NEW ENGLAND SPORTS HUB...Red Sox Nation, Patriots Nation, The State Of The Celtics And B's

Maybe Damon, Nomar, Pedro, D' Lowe, Millar, Sauerbeck, Payton, Mientkiewicz Have This Ownership Pegged:

"...Morgan had a feeling. Now and then during the 2002 and 2003 seasons, he could sense that his job with the team was in jeopardy, partly because the new owners were methodically shedding all traces of the old regime. And yet each time Morgan's number seemed up, players rallied to his defense.

'All the guys fought for him to stay,' says Nomar Garciaparra, longtime star of the Sox, who was traded last year to the Chicago Cubs.

Garciaparra, whose dislocated wrist tendon was surgically repaired by Morgan four years ago, says Sox players were deeply devoted to Morgan because he was devoted to them. 'There's no ego with him,' Garciaparra says. Though Garciaparra says he 'didn't pay attention' when the Sox were in the postseason last fall, and didn't know anything about Morgan solving Schilling's ankle, he was staggered when he heard his friend had been fired. 'I couldn't believe it,' he says. 'When you have a doctor you trust like that, why would you want to let him go?'

Among current Boston players, nearly everyone is appalled at Morgan's firing, according to Kevin Millar, the team's first baseman. 'Ninety-nine percent of the players, they are pissed off,' he says. 'It was done without any player's consent, and I don't think that's fair. He was a part of us.'

No matter what team policy dictates, Millar and Tim Wakefield vow to continue seeing Morgan, as do other players. Curt Schilling, for instance, chose Morgan to operate on his bad ankle during the off-season, and still consults with Morgan about his rehab.

Schilling, who has taken the mound only a handful of times this season because of new ankle problems, says he marched up to the front office last fall as soon as he heard his doctor had been fired. But team officials, he says, were unmoved by his lobbying for Morgan. He got the impression that they had been planning for months to let Morgan go, and nothing—neither the first World Series victory since Kaisers and czars ruled Europe nor the pleas of the team's ace—could dissuade them.

"Obviously I was incredibly disappointed," Schilling says. "He was part of our family. He was as much a part of the team as any player."

Tim Wakefield, the Sox player with the longest tenure on the team, calls Morgan 'the 26th member of our club.'

Such loyalty, Millar says, speaks to a simple point: After Schilling, Morgan was the hero of the Series. 'Without Dr. Morgan I don't think we win the Series,' Millar says. 'If he doesn't do what he did, we don't have Schillingand without Schilling we don't win."

LOYALTY DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK BOTH WAYS WITH THESE TORT OWNERS

For instance, more and more of Morgan's patients these days have no insurance, and he doesn't care; he treats them anyway. He gives them "love," they give him gratitude, and he comes out ahead, he says: "They send me cards. They make me something." One Italian woman paid him in pasta. Some pay with a peck on the cheek. "They have nothing to give," he says, "but they do give you their thanks."

Colleagues call him a sucker. They urge him to turn away patients with no money, and they nag him to go into private practice rather than remain with a hospital, earning a pittance of what he could make on his own. He tells colleagues he's not in this for the money. He gets satisfaction helping people, healing people, as his mother did.

That was the spirit in which he treated ballplayers, he says, and maybe that's what got him fired. "I probably got too close to the players," he says glumly. His first loyalty was always to players, and the owners must have known..."-LA TIMES