Video: Joe Morgan leads the World’s Largest Chicken Dance

Yahoo! Sports

Sun Sep 18 08:47am EDT

Video: Joe Morgan leads the World’s Largest Chicken Dance

Well folks, just when you thought you'd seen everything, we bring you the following video from the Oktoberfest Zinzinnati event held on Saturday.

That's where our old pal Joe Morgan — you know, the Cincinnati Reds legend, the baseball Hall of Famer, the long-time Sunday Night Baseball color analyst for ESPN, and the host of a recently launched nationally syndicated sports talk show — was selected, and on hand at Fountain's Square, to lead the annual World's Largest Chicken Dance.

Yes. That Joe Morgan. Doing the Chicken Dance.

Not bad for a first time chicken dancer, I guess. Though not nearly as crisp as the late great Joe Nuxhall's performance back in 2007.

In case you missed Joe's excuse for that in the video:

"I didn't really practice. But I did go on YouTube last night and look up how to do the chicken dance. One of my ladies at the office was (supposed) to teach me — I went back there yesterday and she was gone. So, I had to look it up on YouTube," Morgan said.

That's disappointing.

I'm sure event organizers were equally disappointed by the lack of preparation, seeing as they went through the trouble of scouting Morgan's baseball career and determined the chicken flap mechanism he utilized to keep his back elbow in place made him a natural choice for the role.

"Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati has long been regarded as the largest Oktoberfest celebration in North America and the second largest in the world," said Patrick Sheeran, vice president with the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber. "But in the long and storied history of the event, we have never had a chicken dancer with so much on the job experience."

Yes, that's a real quote. And in case you're wondering, it was his late former teammate Nellie Fox who suggested Morgan use the chicken flap, so if we need to point the finger of blame at someone, I guess it would have to be Nellie.

By the way, the Chicken Dance wasn't the only fun event to take place on Saturday. Shortly after Morgan's performance ended, the World Bratwurst Championship got underway. As far as we know, no past or present Reds participated in that event, but I can think of a few that probably would have done pretty well.

Follow Mark on Twitter — @Townie813 — and engage the Stew on Facebook