Morris is probably best known for his walk off home run in the 1996 series, as he got plenty of national attention for doing so. Later in the summer, Morris played for Team USA in the Atlanta Olympics, winning the Bronze medal.
The next season he began his professional career with the Texas Rangers. He hit extremely well in High A ball and got to spend 8 games in AAA. The next season saw him continue his hot hitting at AA Tulsa. In mid season Morris was traded to Pittsburgh, along with Todd Van Poppel for Esteban Loazia. It is kind of amazing that the Rangers gave up on their fifth round pick in the draft that quickly. Morris reported to the Carolina and hit for the same exact average with the Mudcats as he had with the Drillers, .331.
Morris was invited as a non-roster invitee to spring training in 1999 and looked to be a long shot to make the team, as the Bucs had speedy Tony Womack at second base. That changed when in late February, for reasons only known to Cam Bonifay, Womack was traded to Arizona for Jason Boyd and Paul Weichard. Automatically Morris became a contender for the roster spot.
In 1999, Morris came out with a bang and was an instant hit in Pittsburgh. He was the Rookie of the Year contender and was drawing comparisions to Bill Mazeroski, who had tutored him in spring training. He hit .288 with 15 home runs, while displaying good plate discipline and defense. People thought we had ripped off the Rangers and we had a cornerstone to go along with newly acquired Brian Giles, Pat Meares, and Jason Kendall.
Unfortunately, 1999 seemed to be an abberrattion. In 2000 he would drop to batting .259 and hit only 3 home runs. By 2000, the Pirates started to shuttle him back and forth between Pittsburgh and the minors. Morris always seemed to hit well in the minors but would then stuggle when he came back to Pittsburgh.
2001 would be his final season in the Pittsburgh organization, as he hit .305 in AAA, but only .204 in Pittsburgh. Morris would be released after the season and he would sign with Minnesota. He had a brief four game appearance with the Twins but mainly stayed in AAA. He actually bounced around with the Twins, Cardinals, and Red Sox that season.
In 2003, he signed with the Tigers, appearing in 97 games and batting a respectable .273 for them. That would be the last time he would play in the majors, as he spent the next season at Toledo, and then finished out his career in 2005 with Milwaukee's AAA club in Nashville at the age of 31.
Morris might be one of the sadder tales in recent Pirate history. He was on top of the world in College and had a huge break out year in 1999. It all went down hill from there and things never seemed the same. Maybe Morris was just a Quad A player, but if he was he was a pretty good one. It almost seems, to me at least, that it seemed he got 'old' quickly and just lost his baseball skills for the major league level. At least, Morris is immortalized in the state of Louisiana for his one moment back in the summer of '96.
Major League Stats:
| Year | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 1999-03 | 440 | 1495 | 176 | 399 | 70 | 7 | 26 | 164 | 16 | 22 | 150 | 218 | 0.267 | 0.334 | 0.375 | 709 |
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