José Morales

[William Malone]

José Manuel Morales was born on December 30, 1944 in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He has no relation to former Minnesota Twins catcher José Guillermo Morales.

The San Francisco Giants singed him as an amateur free agent 1963. He was acquired by the Oakland Athletics in 1968, and finally reached the Major Leagues in 1973 at the age of 28. Morales played just six games for Oakland, then had his contract sold to the Montreal Expos.

He became one of the league's greatest pinch hit specialists while in Montreal. Morales was 58-for-208 (.279) as a pinch hitter for the Expos, starting just 54 games during his five seasons north of the border. His 25 hits in a pinch hitting role during the 1976 campaign was a Major League record, only to be broken by John Vander Wal of the Colorado Rockies in 1995.

The Minnesota Twins acquired him for cash considerations in 1978. Moving to the American League helped Morales get more playing time than ever before, as there was still no designated hitter in the National League. Minnesota deployed a platoon of Morales and Glenn Adams as their designated hitters in 1978, often pinch hitting one for the other late in games if their opponent went to a different handed pitcher. Morales hit .314 with 38 RBI that season, starting 48 games and coming off the bench in 53 more.

Adams and Morales continued to platoon in the designated hitter slot for the next two seasons. Morales hit .267 with 27 RBI in 1979, and .303 with 36 RBI in 1980. He had 756 plate appearances during his three years in Minnesota, compared to just 456 across five seasons with the Expos.

Morales signed with the Baltimore Orioles as a free agent in 1981. He posted a career worst .619 OPS that season, and was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1982. Morales played three years with the Dodgers, appearing almost exclusively as a pinch hitter. He made four starts at first base in 1983, representing his only non-pinch hitting action in a Dodgers uniform.

He worked as the Major League hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants (1986-88), Cleveland Indians (1990-93) and Florida Marlins (1995-96). Several players, including Will Clark and Kenny Lofton, swear that Morales was the best hitting coach they ever had. He passed up several more opportunities to be a hitting coach in the years since he last worked, but said there was too much politics in the sport and that you had to "kiss ass" to keep jobs these days.

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