Milli Vanilli blamed it on the rain. As they sang (well, lip-synched), "You've got to blame it on something." Temporary insanity, stress, PMS--something. Even Joel Steinberg, the rich, white, coke-addicted New York lawyer who beat his wife and killed his baby, claimed that he was a "victim." Of what, I have no idea.

Milli Vanilli was onto something: "Whatever you do, don't put the blame on you." We are obsessed with rights but oblivious to responsibilities. Assigning blame has become our new national pastime.

ESPECIALLY AMONG PEOPLE involved with our old national pastime. This season, 22 teams failed to win their divisions. Thirteen of them fired their managers. The Cubs fired two managers.

A manager's job is pretty simple. He picks the lineup, makes pitching changes, inserts pinch-hitters. He usually has some sort of influence on his team's attitude.

Of course, it really doesn't matter if a manager is callow or experienced, mellow or intense. Winning matters. If you win, everybody thinks you're a genius. If you lose, you're an idiot. And you're history. Growing up in New York, I watched George Steinbrenner, that noted evaluator of human nature, decide that Billy Martin was smart, then stupid, then smart, then stupid, smart, stupid, smart, then stupid again.

Joe Morgan is another casualty of revisionist baseball history. After he was named Red Sox manager in July 1988, the Sox won 12 straight games and charged to the AL East crown. Morgan Magic was the talk of the town. When the Sox took another title in 1990, Morgan was Beantown's messiah once again.

Walpole Joe didn't do anything different this year. He went with his random hunches. Often, they worked. Often, they didn't. The Sox came in second. That's baseball. That's life.

You can argue all day about Joe Morgan's laid-back leadership style, his overuse of the bullpen, his cavalier attitude toward young prospects, his gambler's reliance on instinct. But this much is clear: He isn't a horrible manager. This season was not his fault. He's no dumber now than he was in 1988. And he did chalk up two first-place finishes--the last Boston manager to do that was Bill Carrigan in 1915 and 1916.

Yet Joe Morgan is out of a job. His only consolation is that unemployed managers tend to get smart almost as quickly as employed ones get stupid.

I SUPPOSE I should get my biases out in the open. I covered the Red Sox for a couple weeks this summer, so I've met people like Matt Young (total jerk), Danny Darwin (decent fellow) and Lou Gorman (The Establishment personified).

I also got to know Joe Morgan, and I think he's a helluva guy. He cares about his grandchildren, his garden, his job. He's friendly. He tells great stories. He keeps baseball in perspective.

Most of all, I liked Joe Morgan because he took responsibility for his own mistakes. Once, he decided to let Mike Gardiner try to pitch out of trouble. Gardiner gave up a three-run homer, but the Sox won anyway. Afterwards, Morgan was grinning big: "They let me off the hook today, huh?"

Another time, Morgan let Jeff Reardon pitch for the fourth consecutive night. Reardon gave up a game-winning homer.

"I blew it," Joe said. "Happens sometimes, you know?"

No finger-pointing. No fall guys. Joe was always willing to take the rap himself.