Joe Morgan Mentors Brandon Phillips

Dusty Baker likes to have retired players hanging around the Reds' clubhouse.  Joe Morgan, who is a special assistant to owner Bob Castellini, has a locker set up next to Brandon Phillips.

Phillips and Morgan talk about baseball and the Reds' current secondbaseman is soaking up the knowledge

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"We had that with the Dodgers,"  Dusty Baker said.  "Sandy Koufax, Maury Wills, Roy Campanella or Jim Gilliam were always around to answer questions or just talk baseball.  Some managers might feel threatened by that but I like it.  Sometimes they tell the players the same thing we do but its a different voice. You never know when you get a tip that can turn things around for you."

Phillips is on the verge of wiping Morgan from the top of the Reds' statistical list for secondbasemen.

Morgan still leads the home run list with 152 to Phillips 150.  Morgan leads the RBI list 612-605 but Phillips is ahead of Morgan in doubles 221-220 and hits 1,214 - 1,155.

"You can get help from anywhere," Baker said.  "My son (Darren) was hitting in the cage one day when Pete Rose came by.  Rose said," Hey little Bake are you a good hitter?' Darren said that he was. 'Let me see you hit the back of the cage' Rose said. So my son started to try to hit line drives to the back of the cage.  He remembers that."

Another Cincinnati secondbaseman, Tommy Helms, told a story once about Deron Johnson, who was a teammate of Helm's with the Reds.  Johnson was also a teammate of Baker's with the Atlanta Braves.

"When DJ was the hitting coach for the Twins, Rod Carew was in a slump," Helms said.  "He came to Deron for help.  Derron told him, 'just get into the batter's box left-handed kid, you'll be allright.' "

Baker followed with a story about facing Johnson's team while in a horrible slump.  Baker playing on their past relationship approached Johnson before the Friday game of a thtee-game weekend series.

"I went to DJ and asked what I was doing wrong," Baker said.  "DJ said he would tell me Sunday.  I asked him to tell me now.  He said,' Sunday'.  I went to him on Sunday and he told me.  I started getting hot too.  I do that sometimes.  When a team is going to play the Cardinals, I may give a guy a tip as he leaves town."