by N.S.
Ed Kranepool has died at 79.
Kranepool, number 7, played first base for 18 seasons, beginning at the age of 17 in the club’s maiden season of 1962 (40-120), and has the team record for the most games played in a career, 1,853, a record which, in the age of free agency, may never be eclipsed.
One story was about his old friend and teammate, the late Tom Seaver, number 41,, aka “the franchise,” may he rest in peace, by far the greatest Met of them all. The Mets were notorious for their inability to score. One day, Seaver was pitching and Kranepool scored. When Eddie got back to the dugout, he deadpanned to Seaver, “There’s your run.”
Kranepool made the National League All-Star Team in 1965, earned a ring with the World Series champion, Amazing Mets in 1969 (a series in which he hit a home run), when under leadership of Gil Hodges, they beat one of the greatest teams ever, the Baltimore Orioles, in five games; and played in the 1973 Series, which the Mets (82-79) pushed to seven games against the dominant A’s (94-68), and which the Mets would have won if their skipper, Yogi Berra, hadn’t put the wrong starter in in game 7 (Jon Matlack, instead of George Stone).
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kraneed01.shtml
3 comments:
The transition of the 1962 Mets to the 1969 champs parallelled the United States change from an innocent country to almost sophisticated. What I'm trying to say is those 7 years were amazin' in the amount of change that occurred. Good for the Mets,not so sure about the country,because it showed the seeds of what we've turned into today.
--GRA
Sowed.
--GRA
I remember Ed as a teenager playing for the Mets. I saw him on TV hit a home run against the Cardinals in the final weekend of the 1964 season. The Mets won, forcing the Cardinals to win the next day (Sunday) to clinch the 1964 NL pennant.
I was in college during the 1969 World Series. In between classes we watched the games on TV in the student lounge. I saw Ed Kranepool's home run on TV.
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