Reds Baseball

He was known as Prince Hal, and Reds fans found his skills at the plate to be nothing short of charming.

When the Reds acquired Hal Morris from the Yankees in December of 1989, they added one of the key cogs of what would become a 1990 team that went wire-to-wire to win a World Series crown.

Morris, a candidate for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, was the perfect complement to a club built around timely hitting and dominant pitching.

A contact hitter with textbook bat control, Morris gave the Reds a steady, reliable presence at the plate. Oh, sure, his feet weren't all that steady -- as Morris was famously known to shuffle them with regularity in the batter's box -- but his bat was. In that '90 season, despite a three-week stint in the Minors, Morris compiled a .340 average in 309 at-bats, filling in for an injured Todd Benzinger.

But the biggest piece of contact Morris made that season didn't result in a hit. In the eighth inning of Game 4 of the World Series against the A's, with the score tied, one out and a pair of runners on, Morris lofted a sacrifice fly to score Herm Winningham with the go-ahead run.

"As soon as the ball left my bat," Morris, now 40, recently told The Cincinnati Enquirer, "I said to myself, 'Game over.' "

An inning later, the sweep was complete, and Morris and the Reds were champions.

Morris went on to play 13 seasons in the big leagues, with his career wrapping up in Detroit in 2000. All told, he hit .304 with 76 home runs and 513 RBIs.

But Reds fans will always hold a soft spot in their hearts for Morris because of that special 1990 season.

"That postseason," he told the Enquirer, "taught me a lot about playoff baseball and what kind of team it took to win."

In 1990, Prince Hal certainly had what it took.