Sports

Mickey Morabito: Waiting for his own trip

March 7, 2022 Andy Furman

Mickey Morabito. Photo courtesy of Andy Furman

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Mickey Morabito is waiting.

Just like the rest of us.

Waiting for the baseball season — if and when it ever comes.

But for Morabito – the 1969 grad of Lafayette High, his reasons are a little more personal.

Baseball, truly is his life.

“I’m waiting to talk to the players,” Morabito who serves as Director of Team Travel for baseball’s Oakland A’s told the Eagle from their Mesa, Arizona spring training camp the other day. “As soon as we get the word, I’ll be busy making the travel arrangements – air and ground – for the team.”

Pressure – perhaps for some – not for Morabito, who has been with the A’s since 1980.

And been involved with Major League Baseball since his freshman year at Hunter College.

“I started with the Yankees on the field and in their clubhouse, as a batboy and ballboy in 1970,” he said.

When an opening occurred in the Yankees’ PR Department – you guessed it – Morabito was there.

“I was a part-timer in the PR Department working for the legendary Bob Fishel,” he said.

Fishel was a Yankee executive for 20 years, an executive vice-president of the American League and Hall of Fame Veterans Committee Member.

“I handled the scoreboard messages, recorded the out-of-town baseball scores and answered the mail,” Morabito remembered.

When Fishel left for the American League office, Marty Appel took the head job and Morabito was elevated to full-time under his new boss.

In 1976 – at the age of 25, Mickey Morabito was named Public Relations Director for the New York Yankees.

He was thrust at this tender age into what he called the “Vicious Triangle” of George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin and slugger Reggie Jackson.

In the late 1970s, they were the center of the infighting that made the Yankee clubhouse the Bronx Zoo.

“You’d come in and some days Reggie and Billy would be together and they’d be mad at George,” Morabito said, “Some days Reggie and George were mad at Billy. Or Billy and George were mad at Reggie. You’d come in and say, ‘Who’s on what side today?’”

Morabito says he grew up a big Yankee fan living in Brooklyn. “It was a dream job working for them. My favorite player growing up was Bobby Richardson.”

And when the Yankees hired Billy Martin as manager – again – in the ’77-’78 season – the two became close.

Very close.

So close, that when Matin was fired by the Yankees after 1979 – and Charlie Finley hired him as manager for the A’s, Morabito got a call from Martin to join him out west.

“I had my doubts, I’ve always been an east coast guy,” he said, “but when I asked George (Steinbrenner) for a raise, and he refused, well, I resigned.”

Finley hired Morabito to be the team PR man, and to cut costs, told him he had to be the team’s traveling secretary as well.

He did both – for two years.

“After Finley sold the team,” Morabito said, “they split both jobs. I did the travel.”

And some 40 years later, well, he’s still doing it.

While making all the A’s travel arrangements, Morabito has had to deal with numerous transportation problems, even though the A’s and other teams stopped flying commercial in the mid- ‘80s. On one scary occasion, the A’s plane had a near-miss while descending into Oakland just as another plane was climbing.

Before each and every game, Morabito says, he distributes a detailed itinerary for each trip.

“It has all the charter times, bus times to airports and stadiums that the players and our traveling party can follow,” he said.

But sometimes, he says, there are things you can’t control – like a rain-out, a plane breakdown or something that causes a schedule change.

Or perhaps a work-stoppage.

The proud graduate of Lafayette High is in good baseball company – as the Bensonhurst school has produced if not the most – but close to – the most players to enter the major leagues.

That partial list is highlighted by Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, along with Pete Falcone, Johnny Franco, Benny Destefano and Al (The Bull) Ferrara.

Someone needs to remind Morabito – the baseball lifer – not to forget to book his trip to Cooperstown.

That’s where he’ll probably end-up after he retires.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR