to trust boys).
Ha ha. Thank you. I love you so very much.
Jim Morrison: You’re my favorite daughter. Ha. Just kidding. I love you all the same.
Brook: See you at the beach, Dad.
Catch a game?
The Pittsburgh Pirates close spring training at LECOM Park in Bradenton Tuesday, March 28, with a game against the Minnesota Twins.
Call the box office at 941-747-3031.
Editor’s note:
The 2023 season of spring training at LECOM Park marked the 100th year of baseball in Bradenton and the 55th season for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Over the years, many Major Leaguers found temporary homes on Anna Maria Island and some settled with their families on the island.
This spring, The Islander invited readers to share recollections of Major League encounters.
And we close the spring-training season with Islander reporter Brook Morrison’s interview with her dad, a former MLB player, about family, baseball and finding home.
We think it’s a home run of a piece. We hope you agree.
— Lisa Neff