A historic moment will come very early in the FABL season when the legendary Max Morris hits his 600th career homer. The Cleveland Forester slugger, who began his career in Cleveland before being shipped to St Louis for many years and then a brief stop in New York with the Gothams before returning home, ended last season with 599 homers. How dominant a slugger has Morris been? Number two on the career homerun list is Rankin Kellogg of the Philadelphia Keystones and Kellogg is still 18 homers shy of 300.
So when will the famous blast come and who will it be against? The Foresters open the season with 3 games at home against the Chicago Cougars so there is a good chance number 600 will come that weekend. Not sure he will make the Cougars roster out of camp but if he does perhaps it might be a good bet to wager that Morris will hit number 600 off of veteran pitcher Hap Goodwin.
Morris has victimized Goodwin for 6 long balls previously in his career, the most he has hit against any current Cougar. Morris spent the vast majority of his career in the Federal Association and Goodwin was a long-time Pittsburgh Miner before being released last season and playing in the minors last year in the Cougars organization so Goodwin has never pitched for the Cougars, let alone faced Morris as a Cougar and all 6 homers came while Goodwin was with Pittsburgh.
Perhaps a better bet is Dick Luedtke, who has given up 4 Morris homers in the 21 at bats he had against him. Luedtke pitched a couple of seasons for the New York Gothams so has seen Morris more than most other Cougars and will quite likely start one of the 3 games against the Foresters on the opening weekend.
The only other current Cougars that Morris homered off are Tommy Wilcox, which he did twice in 10 at bats last season and Elmer Wood, who faced Morris twice and surrendered one homerun. The Cougar with the most success against Morris, at least in preventing homers, was Len Moore. Moore, who also spent time in the Federal Association with Morris, has not surrendered a homerun in 23 at bats. However, Morris is hitting .435 off of Moore.
Looking at the league as a whole the pitcher who has been victimized most by Morris is Harry Horn of the Washington Eagles. Morris has 136 at bats against the long-time Washington Eagle ace and is batting .426 with 22 homers off of him. Next on the list are the now retired Red Adwell who allowed 17 Morris homers and Lou Felkel of the Chicago Chiefs who also gave up 17 Morris round-trippers but faced him 171 times.
At the other end of the scale how about Phil Miller and Rube Smith. Miller, now retired but a long-time Brooklyn King and Baltimore Cannon, did not allow a single Morris homerun in 71 at bats. Smith is the active player who has faced Morris the most without allowing a homer. Smith is now 39 and finishing out his career in the minors but Morris had 49 at bats against him when Max was a Cleveland Forester the first time and Smith was pitching for the Philadelphia Stars and never hit a homerun off of Rube.