While everyone has all of their attention on the Juan Soto sweepstakes, which seem to be heating up, the Yankees are still keeping their eyes on the pitching market. The club in the Bronx officially spoke with both top free agent pitchers, Max Fried and Corbin Burnes, via Zoom this past week, per Mike Puma of the New York Post. Reportedly, nine team officials including Brian Cashman, Aaron Boone and Matt Blake were on the call, which lasted over an hour.

While this might not have any correlation to the Yankees chance with Soto, it shows that New York is ready in case the slugger decides to jump ship. 

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Latest Mets News

New York City FC showed some pictures of the progress being made towards their new stadium in Queens.

Jose Iglesias told Laura Albanese of Newsday that he is very open to a return to the Mets, and will also be dropping a new song in 2025. 

Mets legend Johan Santana was inducted into the Latin Baseball Hall of Fame in the Dominican Republic. Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez and Andruw Jones were also inducted. 

The Mets received a fourth minor league option for right-handed hurler Max Kranick, per Joel Sherman of the NY Post. 

Frankie Montas’ two-year deal, including a player opt-out after 2025, with the Mets was officially announced by the club. David Stearns commented on the signing: “Throughout his career, Frankie has flashed some of the best stuff in the game. He’ll provide a stabilizing presence to our pitching staff and can contribute on and off the field.”

Latest MLB News

Several industry sources believe that the San Diego Padres are in a strong position to land Japanese ace Roki Sasaki, per Francys Romero. 

RHP Koyo Aoyagi’s 45-day negotiating window with major league teams has begun, after the Hanshin Tigers made his posting official, per Jon Morosi of MLB Network. The sidearm pitcher posted a 6.2 K/9 and 1.307 WHIP in 114 innings this past season.

Major and minor league player representatives, including former Met Chris Bassitt, were elected by the MLBPA.

Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that all five Juan Soto contenders, including the Mets, Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays and Dodgers, are still in the mix. He also noted that he will meet with clubs this weekend and we should know his decision by the start of winter meetings on December 9.

On a Bleacher Report live stream, Jon Heyman reported that the Mets are still the favorites to land Pete Alonso. He also noted that getting Soto would in turn help the Mets keep Alonso.

Latest on MMO

Jose Iglesias is open to return to Queens in 2025!

Check out MMO’s free agent profile on a familiar face, Sean Manaea.

Hyeseong Kim of the KBO is being posted for major league clubs. 

On This Date in Mets History

2021: Former Mets manager Gil Hodges is elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The man who lead the Amazins to their first World Series got in on his 35th ballot.

2005: The Mets send prospects Gaby Hernandez and Dante Brinkley to the Florida Marlins and receive catcher Paul Lo Duca in return. His .297 average as a Met is the highest for any catcher in franchise history,

Born On This Date: Cliff Floyd (1972), Al Moran (1938).

The post Morning Briefing: Yankees Speak to Fried, Burnes appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Your New York Mets are moving on to the NLCS!

Last night, with the chance to get the series clinching win in Game 4, the Mets were finally able to christen the home team locker room of Citi Field with its first champagne bath. In a miracle season, which saw them start 11 games under .500, the Mets will now face the winner of the Padres and Dodgers series for a spot in the 2024 World Series.

While there have been many gimmicks and streaks from both players and outside entities this season, the one constant has been the Mets’ MVP, Francisco Lindor. In this Game 4 battle against the Philadelphia Phillies, Jose Quintana was able to hold the Phillies to only one run in five solid innings of work, however, the Mets’ offense was not holding up their end of the bargain. Having left the bases loaded in the first and second inning, the Mets’ bats were in danger of doing so again in the sixth, but the backbone of the team would not let it happen. Lindor did it again; the star shortstop smoked a 2-1 fastball over the right-center field wall, and the rest is history. 

The Mets will have a very well-deserved three day break as they await the winner ofGame 5 between the Dodgers and Padres on Friday.

Which team do you think would be a better matchup for the Mets? Sound off in the comments!

Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Latest Mets News

Latin pop star and Mets shortstop Jose Iglesias talked to the Today Show about how the remix of his song “OMG” with Pitbull and Silvestre Dangond came about. The remix will be released on Friday and a music video is planned to come out during the offseason.

Jeff McNeil will play in the Arizona Fall League on Friday and Saturday as Mets manager Carlos Mendoza wants to see him play back-to-back games of nine innings, per Tim Healey of Newsday. Jeff McNeil anticipates being on the NLCS roster, which will be released prior to the series’ start on Sunday, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.

Daniel Murphy threw the first pitch to Bartolo Colon prior to Game 4 of the NLDS on Wednesday night. 

Latest MLB News

Game 3 of the ALDS went to the Detroit Tigers as they beat the Cleveland Guardians, 3-0. The Tigers, who went with a bullpen game, completely shut down Cleveland’s bats and will have a chance to move on to the ALCS on their home field on Thursday night. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers bludgeoned the Padres last night 8-0 and forced a winner-take-all Game 5 in Los Angeles on Friday. The winner of the series will host the Mets on Sunday to kick off the NLCS.

Giancarlo Stanton’s eight-inning moonshot blast ended up being the game-winning blow for the Yankees, as they beat the Royals 3-2. Kansas City’s season is on the line Thursday night at Kauffman Stadium.

The MLBPA came to a non-exclusive licensing deal with Fanatics, making it the first licensed sportsbook of the MLBPA, per Mike Mazzeo of Sports Business Journal. 

Houston Astros utility man Mauricio Dubón is slated to undergo surgery on his ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb this week, per Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Dubón played the last month of the season with this tear; the expected recovery time is 6-8 weeks, so he should be good to go for spring training. 

The roof of Tropicana Field was ripped off on Wednesday night by Hurricane Milton. The stadium was being used as a shelter for first responders. Prayers go out to all who are affected by Hurricane Milton.

Latest on MMO

A Citi Field celebration 15 years in the making!

Lindsanity will not stop!

Jeff McNeil is nearing a return just in time for the NLCS.

On This Date in Mets History

2015: While trying to turn a double play in the seventh inning of Game 2 of the NLDS against the Dodgers, Rubén Tejada gets taken out by Chase Utley and breaks his leg. Utley would get a warm welcome from the Citi Field crowd during Game 3 of the series.

1973: The Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds to win the second National League pennant in franchise history.

1961: The New York Mets select Giants catcher Hobie Landrith with their first selection in the 1961 MLB expansion draft. Players such as Gil Hodges, Roger Craig, and Al Jackson were selected during the draft. 

Born On This Date: Jeurys Familia (1989), Fernando Martínez (1988), Elvin Ramírez (1987), Ramón Martínez (1972), Grover Powell (1940).

The post Morning Briefing: Mets Are Headed to the NLCS appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

While Wednesday did not present a lot of news from the baseball world, we did get some updates on interest the remaining free agents are garnering. One of the bigger pieces of news came from Jon Heyman, who said on a Bleacher Report live stream that the Los Angeles Angels are one of the team showing increased interest in Joey Votto. The long-time Reds first baseman is now a free agent for the first time in his 17-year career and the 40-year-old seems to be trending towards a change of scenery for the first time in his illustrious career. 

Votto’s numbers have declined drastically over the past couple of seasons, which saw him put up a .747 OPS in just 65 games in 2023. However, the former MVP can provide a veteran presence to a very young Angels club and whatever numbers he accrues at the dish will be a welcomed extra. 

Latest Mets News

Brandon Nimmo was named the second best left fielder in Major League Baseball by MLB Network. Read up on Nimmo’s ranking here!

Two of the Mets’ international free agent signees found themselves in Baseball America‘s top 30 list of this year’s international free agents. For more on the Mets signings, click here!

Mets pitchers and catchers will report to spring training on February 12. Learn about more important Mets spring training dates here!

The Baseball Hall of Fame released a list of players who will be eligible for election next season. That list includes former Mets Curtis Granderson and Carlos Gómez. They also noted that Daniel Murphy and Neil Walker will be eligible come 2026. 

Latest MLB News

Nathanael Pérez Nero of Diario Libre released a report that many prospects, who were supposed to sign with clubs during the internal free agency period, were altering documents. Millions of dollars worth of pre-agreements were annulled due to these prospects altering their identity, some changing their age by up to six years. 

Trey Mancini signed a minor league deal with the Miami Marlins which includes an invite to major league spring training, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

The New York Yankees announced that they have outrighted infielder Jeter Downs and outfielder Oscar González to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Along with that, the Minnesota Twins have claimed outfielder Bubba Thompson off waivers from the Yankees. 

The Detroit Tigers signed RHP Drew Anderson to a minor league deal, per Evan Woodbery of MLive. Anderson spent the past two seasons in Japan, but has previously pitched in the big leagues for the Phillies, White Sox, and Rangers. 

MLB Network will be airing a countdown of the top 100 prospects in MLB on Friday at 7 p.m. ET. 

Latest on MMO

The Mets have shown interest in relief pitcher Ryne Stanek. Read more about the potential Met here!

Could David Stearns use his Milwaukee ties to swing another trade? Learn more about potential trade target Brandon Woodruff!

Read up on some of the Mets top international free-agent signings from this years cycle. 

On This Date in Mets History

2016: The Mets announce that they will be retiring Mike Piazza‘s 31 jersey number, less than twenty days after he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Piazza became the fourth Met to have his number retired, joining Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges, and Tom Seaver.

2007: Mets manager Willie Randolph agrees to a three-year extension with the club after leading the Mets to a National League East title in 2006.

The post Morning Briefing: Angels Showing Interest in Joey Votto appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Photo via New York Mets

On Wednesday, the Mets and new manager Carlos Mendoza made headway into filling out multiple openings in their coaching staff. The first hiring that was reported, was that the Mets would be adding former Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons as Carlos Mendoza’s bench coach for the upcoming season, per Will Sammon of The Athletic. For a greater look into the former ’86 Met and now Mets bench coach’s hiring, click here!

Along with that report, Andy Martino of SNY reported that Mike Sarbaugh will become the Mets’ third base coach after serving as the Guardians third base and infield coach for the past decade. Finally, Andy Martino of MLB.com announced that Antoan Richardson will be the Mets new first base coach after filling the same position last season with the San Francisco Giants.

The three new additions made on Wednesday nearly round out the coaching staff as Carlos Mendoza has gotten to work since he started in Queens just over a week ago. The tweet below from Mike Mayer of Metsmerized Online will show the current state of the Mets coaching staff with the three newest additions:

Mets coaching staff so far:

Manager – Carlos Mendoza
Bench coach – John Gibbons
Pitching coach – Jeremy Hefner
Hitting coach – Eric Chavez
Co-hitting coach – Jeremy Barnes
Third base coach – Mike Sarbaugh
Catching coach – Glenn Sherlock
First base coach – Antoan Richardson

— Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) November 23, 2023

Latest Mets News

The Mets signed right-handed pitcher Joseph Yabbour to a minor league deal, per Mike Mayer of Metsmerized Online. The 20-year-old pitcher posted a 3.60 ERA and 12.6 K/9 in 20 innings in the Dominican Summer League with the Mariners. Yabbour is also the cousin of new Mets prospect Luisangel Acuña. 

The New York Mets signed Kevin Mahala as their minor league hitting coordinator, per his Twitter page. Mahala previously worked in the Phillies system and is one of many new hires as David Stearns tries to bring his guys into the Mets system. 

Latest MLB News

A trade between the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks went down on Wednesday, Arizona received veteran third-baseman Eugenio Suárez and sent right-handed reliever Carlos Vargas and catcher Seby Zavala to Seattle in return, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. For a deeper dive into the details of the trade click here. 

Shōta Imanaga, who started the championship game of the World Baseball Classic for Japan this past March, is expected to be posted by this coming Monday, per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Check out MMO’s article on the Imanaga posting and his free agency outlook. 

An article release by Yahoo Japan, revealed a lot about Japanese star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto‘s upcoming free agency. Among those reports was that he would prefer to play with other Japanese players as well as revealing that geography is not a big factor into his decision. To learn more about Yamamoto’s deciding factors click here. 

Former Chicago White Sox shortstop and current free agent Tim Anderson held a Thanksgiving turkey drive in his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Latest on MMO

FOCO provided Mets fans with some great holiday gift ideas!

Learn more about the Mets’ hiring of John Gibbons.

Allison Waxman updated us on Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s impending free agency. 

On This Date in Mets History

2010: The Mets introduce new manager of the club Terry Collins at Citi Field. Collins would go on to manage a franchise record 1,134 games, including 551 wins and a World Series appearance in 2015.

1961: Mets manager Casey Stengel appears on a float during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with Billy Leos, Monte Irvin, and Gil Hodges to try and let people know about the new club in town.

Birthdays: Justin Turner (39), Ryan McGuire (52), Rich Sauveur (60), Tom Hall (76)

The post Morning Briefing: Mets Continue to Build Coaching Staff appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

The passion exuded by redhead Daniel Joseph Staub was not outward. He was a gentle soul with a quiet intensity underneath. He ensured each season, each game, and each at-bat had his utmost attention.

Staub didn’t become the first player to tally at least 500 hits with four clubs by accident. He totaled 11,229 plate appearances over the course of a career that encompassed 2,951 games. The 1973 season was not Staub’s best, but it was the closest he ever got to a World Series title. Despite a key injury during that postseason, he nearly willed his team to the ring.

Staub came to New York from Montreal, where he was embraced, unlike any player in that franchise’s history. “Le Grand Orange” represented the Expos’ early years. However, the locals were forced to deal with the news of a trade to Queens in April 1972. Gil Hodges, shortly before his death, insisted on getting Staub to strengthen a weak Mets offense. The Expos agreed to part with Rusty in exchange for three youngsters.

Just as the trade was devastating to Montreal’s fan base, New York reveled in getting someone of Staub’s caliber—someone who could add spice to a lineup that was getting rather bland.

Staub, who had played well for perennial second-division clubs, fed off the talent around him and the Mets benefited from Rusty’s arrival. New York jumped out by winning 25 of its first 32. Staub’s insertion in the cleanup spot expanded the possibilities of the offense and lessened pressure on Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones. Combined with their usual supply of great pitching, the Mets were six games up on Pittsburgh by May 21.

The good times, though, would end abruptly. Staub, hitting .315 with eight homers and 31 RBIs, was plunked on the right hand by a pitch from soon-to-be teammate George Stone of Atlanta on June 3. Although he tried to fight through the pain, the soreness was too much. X-rays disclosed a fractured hamate bone. It was part of an epidemic that engulfed the Mets, as Agee, Jones, and others were also set back by injuries. When Rusty went on the disabled list, the

Mets were perched in first place. When he came back on September 18, the Mets were 16.5 games out. The start of the 1973 season charted an all-too-familiar and unwelcome pattern. Staub couldn’t shake the injury that derailed his ’72 campaign, while other vital members of the Mets succumbed to similar fates.

He missed only 10 games but couldn’t get the Mets out of last place. With a little more than a month left in the regular season, they were still in the NL East cellar. A grand slam on August 27 against San Diego helped to forge New York’s resurgence.

Staub stayed at the forefront by batting .321 with five homers, 21 RBIs, and 24 runs scored over the final 33 games. He ended on a 15-game hitting streak, going 4-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI in a 6–4 NL East clincher in Chicago.

His scorching bat kept blazing in the third game of the NLCS. Two home runs in two at-bats gave him three for the series and jump-started the Mets to a 9–2 victory that put them on the precipice of an unlikely pennant. Staub’s offense decidedly won Game 3 and his defense almost won Game 4.

Rusty made an over-the-shoulder grab in the top of the sixth to preserve the Mets’ slim 1–0 lead. In the 11th, Dan Driessen had what appeared to be a tie-breaking extra-base hit, but Staub raced back to the warning track and hauled it in.

This valiant effort, though, came with a price. As Staub secured the catch, he careened into the right-center-field wall. Though he pressed on through the Reds’ 12-inning victory, a separated shoulder made him unavailable for the deciding Game 5.

Staub’s status remained in doubt heading into the World Series. The designated hitter, introduced during that regular season, was not implemented for the Fall Classic. Manager Yogi Berra chose to sacrifice Rusty’s limitations in the field for what he could do at the plate.

Though he toughed it out, Staub’s shoulder pain forced him to throw submarine-style. It had no effect on his hitting, though. Staub batted .423 against Oakland, hitting safely in each of the six games he played. He drove in five of the Mets’ six runs while belting a pair of homers in a Game 4 victory that helped New York draw even with the A’s.

But Staub’s weary body could only take the Mets so far. Despite going 2-for-4 in the seventh game, driving in one of his team’s two runs, New York produced little else in a 5–2 defeat that gave Oakland the title.

Both the Mets and their outfielder regressed in 1974, but Staub rebounded the next year to have his best performance yet—becoming the first player in team history to surpass 100 RBIs in a single season.

A year like 1975 should’ve made him an indispensable piece to a team lacking in run-producing hitters. But team chairman M. Donald Grant had a fondness for bad ideas. Planting seeds of public discontent that would grow in the coming years, he sent Staub to Detroit for a prospect and a washed-up Mickey Lolich.

Staub returned in the early 80s to finish his lengthy career. From there, his popularity and impact in New York only got bigger.

The post Spirit of ’73: Rusty Staub appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

In fact, stickball brought refuge to a young Kranepool. As his stickball reputation grew, local gangs treated Kranepool well and insisted he not hang around with them after dark as they didn’t want him to get into trouble and not be able to play on their teams.

Growing up in a single-parent household, Kranepool was drawn to athletics, mainly basketball and baseball. With the guidance and support of his next-door neighbor, Jimmy Schiafo, who acted as a father figure, the left-handed hitter was developing and drawing interest from Major League teams.

The team that showed the most interest in Kranepool’s services was that of the recently-formed New York Mets.

Sixty-one years after a then-17-year-old Kranepool signed a contract with the Mets, the Bronx-native has recently penned an autobiography on his life and playing career called “The Last Miracle: My 18-Year Journey with Amazin’ New York Mets.”

The memoir, published by Triumph Books, focuses on Kranepool’s development as a player, memories of the club’s first World Series championship in 1969, organizational miscues and his life-saving kidney transplant.

Triumph Books

Kranepool, 78, offers frank and transparent views on a myriad of topics, including his displeasure of Yogi Berra’s managerial decisions, resentment toward Gene Mauch for not playing him in his only All-Star Game appearance in 1965 and frustration with many of the Mets’ front office moves in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Over his eighteen-year career, Kranepool played for just one organization, a rarity in today’s game. Kranepool is the franchise leader in games played (1,853), and owns the third-most hits (1,418) and fifth-most RBIs (614). ‘The Krane’ also owns the eighth-most home runs by a player under the age of 20 in Major League Baseball history with 12.

In the latter part of Kranepool’s career, he developed into a dependable bat off the bench. In 1974, Kranepool went 17-for-35 (.486) in pinch-hitting opportunities, setting a single-season record for highest batting average by a pinch hitter.

I had the privilege of speaking with Kranepool over the phone, where he discussed his early development in the Bronx, spending nearly two decades with the Mets and his kidney transplant.

MMO: What prompted you to write the memoir?

Kranepool: I just figured I had a lot of stories to tell. Ralph Kiner is not around, so why not let the fans enjoy them? I participated in all of them since 1962, and there’s nobody here to talk about that stuff.

MMO: A prominent figure throughout your youth was your neighbor, Jimmy Schiafo. You write in the book that he acted as a father figure. How important was his presence in your life and early development as an athlete?

Kranepool: I was brought up without a dad; I lost my father in the war. I needed a replacement and he was my next-door neighbor and took a liking to me.

He had two boys and they were involved in baseball, and one was on my team. He worked us all out, kept us in shape and taught us the fundamentals of baseball. That’s really where I got my start.

MMO: You write that your reputation for baseball started by playing stickball in the Bronx. What memories do you have from playing stickball?

Kranepool: Stickball was the game to play in the Bronx because you had a lot of playgrounds with concrete fields; you didn’t have a lot of playing fields that were being taken care of. We played every day.

Being a guy from the Bronx, we didn’t have a lot of money in our pockets, so we were going out to camps and stuff like that in the summer. We all got together at the playgrounds and worked out every day. We ran there after breakfast and stayed there until lunch. We then ran home to grab a sandwich and came back and played basketball or baseball or whatever you could do on the playground.

It was cheap, inexpensive and a lot of fun for all of us.

MMO: Your first significant injury was when you fractured your elbow on your throwing arm in your second year of Little League. You write that your elbow never healed and you never had surgery to repair it. Did that injury ever bother you later in your career? And do you think you would’ve kept pitching?

Kranepool: I think I could have pitched. I was an outstanding pitcher in Little League and set all kinds of records. I was never the same afterwards, and nobody really knew about it. That’s something you don’t brag about with any type of deficiency you might have. So I played with it.

Did it affect me? It probably did; it probably affected my swing. I was a better player, I think, before that [injury]. But you still play and overcome and enjoy the game of baseball. I played every day and was able to perform, and we enjoyed ourselves.

To this day, it’s not right and never will be.

MMO: Is it true that you taught yourself to throw right handed after that injury?

Kranepool: I did! I caught for a year and a half and I can throw right handed. I’m not as good right handed as I am left handed because I never continued it. But I could throw because I wanted to hit. Certain things you can’t do so you just overcome them and keep trying.

MMO: That reminds me of Billy Wagner learning to throw left handed after breaking his right arm when he was a kid.

Kranepool: Well, that’s what it is. You use the other one and compensate for that. If you keep throwing with the opposite arm you’re going to overcome everything.

I did it for a year and a half, and I had fun doing it. I liked catching because you’re in the action.

MMO: Can you talk about the interest that the New York Mets showed in you throughout your high school career, and the relationship you developed with scout Bubber Jonnard?

Kranepool: Bubber was the scout in the tri-state area, and he followed all the players as they were growing up. When I was in sandlot baseball, I attracted a lot of attention because I was a pretty good hitter, and pitched a little bit but could never throw the same [after injury].

I really attracted the Mets because of my hitting. They followed me during high school and went to all my games.

When I signed, I graduated high school, and two days later the Mets came to my door, sat on my doorsteps, and wanted to talk a contract because you can’t sign until your graduating class is out. They were the first ones in my house, and they sat there all night, and we finally signed a contract.

MMO: I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you graduated high school, signed a major league contract and then took a plane to the West Coast to meet the Mets just a few days later. Do you remember what was going through your mind at the time as a 17-year-old?

Kranepool: It was excitement for myself signing a contract. It was my goal as a Little Leaguer to start and play in the major leagues and perform. I didn’t expect to go out to the National League and to Los Angeles straight away, but I did.

They packed me up and put me on a plane; the first time I ever flew. Little did I know that opening night out there was Sandy Koufax. He pitched a no-hitter and struck out 13. I told Casey [Stengel], ‘I’m ready for college.’ [Laughs.]

MMO: You sat next to Casey Stengel during games to observe what was happening and get a feel for the major leagues when you arrived. What were some of your early takeaways from sitting next to Stengel?

Kranepool: He was having a good time with himself. He was 71, enjoying baseball, loving life and always discussing the game. He was the first one at the ballpark and the last one to leave.

He put a lot of time in on the team, but we just didn’t have the talent. We had a lot of older guys who were past their prime. Back in those days, 35 was more than your prime, and he knew that he really didn’t have the talent to really perform against the other teams.

Stengel took a lot of pressure off of guys because he kept the press busy writing stories about the Mets, talking about the old Yankees, all kinds of things. It made it easier for the players to perform because losing 100 games was not easy for any team. It’s tough to lose 100 games, and we did it for several years.

MMO: Obviously, the first seven years of the club’s existence were disappointing and underwhelming. And then came 1969. When did you start to notice that things were changing for the better in the organization?

Kranepool: We made a lot of changes in the front office, and of course, we acquired Gil Hodges in 1968. He was a young manager coming over from Washington, and he taught us how to play the game and how to win.

We were better in ’68. I think it was the second time we hadn’t lost 100 games and we thought it was a big improvement. In spring training, he discussed it with us and told us to set some goals for ourselves and taught us how to win, how to play the game and how you should play. A win here or there makes a big difference at the end of a season. So we did perform better.

By the summer of ’69, we started to get to .500. When we got to .500, it was at the stage of the season where we had never been that high in the season.

We started to play really good baseball, and in the second half of the season, we won 60-to-70 percent of our games. We beat every club that we had to and went on to win the pennant. We beat the Cubs by eight or nine games, and they were up eight or nine games most of the year.

MMO: Something you write about in the book is that you wish the club gave you more time to develop, especially when it came to the mental preparation of the game. Looking back, how would you have handled a young Ed Kranepool?

Kranepool: You can’t handle that any differently; they’re in control of your outcome. I would have been better off playing in the minor leagues for a year or two, developing with guys my own age; this way you can perform up to what your ability is.

Every time I went to the minors, I hit over .300 and was one of the outstanding players in the league. I just never developed.

You don’t improve facing Koufax, [Bob] Gibson, [Don] Drysdale, [Juan] Marichal and all of these Hall of Famers. There were so many of them in the National League in the sixties, and if you look at the records, most of those guys made the Hall of Fame. Guys don’t really perform and improve against those types of pitchers.

MMO: Did you feel pressure to succeed right away given all the hype and publicity surrounding your signing?

Kranepool: I did because everyone expected a whole lot more from you. They wanted you to do more because they wanted you to lead them to the pennant. And that’s why they were frustrated: they wanted to win. I don’t blame them, I wanted to win!

Until they surrounded me in the lineup, they could always pitch against you. I was an aggressive hitter, and I wanted to swing. I wasn’t going to walk my way to the major leagues. I would swing at pitches that were out of my strike zone, out of my hitting zone, and I didn’t perform with it.

As I matured and got older and caught up with the league, I started to produce some numbers that the Mets were expecting. But I’d been around so long that the organization said, “Maybe he’s over the hill.”

I was in the league for 17 years and performing. I could have done a lot better late in my career; I hit .300, .320, .290, .280. Those are competitive numbers for the better players in the league. But people still remember that you struggled when you were 17-18 [years old] in the league.

MMO: You were a terrific pinch hitter, as you posted a career .277 batting average in those situations. Can you talk about some of the challenges of pinch-hitting, and the preparation it takes in order to come up late in a game?

Kranepool: Mentally, I wanted to prove the manager wrong. When I wasn’t playing, I should have been playing. They should have had me in the lineup so I would get four at-bats instead of one.

Once I had that job, I prepared myself, and in the middle innings took some extra swings down below in the dugout and got myself ready and had my bat prepared. I knew when I was going to pinch hit; I didn’t pinch hit when the game was not on the line. It was always in a crucial situation where the game was on the line and I knew who was going to pitch, so I was physically ready to pinch hit.

As I got older, I did it so well that I was efficient in it. A team like the Mets, when they’re not playing well, you don’t have that many opportunities for game situations. You’re not going to pinch hit when you’re down 6-0 and you have a couple other options to choose. They’re going to use them, and I never got a chance to play in a lot of games.

It was a situation where I was doing it to show up the manager and work my way back into the lineup. But I did it pretty well.

MMO: From reading your book, you can tell how much respect and appreciation you had for Gil Hodges. From everything I’ve read about Hodges, he really seemed like a manager who was ahead of his time with his methods and how he managed a ball club. In your view, what did Hodges do well as a manager?

Kranepool: Gil learned how to use everybody and had one set of rules. He was a very tough disciplinarian. I had trouble with Gil in the early years, I had some disagreements with him, and we didn’t get along for two or three years. But I fought through it, and he did also.

He worked with me and sent me out to show me that he was in charge, and I went down to the minor leagues and hit over .300 and worked my way back to the majors. M. Donald Grant gave his word that he would get me back to the majors and wouldn’t just strand me in the minors. When I performed, he lived up to his promise and I got along very well with Mr. Grant.

MMO: I loved the anecdote you shared about winning a Kobe bull while barnstorming with the Mets in Japan in 1974. Can you talk about that event, and how you ended up with a bull as a prize?

Kranepool: I won a bull in Japan because I was the best hitter on the ball club. I led the team in home runs and average and played well over there and got an award.

It was quite funny how I ended it in the last game of the year. It was either myself or the first baseman the Giants had, Sadaharu Oh. We had a couple of home runs apiece, and then I hit a home run in the first inning. They moved the bull to one side of the field, and it looked like I was going to get it. Then Oh hit a home run, and they moved the bull back to the third base-side. Towards the seventh or eighth inning, I hit another home run, so I won the bull. I hit about eight home runs in 18 games.

They gave me the award, and it was fun. I didn’t bring it home because it was too expensive; you had to leave it in quarantine for a while. I traded him for a couple of first-class tickets to New York and left the ballclub with a week to go. We had a full week left, but I didn’t choose to stay in Japan.

MMO: You’re very honest and transparent throughout the book, especially with certain individuals like Gene Mauch, Yogi Berra, Joe McDonald and Joe Torre. Can you talk about your openness with some of the displeasure you had for certain individuals?

Kranepool: Whoever’s in charge, if they don’t treat you right, you’re going to treat them the same way they treated you. They didn’t make considerations and didn’t keep their promises, so there’s no way you’re going to like them.

Gene Mauch was a tough manager to play against. He always wanted to win and do anything to win for his ball club, had nothing to do with me, but he was tough on us. You wanted to beat him, and every time we played, you performed a little bit better.

Some of our people were incompetent in our organization. They made deals and trades and got rid of players who should’ve been playing, and other guys they kept. I wanted to win as a young player coming up; I was tired of losing. When they kept making bad moves, I critiqued them and let them know that I didn’t like it.

The only thing I wanted to do was win and win a World Series, and win a couple of them. We should’ve won two, we only won one. We lost the second one, and that was incompetence on the manager’s part. We should’ve been a better ball club then we were. If Gil was alive, we win more pennants, and become better for it.

MMO: One of the many things I learned while reading your book was that you were offered the opportunity to work with Robert Redford for “The Natural.” Can you talk about that?

Kranepool: We did. A lot of guys got opportunities when they were performing there. You had to play and do it in Buffalo. I didn’t choose to go up there because I didn’t know how long I was going to be at minimal pay.

Robert Redford was the star, and we had to teach him how to play baseball, and we worked a little bit with him in New York. But we weren’t going up to Buffalo. I wasn’t going to spend time up there without my family.

MMO: You write about your desire to work in the front office for the Mets after your playing career was through. Was that something you had given a lot of thought to?

Kranepool: I always did. I never wanted to manage, I didn’t want to confront the players on a daily basis; let them perform and do it on the field. I can work from above and around them, and that’s what I wanted to do.

I probably would have done it if Mrs. Payson stayed alive and didn’t give the club to her daughter and pick Joe McDonald to be the general manager. He killed off some minor league teams, traded those players, and then he traded from the major league club, and the Mets went from first to last.

MMO: You write about the process it took for you to find a kidney donor, and the help that Jay Horwitz provided to spread the word. Several years removed from surgery, how are you feeling?

Kranepool: I’m doing great! It’s four years since the surgery and it’s acting well. It did take me a couple of years to do it, and then we finally got one (kidney donor).

We were very lucky to be able to put together a structure, a deal that helped two guys; myself and another gentleman who was a firefighter. He actually got my donor and I got his wife as a donor; she was a perfect match. It worked out well for both.

MMO: When you look back on your career, Ed, what are you most proud of? 

Kranepool: I’m proud of staying long enough in the organization to finally see us win a World Series. That’s the one goal when you start, and I finished with a World Series. Like I said, the biggest disappointment of my career was losing the ’73 World Series in seven games.

The post MMO Exclusive: 1969 World Champion Ed Kranepool appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Perhaps the most important trade in Mets’ history wasn’t even for a player. In the story of a franchise, there are a few seminal moments. The acquisition and appointment of Gil Hodges as manager is definitely one of them.

He had been a Met, a member of the original 1962 club in the twilight of his playing career. More famously, Hodges was a significant part of the Dodgers’ success in the late 1940s and 50s. The leadership qualities which made him a respected first baseman weren’t lost on organizations seeking a manager. And for more than four seasons, he oversaw an inexperienced Washington Senators club which improved incrementally each year.

Mets’ vice president Johnny Murphy sought a replacement for the recently-departed Wes Westrum. He had a connection in Washington: George Selkirk, the Senators’ general manager and Murphy’s former roommate when they were Yankee teammates.

Selkirk wouldn’t give in so easily. But shortly after Murphy took over GM duties from Bing Devine, the offer was Hodges for right-handed pitcher Bill Denehy and $100,000 as compensation to release Hodges from his deal with Washington. Realizing the possibility of no return if he decided to leave when the contract expired following the 1968 season, Selkirk relented.

Inheriting a club that had suffered 100 or more defeats in five of its first six seasons, he instilled a confidence that future Mets teams would be different than their predecessors.

Hodges proved to be more patient than most disciplined leaders and less vocal also. But there was never any doubting whose word mattered in the Mets’ clubhouse. Many leaders are usually feared or loved. Gil was both. No player was immune from his authority. And no player would dare question it.

As for in-game strategy, he maximized the talent at his disposal—coaxing and adjusting a lineup to create the greatest chance of victory. He allowed inexperienced players to work through tough situations and out of any rough stretches. By the end of 1968, the Mets made a significant step toward respectability, even if it didn’t appear that way in the standings.

New York improved by 12 games with a franchise-best 73 wins and a ninth-place finish—just the second time the Mets had emerged from the cellar. That was nothing compared to what took place the next year.

There were many reasons why the Mets became champions in 1969—Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman’s brilliant pitching, stellar defense, and timely hitting. But none of that would have been possible without Hodges’s unwavering leadership. That, in short, is his Mets’ legacy.

His way overdue election to the Hall of Fame—better late than never—is based on his success as a player, but Hodges’ influence as a manager in New York certainly should certainly be included.

The post OTD 1967: Mets Trade for New Manager Gil Hodges appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Orlando Ramirez, USA Today

Good morning, Mets fans!

Unfortunately, for both the Mets and the MLB as a whole, news has been Scarce. Luckily, the Winter Meetings are vastly approaching.

The post Morning Briefing: White Sox Showing Interest In Mike Clevinger appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

In April 1969, humans were hundreds of thousands of miles away from setting foot on the moon just as the New York Mets seemed far away from a World Series title.

By October 15, both distances had been covered and two feats once thought of as miracles were achieved.

The Mets—cellar dwellers for the better part of their first seven years—headed into Game 5 on the brink of an accomplishment registering as much awe July’s moon landing.

Even 100 regular-season wins and a sweep of the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS  did not convince skeptics that New York was capable of toppling the 109-win Orioles in the World Series.

Despite dropping Game 1 in Baltimore, the magic refused to fade. Three straight wins turned skeptics into believers. And now a win away, the elements bringing the Mets to this juncture — superb starting pitching and timely hitting — carried them to the top.

But fate intervened once more, with the Orioles up 3-0 and poised to take the series back to Baltimore. The first pitch from  Dave McNally  to start the bottom of the sixth dove in on Cleon Jones and rolled toward the Mets’ dugout.

Jones went up the first base line thinking it hit him in the foot before home plate umpire Lou DiMuro called him back. Hodges stoically approached DiMuro and presented what turned out to be indisputable evidence: a ball with a small smudge of shoe polish. DiMuro was convinced. Jones was awarded first base.

Soon to be named MVP, Donn Clendenon stepped in and belted his third homer of the series to pull New York to within a run. Al Weis, emblematic of the unlikely nature of the Mets’ unexpected success, delivered in the seventh with a game-tying home run — the only round-tripper he hit at Shea all year — to finish off a fabulous .455 batting average over the five games. Two doubles and two Oriole errors in the eighth led to a 5-3 Mets’ lead.

It was an advantage the Mets’ superb big-game pitcher would protect. Through three innings, Jerry Koosman had allowed four hits and three runs. He yielded just one hit the rest of the way while his hitters mounted their comeback.

Koosman’s pitch in the top of the ninth to O’s second baseman (and future Mets’ manager) Davey Johnson was sent to deep left field. Jones, on the warning track, knelt as he secured the clinching out almost as if to pay respect to the heavens. It was one of the franchises’ iconic images, as was Koosman jumping into the arms of catcher Jerry Grote as the masses congregated on a Shea Stadium turf about to be torn to shreds.

What had been inconceivable in April was reality in October. One hundred-to-one odds to win it all when the season began, now the Mets were World Champions.

The post OTD 1969: Miracle Mets Capture First World Series appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

When Cleon Jones squeezed his glove around the ball that Baltimore Orioles second baseman Davey Johnson hit to left field in the top of the ninth in Game Five of the 1969 World Series to give the Mets their first championship in their eight-year history, it was something he never dreamed of doing.

For Jones, making it as a major league ballplayer from his hometown of Africatown, a historic community located just several miles north of downtown Mobile, Alabama, was a dream in and of itself.

After all, the Mobile area was a hotbed for athletic talent, as players such as Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Ozzie Smith, Billy Williams, Tommie Agee, and Jones all grew up playing ball in the area. The talent was fierce, and there was a bevy of competition that even Jones surmises that part of the reason he was able to make a career as a big leaguer was being in the right place at the right time.

Jones, 80, reflects on his hometown and the special connection it had and still has to this day in his new memoir, “Coming Home: My Amazin’ Life with the New York Mets,” released August 2 from Triumph Books.

Triumph Books

In the book, Jones details his childhood in Africatown, being raised by his grandparents after his parents left him and his brother to find work, pursuing both baseball and football, and eventually signing with the Mets and becoming a world champion in 1969.

Jones’ memoir is filled with personal anecdotes and arduous moments, including a car accident that ended his pursuit in a career in football to some of the unjust and despicable racist moments he endured.

His major league career lasted thirteen seasons, twelve with the Mets, and he posted a career .281 batting average with 93 home runs and 524 RBIs in 1,213 regular season games. Among all-time Mets, Jones ranks sixth in games played (1,201), fifth in at-bats (4,223), fourth in hits (1,188), tied for eighth in RBI (521), and tenth in extra-base hits (308).

Jones’ 1969 season was his standout year, as he posted career highs in average (.340), OBP (.422), slugging (.482), hits (164), RBI (75), and fWAR (6.3). Jones’ 6.3 fWAR was the seventh-highest for an outfielder in that season.

Post-retirement, Jones and his family moved back to Africatown and have done their part to help restore a dying community. When Jones was growing up, he estimated that around 10,000 to 12,000 people inhabited that area; now, that number has plunged to around 2,000 people.

With his non-profit, The Cleon Jones Last Out Community Foundation, Jones and his family are looking to raise funds to help build and refurbish homes, combat blight, and provide programs and opportunities to those who wish to make this place their home.

I had the privilege of speaking to Jones prior to the book’s release, to discuss his memoir and detail some memorable moments from his life and career.

MMO: What prompted you to write the book now?

Jones: It was a family matter. Sitting around the kitchen table talking with my wife and two kids, Anja and Cleon Jr., we often talked about the neighborhood and baseball. Each time we sat and talked, I would add something different and new, and they said, “We never heard that before. You need to put together a book.” And I said, “I don’t think so.”

Finally, they talked me into putting a book together. After reading it myself, I think there’s some good information, and people know who I am. I think it was a great idea.

MMO: A main theme in the book is your home and community. Can you talk about how your hometown helped shape you into the man and ballplayer you became?

Jones: I come from a historic neighborhood in Africatown. We always reference Plateau Africatown as our neighborhood. Coming up here, there were some great ballplayers that came up with and before me.

I was lucky that I grew up in Africatown because the family unit was intact at that time, and all the families around me had eight, nine, ten, eleven, or twelve kids! One family had nineteen and another had twenty-two. Most of them were boys, and when I came out of my front door, if I was lucky enough to have a ball, and I threw it up before it came back down, I had enough for two teams.

We were able to play baseball in the schoolyard and on the field, and we played tops. A lot of folks might not realize what tops is: you get a broomstick and take soda tops, and you hit the soda tops, which is a difficult thing to do. I think we mastered that.

When I came up, Africatown was a neighborhood of about 12,000 people and consisted of Happy Hills, Kelly Hills, Plateau, Magazine, Magazine Point, and Lewis Quarters.

I keep emphasizing this because it’s important; the family unit was intact, and that was because of the availability of jobs. We had two paper mills around us, International and Scott Paper Company; we had Alcoa Aluminum, and we had other mills that people could leave home in the morning and it wouldn’t take them more than five to ten minutes to get to. As a result, the family unit was intact, and that was important at that time.

I grew up with my grandmother and great-grandmother; my mother and father had moved on for the very reason that I just talked about: seeking work. I was raised by my grandparents with an older brother who’s two years older. He was also a good athlete.

Having people like Satchel Paige and Hank Aaron and a guy named Ralph Donahue, who was a pitcher who went against Satchel Paige here in the Mobile area. They pitched until dark. They were striking out everybody, that’s how good both were at the time.

We know who Satchel Paige went on to be: one of the greatest pitchers ever to live. This other guy was a neighborhood guy that lived and talked about all the great things and reminisced about being as good as Satchel Paige. Guys like James “Fat” Robertson, who managed our local team and funded us bats and balls and a place to practice and play, enhanced my skills as it relates to baseball and getting to the big leagues.

Africatown still exists. We found the Clotilda, that’s the ship that brought the last cargo of the would-be slaves to America, and it ended up here in my hometown. A couple of years ago we ended up finding the ship, a local writer, Ben Raines, actually found the ship. That history, along with all of the baseball, makes it a dynamic place.

As I stated earlier, there were about 12-14,000 people in my neighborhood, now it’s only about 2,000. We are a dying community with the average age probably being about 60 years old in the community.

My family has been fighting for years to try and do some things to entice people to move back in to try and grow the community, and let the world know about Africatown and its historical significance as it relates to this country.

MMO: From reading your book, it seemed like that area was filled with a ton of athletic talent.

Jones: No doubt about it. Everybody asks, “Were you the best player in your community?” The answer is always no. There were guys whom I wanted to be like; guys that were my age who were much better. I was fortunate that I got a chance to play, and some of these guys just didn’t get the opportunity to.

I’ve always had a mindset that I would keep in touch with all of these players because these guys I’m talking about who were so talented inspired me and made me, so-to-speak. I just got up every morning and worked every day to try and be as good as those guys.

I can think about all the other hundreds of guys who I came up with who were better, in my opinion. You have to be in the right place at the right time, I guess. I give all the credit to my community and the people in the community, and that’s why we’re here now fighting back.

We never had an illusion as to where we’d live after baseball, so we came back home, and we’ve been fighting for over thirty years to make this community what it really should be. And I’m not just talking about athletics; I’m talking the historical significance, building homes, refurbishing homes, and making sure people are educated about who they are and the history.

Those things are beginning to happen, but it has taken all these years to try to put things on the right track.

MMO: And that’s what your non-profit, The Cleon Jones Last Out Community Foundation, is all about, right?

Jones: That’s exactly what we do each and every day. I’d like to give a shoutout to my family again, as they enticed me to put this together so we can raise funds to put roofs on people’s houses, refurbish their homes, whether it be paint, windows, doors, new floors, and things of that nature.

We are right now trying to put together some cohesive unit where we can start building houses. If you build houses, you can entice young folks back to the community, and that’s certainly what we need.

As I stated earlier, we are a dying community, and there’s a lot of interest in it; we get knocks on the door asking if there’s any land available and if they can build a house.

We are working towards all of those things and we have to look out for the homeless and senior citizens. This community is engrossed with senior citizens and people over 70, and we have two people over 100; one is 101 and the other is 102. We have many that are up in their nineties.

Longevity lives in this community, and we just want to make sure we can entice some young folks to come back and build. That will help our churches, our schools, and things of that nature. We have a plan and we just have to implement it. Everything costs money and certainly, it takes some time, but that’s why we are here.

MMO: You write that you were a natural left-handed hitter but that changed early on as a kid. What prompted you to start hitting right-handed?

Jones: Sometimes things happen for the best. Where we played, I was a left-handed hitter and we only had one ball. I used to hit the ball into the marsh down the right field line. And so, they told me if I was going to play, I couldn’t hit left-handed, I would have to hit from the other side because I was losing their ball, and they didn’t have any.

I got on the other side and started to play with that, and just never went back to the right side. [Laughs.] I was a left-hander from six years old up until around thirteen or so, and then I never left. That’s when I started to play with the big boys.

MMO: Along with baseball, you played football at A&M and were getting letters from the Cleveland Browns. You got into a terrible accident, and you write that the accident changed everything for you and that’s when you decided you were done with football. Can you talk about that experience and how that eventually led you into a career in baseball?

Jones: People have an opinion about who you are, what you can do, and what you’re good at. Certainly, at the time, I was considered a better football player than a baseball player.

I came home from a break from school and got into an automobile accident. A car hit us head on, and I went through the windshield. As I think about it, people looked at me and were hollering and crying, and I didn’t feel anything at the time. The lacerations were so gross, I guess, that people looked at me and were crying.

I was pronounced dead two or three times. I lacerated my eyelashes; Lord knows why it didn’t put out my eyes. God is always at work. They took me to the hospital in an ambulance, and the doctors were staring over me and sewed me up and whatnot. A friend of mine worked at the hospital, and I could hear his voice asking the doctor if I was going to make it. The doctor said, “If we can stop the bleeding, we believe he’ll make it.”

Everybody thought my career in both football and baseball was a thing of the past. I didn’t go back to school, but I ended up a month or two later starting to work out with baseball.

Two months later, I signed a baseball contract. I was going back to school, and the Mets called me, wanting me to go to instructional league in 1962. I went down to instructional league and had a great year, and that was the same year Ed Kranepool signed. He was a bonus baby that year. I got a little money but that’s because they told me they didn’t have any more money because Kranepool got it all. [Laughs.] We talk about that all the time.

That’s probably the best thing that happened to me after the accident that I was able to go to winter ball because the two of us ended up being the best two players on the roster. I was touted to go to Triple-A that year, and that was a big jump from just signing to going to Triple-A. I had another setback where I had a hemorrhoid problem and I needed to get surgery on that, and that set me back another month. That all happened when I was in Auburn, New York, in A-ball.

I ended up coming home and having surgery and went to Raleigh, North Carolina, in I believe July, and I ended up going to the big leagues after that season. The accident didn’t stop me because God was in the mix, and here I am again doing God’s work.

MMO: What are your memories from being scouted and eventually signing with the Mets?

Jones: The Mets had scouts out. A scout named Julius Morgan came to Mobile to see me. A guy named Clyde Gray (friend and sort of agent, as Jones writes) and his wife wrote the Mets that they had a player who was going to be a big-leaguer and that someone needed to come to see him.

The Mets sent Morgan, and when he came to see me, we were playing a Sunday game after church. The first time up I hit a home run, and then it rained. [Laughs.] He didn’t get a chance to see me but that one time at bat.

Clyde Gray and I went to Salisbury, South Carolina, to work out. We went to Carolina a week or two later and worked out, and he liked what he saw and so did the other managers. They offered me a contract up there for $15,000. I told them, ‘No way am I signing for $15,000. [Tommie] Agee just got $65,000, and Kranepool got $100,000. I’m better than both of them.’ I said no, and we came back home.

When I got back home, the scout was sitting on the porch talking to my grandmother. My grandmother always had the last word. She said, “This man is trying to give you this money, and you’re acting a fool. Boy, if you don’t sign that contract, you’re going to have to deal with me!” That was the end of that. I signed the contract because Grandma said sign it, and it was the best move that I ever made, that grandma made me make. [Laughs.]

MMO: You write how you would regularly seek advice from several veteran players on the Mets, including Warren Spahn, Al Jackson, and Ken Boyer. What were some of the things you wanted to take away from them, and how did they aid you in becoming a better ballplayer?

Jones: It’s always good to know where you’re headed and how the other guys got there. Spahnie was one of the best left-handers ever; he was full of knowledge. Al Jackson was like a big brother to me; he just showed me the ropes and kept my mind focused on how to get to the big leagues and stay in the big leagues. Ken Boyer was a gentleman’s gentleman, and so was Jackson.

I was fortunate enough that Al Jackson was my roommate. Al showed me the ropes on pitching, how to concentrate on what it is you want to do, and gave me all of the particulars on and off the field. I’ll be forever grateful to Al Jackson.

The good news is that the Mets were the kind of organization that tried to get friendly people to be teammates and to rally around one another. It wasn’t quite there at that time, but I keep mentioning this name all the time in Johnny Murphy. He was assistant general manager at the time and became the general manager, and he was the glue to the organization as I saw it. He had the foresight to put me with Al Jackson so I could learn from Al and certainly that worked out.

I learned how to concentrate on what it was that I wanted to do and take charge. That’s what we talk about all the time: being in charge of who you are and not being in limbo as to what you wanted to do and know what you want to do at all times. That’s a big factor because all great hitters, and I’m not saying I was a great hitter, like Ted Williams, [Stan] Musial, [Willie] Mays, [Mickey] Mantle, Aaron, all these guys took charge when they went to the plate. That’s what a young player has to know, that he has to take charge.

There’s a way that you can do that, but it just doesn’t happen. If you are a good fastball hitter, don’t get beat by the fastball by taking it. That’s what I concentrated on was taking something away from the pitcher; if I take the fastball, I give you the curveball up until two strikes. It’s not just going to the plate with an empty head and a bat in your hand. It’s going to the plate with a bat in your hand and a mindset.

That’s what you learn from older guys, and I don’t know if baseball is that way now or not, but we shared the game when I played.

MMO: One of the things I found interesting was when you wrote about how you were one of the few players who would regularly watch film before and after games. When and why did you start doing that, and how did that help you with your play on the field?

Jones: I was always interested in mechanics. Often your mechanics cause you to go into slumps. And the other thing is that the baseball is the key. If you focus and you react to the baseball, whether it’s offensively or defensively, then you’re going to be in control.

A lot of guys don’t know when to react and don’t have a trigger for reaction. What I mean by that is the release point, or where the pitcher releases the ball, is where you take over. It’s the same thing for the outfield, you can’t go for the ball until you see it come off the bat. You can’t hit the ball until the pitcher releases it, so it’s release point, and the ball tells you what to do.

You have to be able to react to the ball when it’s in flight, whether offensively or defensively. Those are the triggers that you deal with. A lot of players never learn that, and as a result, they don’t get better and struggle throughout their careers.

MMO: When I say the name Gil Hodges, what comes to mind?

Jones: In my opinion, he’s the best manager I played for. Casey Stengel was a great manager because he had all those great teams with the Yankees, but Gil was the best manager because, we’ve been talking about preparation and being prepared, he was always prepared. What I mean by that is he coached every area of the game. He was good with pitchers, good with position players, and good with bench players. You might ask, how can he be good with bench players? If you talk to your players and you’re telling them that you don’t know when they’re going to be called on, but you have to stay ready and ready to react when you’re called on.

I think everyone knows that we only had four starters on that ’69 team: Agee, [Jerry] Grote, [Bud] Harrelson, and myself. Everybody else platooned. You win a championship with a platoon team [and] that speaks volume when you don’t have the kind of power that the Yankees had and other teams had that were great teams.

We had great pitching, and what we don’t get credit for is that we had great defense. We didn’t beat ourselves; you had to beat us. And that was because of Gil Hodges. He allowed us to make mistakes, and if you made a mistake, he wanted to make sure that you knew what you did so it wouldn’t happen again. He would drill you on those types of things.

If not for Gil Hodges, we wouldn’t be talking about the 1969 Mets. He made that team and brought this team together and told us in spring training that we were better than we thought we were. We all looked around at each other and said, “What is he talking about?” [Laughs.]

He was a real force on the team, and everybody respected him. I wouldn’t say everybody loved him because he had his ways that he dealt with players in a sergeant manner. But he was always cordial, and he always talked to you with a smile. Even when he walked out onto the field and got me that day (when Hodges removed Jones from left field on July 30, 1969), he had a smile on his face. Even that moment he had a plan, and he came to the ballpark with a plan each and every day and that’s why we won.

MMO: It seems that Hodges was a manager ahead of his time in many respects.

Jones: He could’ve managed at any time, but these players today wouldn’t fit with Gil. They would have to come down a notch or two to be on his team. Certainly, he would get them there, but they’re a little bit different today. He wouldn’t allow guys that struck out a whole lot to be hitting 3-0 and all those things. He had rules, and these guys don’t seem to have rules anymore; they just go up there swinging.

There was a time where I was hitting about .360, and if you were 3-0 you had to take a pitch. I said to him one day, ‘I’m hitting about .360, don’t you think it’s about time to let me hit 3-0?’ He laughed about it and said, “Yeah, you’re right. You can do it, go ahead.”

He was in control, and when I say in control, it was Gil Hodges’ team, and he managed it in a way that I hadn’t been a part of with any other manager. Like I said, he was good with pitchers, he was good with position players, he was good with all the players.

I see a lot of managers today that go out to the mound to pull a pitcher out, and it’s already too late. We used to say why close a barn door when the horse is already out and gone? Gil was always a hitter or two ahead of the situation.

MMO: You mentioned that Hodges told the team in spring training in ’69 that you all were better than what you thought. At what point during that season did you realize something special was occurring?

Jones: In July, we were having fun because we were winning. We knew we were getting a little bit better even though we knew the Cubs were up eight or nine games. We knew that we were getting better, and our pitching staff was growing and gaining confidence. We were gaining confidence as a team.

It was fun to go to the ballpark because we were winning, and he (Hodges) taught us how to win. We were confident that we could win every ballgame because there were very few games, except when we played Houston, that we were out of. And what I mean by that is if they were up four-five-six runs, we would fight back.

I don’t know how many one-run games we won that year, but I talk about it in the book how that made a difference. Even though we ran away with the lead at the end, it was because of Gil pushing everybody to be the best that they could be.

MMO: Your ’69 season was incredible, as you posted a .340 average and .422 on-base percentage. Was there anything specific you worked on or altered to raise your average and on-base as much as you did from your ’68 season?

Jones: After ’68, I knew that I could hit .300 in the big leagues. I got off to a slow start that year, and I went down to the last day being able to hit .300, and I ended up hitting .297.

I made a pact with myself in ’69, that I was going to get off to a good start. I worked hard to get a good start, come out of the box ready, and to have my average up to respectable. It worked for me because for the first three or four months I led the league, and when I cracked my ribs, no doubt in my mind I would’ve won the batting title that year.

Before I cracked my ribs, I was going up and I was just feeling better at the plate. Nothing was fooling me and getting by me. I was having three or four good at-bats each and every game. I was just on my game because I was in control.

MMO: That goes back to having a mindset at the plate like you talked about before.

Jones: I knew what happened my at-bat before this particular at-bat and what he threw me, and I knew if I made out and if I got a hit what I hit. I would deduct from that what I would probably get. It worked most of the time because pitchers have a book on players of what they think they can get you out on, what part of the plate and if they can pitch you inside or outside, up, or down. All of those things.

You can’t go up there thinking about that, but you have to. You have to understand that to be in control, you’ve got to minimize all of those things and take one that you can deal with and move forward.

MMO: What is it like to catch the final out of a deciding World Series game?

Jones: I never even thought about it before it happened. You go out to the outfield hoping and feeling that this is the last inning and we’re going to win. You never dream that the last out is going to fall into your glove and the last ball would put a staple on your career. Having been the last out of the 1969 World Series and you’re the guy that caught the ball.

I never had that kind of dream, but it’s now something that I’m noted for, along with the shoe polish deal. It was the greatest catch of the game. [Ron] Swoboda made great catches; Agee made great catches, but that was the greatest catch of the game. It just sealed a great year for a great organization.

MMO: Another subject you tackle in the book is some of the racism you dealt with in your life, and how you navigated through some awful moments. How were you able to stay so mentally tough and navigate through such cruel and awful racist times throughout the course of your life?

Jones: In the minor leagues, things happened. We knew what kind of world we came up in. You can’t prepare for all the things that happen, but Jackie Robinson was a stabilizing force to me because all you had to do was look at what he did. If he could do it, then you can do it. Jackie was all alone and had nobody but Rachel to come home to and vent his frustrations.

There were many times when I came home and I said to my wife, ‘I don’t know how many times I was called a n***** today, but it was a lot. And it’s probably going to be a lot tomorrow.’

Some things you just need to black out. I was threatened and everything else. But it’s a sport. It’s a game, and it’s a livelihood. People came to the game because they enjoyed it. You’re going to have haters, but sometimes you can win those haters over just by being Cleon and being a good ballplayer, and doing your job well.

That’s my mindset, that when someone hollers out of the stands, “N*****, if you hit that ball, I’m going to come down there and see about you,” well, I was going to hit that ball so hard that it would’ve gone out of Yellowstone Park. I was going to make sure I hit it hard. That always gave me the power to concentrate on why I was there: to be a ballplayer and to do good. I’d hit the ball off the wall and run the bases, and the guy would come down from the stands and say, “By God, n*****, you’re going to be a good one.”

That was who he was, but he was telling me who I was at the same time. Negativity has its place, but you have to understand that you can’t stop people from being people, whether they’re black, white, pink, purple, or anything different. You just have to do your thing, and you don’t have to win them over, but you can quiet them. You can quiet them down by being the best that you can be.

MMO: Finally, what do you hope readers take away from the book?

Jones: I just hope they take away that family is important, whether it’s your immediate family or your sports family or your neighborhood family. It’s all important and it’s important as you move forward.

My neighborhood made me, I didn’t make my neighborhood. What I got from my neighborhood, and all the people that I talk about in the book, made for a decent career for me because I didn’t want to let them down. They empowered me to be a major leaguer.

Think positive and be of good cheer, and know that when you work together you can make things happen.

MMO: Thank you very much for some time today, Cleon. Best of luck with the book.

Jones: Thank you.

To purchase a copy of Cleon Jones’ book, click here.

The post MMO Exclusive: Mets ’69 Hero Cleon Jones appeared first on Metsmerized Online.