Big news from late night/early morning: Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that the San Francisco Giants signed third baseman Matt Chapman to a six-year, $151 million extension. Chapman will be under contract with the Giants through the 2030 season.

Chapman was likely to opt-out of his contract this offseason to become a free agent, but now leaves the expected third basemen market this offseason to Alex Bregman and not much else.

The Mets came into Wednesday night’s matchup looking for a clean three-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox, and they came up big. Jesse Winker started the game with a boom as he hit a first-inning grand slam to put the Mets up 4-0 early. Tylor Megill went four-plus innings while giving up three runs in his start, but the Mets’ bullpen was stupendous, going five innings of shutout ball. The Mets pulled away late as the Red Sox bullpen lost all control, conceding four runs in the eighth inning, ultimately resulting in an 8-3 Mets win. Click here for a full game recap.

The Mets have now won their seventh game in a row, the longest active streak in MLB, and will have Thursday off as they prepare to host the Reds over the weekend. Sean Manaea is slated to open the series on Friday against the 67-73 Cincinnati Reds.

Wild Card Update

The Mets did not gain any ground on the third and final Wild Card spot on Wednesday as the Braves handled business against the Rockies. They remain a half game back.

The Padres and Diamondbacks both won as well. The Mets are 3.5 and 3.0 games behind them, respectively.

Latest Mets News

Kodai Senga, who has been on the IL with a left calf strain, threw 25 pitches off a mound with “noticeably increased intensity,” per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. DiComo added that Senga mentioned that he was transitioning his focus from leg rehab to getting his arm back in game shape.

Staying on Kodai Senga, Andy Martino of SNY.com reported that the Mets organization is increasingly optimistic that Senga will be able to return as a starting pitcher in 2024.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said that the Mets expect to get starting pitcher Paul Blackburn back from the IL during their Blue Jays series early next week.

1969 World Series champion Cleon Jones joined the “Erik Sherman Show” podcast to detail the 1960s Mets’ rise from losers to champions.

Mets outfield prospect Drew Gilbert blasted his sixth home run in his last 13 games for Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday night.

Mets assistant GM Ian Levin will be leaving the organization at the end of the season after 20 years with the club, per Andy Martino of SNY. 

The Mets continue to honor former chief photographer Marc Levine, who suddenly passed away on July 4. On Wednesday, Jay Horowitz announced that the club dedicated the first base well to Levine.

Noah Syndergaard joined the “Terry Collins Show” podcast to catch up with his old manager and talk about their memorable times in Queens.

Latest MLB News

MLB released the schedule and club assignments for the 2025 Arizona Fall League, by Brendan Samson of MLB.com. Mets prospects will play for the Scottsdale Scorpions, with the season starting on Oct. 7.

The Chicago Cubs placed former All-Star pitcher Justin Steele on the 15-day IL with left elbow tendinitis, retroactive to September 1. The Cubs’ ace southpaw said he vows to return before the end of the season.

The Cubs also placed former Mets RHP Jorge López on the 15-day IL with a right groin strain, retroactive to September 3. 

Japanese star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto will make his return off the IL on Tuesday, according to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. Yamamoto has been on the injured list since June 16 with a right triceps injury.

Cubs pitchers Shōta Imanaga, Nate Pearson, and Porter Hodge combined to throw a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday night. Imanaga started the game with seven no-hit innings before handing the ball to Pearson and Hodge after throwing 95 pitches.

The Texas Rangers placed star shortstop Corey Seager on the 10-day IL with right hip discomfort.

Elvis Andrus will officialy retire as a Texas Ranger on Friday, per Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News. Andrus spent 12 of his 15 big league seasons with the Rangers, and will be honored on Friday as he will be throwing out the first pitch as the Angels and Elvis’ first big league manager Ron Washington will return to Texas.

Latest on MMO

Francisco Lindor continues his roaring MVP level pace.

The Mets’ bullpen has been lights out during their winning streak.

A Kodai Senga return continues to look more likely.

On This Date in Mets History

2015: Bartolo Colón makes a jaw-dropping behind-the-back toss to throw out Justin Bour at first base. In this start, the 42-year-old Colón became the oldest Met to pitch a shutout and extended his scoreless inning streak to 25.

1969: Tom Seaver throws a complete game en route to becoming the first Met to win 20 games in a season.

1963: The Mets sign outfielder Ron Swoboda for $35,000. Swoboda would end up being a key piece to the Mets 1969 World Series team; hitting .400 in the World Series while making a miraculous grab in game 4 and driving in the game-winning run in game 5. 

Born on This Date: Pablo Reyes (1993), Chris Young (1983), Matt Watson (1978), Rod Barajas (1975)

The post Morning Briefing: Matt Chapman Signs Six-Year Extension With Giants 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.

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.

Please note, this article was originally written, produced, and posted on December 2nd, 2021 after it was announced he was being inducted. 

You can sum up a large part of Gil Hodges’ Hall of Fame case with an argument that didn’t happen.

It was the bottom of the sixth inning of game five of the 1969 World Series. Hodges’ Mets, improbably leading the series 3-1, were losing the game 3-0; Jerry Koosman had allowed home runs to Frank Robinson and starting pitcher Dave McNally in the third inning. Cleon Jones led off the bottom of the sixth for the Mets. McNally’s first pitch was a curve, down and in. It hit the dirt near Jones’ foot and bounded sideways, towards the Mets’ first-base dugout. To all the world, it seemed that it had hit Jones in the foot. All the world except home plate umpire Lou DiMuro, that is. DiMuro threw McNally another ball and called Jones back to the batter’s box.

Hodges came out to contest the call. Gil Hodges Jr., watching the game at Shea Stadium, remembers it well.

“The presentation,” he said. “Walking to home plate calmly and slowly, and looking at the ball. Back then, all the spikes would be cleaned and polished for the following day. So all the spikes had shoe polish on them. When he walked out there looking at the ball, gave it to the umpire, and showed him the spot on the ball, there was no reason for the umpire to doubt him.”

Hodges was calm, cool, and collected. DiMuro looked at the ball and saw a small black polish mark. He sent Jones to first base. Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who was ejected 96 times in his career including the previous day in game four, was angry — but DiMuro’s mind was made up. Hodges, the quiet man, had won the argument without ever arguing.

“The Quiet Man,” the title of a 1991 biography of Hodges by Marino Amoruso, summed Hodges up perfectly, his son told me. Hodges wasn’t loud, brash, or rude; he communicated calmly and clearly, and never lost his cool.

“Otherwise, he would have run to home plate, screaming and yelling with the shoe polish, instead of walking casually to home plate and showing it to the umpire,” Hodges Jr. said. “The complete opposite of the spectrum from Earl coming out of the other dugout.”

Jones took his lead off first. A few pitches later, Donn Clendenon hit McNally’s 2-2 pitch over the left field fence to bring the Mets within a run. Three innings later, the Mets won the 1969 World Series.

Would things have worked the same way if anyone else had been managing the Mets? It’s hard to say, but — probably not? Consider, for a second, the absolute absurdity of what this moment tells us about Gil Hodges. Hodges came out of his dugout holding a baseball with a black mark on it. It might have come from Jones’ foot; subsequent reporting revealed that it might have come from Jerry Koosman’s foot, as Hodges, just to be safe, instructed Koosman to kick it before he left the dugout, although the entire park was certain that the pitch really had hit Jones; for all DiMuro knew, it might have been a different baseball altogether. Hodges walked up to DiMuro and showed him a black mark on a baseball that could have been anything — and DiMuro, in effect, said, “Sure, Gil. I trust you.”

Isn’t that absurd? Isn’t it completely ridiculous? Can you imagine any manager in baseball today, anyone at all, succeeding at something like that? Of course not. It could never happen, and might well never happen again, because we may never see another baseball figure like Gil Hodges.

What kind of man was Gil Hodges? He was an uncommonly hard worker, a pleasure to play with and to umpire, calm and respectful to what teammates sometimes thought was a fault. He was a leader of men, a peacekeeper on the field, a beloved father, son, teammate, and manager, and a U.S. Marine and Bronze Star recipient. His death in 1972 at age 47 robbed baseball of decades of his presence in the game.

It’s all that, plus the fact that he was the premier first baseman of the 1950s and hit 370 home runs and was an all-time great defender at his position, plus the fact that he managed the 1969 Mets to one of the greatest upset wins of all time and more than 50 years later, they still talk about him reverentially, that makes Gil Hodges a Hall of Famer. Taken individually, maybe each piece doesn’t quite get there. But consider the totality of Hodges’ career and the depth of his devotion and contribution to baseball, and it’s almost inconceivable that the Hall still hasn’t admitted him.

“He was such a noble character in so many respects,” wrote Arthur Daley of the New York Times in 1972, soon after Hodges’ funeral, “that I believe Gil to have been one of the finest men I met in sports or out if it.”

Hodges has earned more Hall of Fame votes than anyone else in history not to eventually be admitted. Soon, he’ll have another chance. On Sunday, the Golden Days Era Committee will consider Hodges along with nine other candidates. By one count, it will be the 35^th time Hodges is considered for induction. This time, the Hall must set things right. The Hall must end its long miscarriage of justice, and finally enjoy the privilege of having Gil Hodges among its ranks.

***

Initially, Hodges was a shortstop. Many people don’t know that, including me until these last few weeks. Most people also don’t know that on March 20^th, 1943, Hodges, then a student at St. Joseph’s College in Indiana, was leading a Red Cross fundraising drive. That’s not strictly related to his baseball journey, but I couldn’t resist.

“Allison Crippled In City Series,” blared a headline in the Indianapolis Star on August 26^th, 1943. The story continued:

Allison’s hopes of winning the Indianapolis Amateur Baseball Association’s city series were dealt a severe blow yesterday when Gil Hodges, regular shortstop, headed for Brooklyn to sign a contract with one of the Dodgers’ “farm” clubs.

There were already murmurs in the Dodger front office that Hodges would eventually have to shift positions. Indeed, Hodges made one appearance for the 1943 Dodgers as a third baseman in the last game of the season, going 0 for 2 with a walk. 11 days later, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served for two and a half years, and participated in the battle of Okinawa, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star.

After his honorable discharge early in 1946, Hodges returned to the Dodgers, who sent him to their Newport News farm team in the Piedmont League. This time, though, something was different: they’d decided to convert him to a catcher. Hodges took the change in stride. He batted .278/.378/.436 for the season, and was named to the league’s All-Star team as a catcher. In 1947, he joined the big-league club. Then came 1948, when Roy Campanella came along. At the end of June, Hodges moved to first base. He would hold down the job for more than a decade.

His breakout began in 1949, when at age 25 Hodges batted .285/.360/.453 with 23 home runs. 1950, though, was when Hodges came into his own. He batted .283/.367/.508 with 32 home runs. For the rest of the decade, he didn’t slow down.

“I grew up in St. Louis, and watched him as a kid with those great Dodger teams,” Art Shamsky told me. “I saw what a great player he was, offensively and defensively.”

In the 1950s, Hodges batted .281/.369/.514, averaging 31 home runs a year. He won World Series titles in 1955 and 1959 and was a key part of both, driving in both Dodger runs in game seven of the ’55 series and batting .391 in the ’59 series. After a brief stint as the Mets’ first first baseman, Hodges was traded to the Washington Senators, whereupon he immediately retired as a player to become the Senators’ manager.

Some of Hodges’ Dodgers teammates couldn’t see him as a manager. “I was surprised that Hodges became a manager,” Carl Erskine remembers telling Tom Seaver. “We thought he was too passive a personality, he wouldn’t be tough.”

“Don’t worry about Hodges being tough,” Seaver responded. “All he has to do is give you that look. And if he gives you that look, it’ll singe your shorts off.”

“He didn’t have to say a lot,” Erskine told me. “He was a strong leader, and everybody knew it. He didn’t have to shout or throw the chairs or anything. He was totally respected. He was a strong person, but he wasn’t a loud person.”

Hodges managed the Senators for five years, and while his rosters were never strong, the team improved from 62-100 in 1964 to 76-85 by 1967. Then Hodges returned to New York. In 1967, the Mets had gone 61-101. In ’68, they improved to 73-89-1. In 1969, they won 100 games.

“The first thing he did with the Mets was teach them that it’s not okay to lose,” Gil Hodges Jr. told me. “Someone’s going to win and lose every day, but it’s not okay to lose. And when you put on that uniform, you should feel privileged, because you become special. There’s thousands of people who’d like to put that uniform on. So when you put it on, you need to give 100% at everything that you do, in every aspect of your job. That’s what he taught them.”

Shamsky remembers the first day of Spring Training 1968 — Shamsky’s first day as a Met, and Hodges’ first day as Mets manager. Hodges addressed the team, and no one had any doubt about what he expected of them.

“He said, ‘listen. From now on, you guys are not going to be the same old Mets,’” Shamsky said. “And you could see that he was serious.”

“He was a real tough guy,” said Rod Gaspar, who debuted for Hodges’ ’69 Mets. He didn’t have to say too much to get our attention. We didn’t have too many issues with that ballclub. Gil was in control, and our teammates respected him big-time and what he wanted us to do.”

What Hodges wanted them to do was work together to win. That’s exactly what happened.

“That Met team was 25 guys pulling in the same direction,” said Rene LeRoux, Executive Director of the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame, which inducted Hodges last year. “Gil was the reason why they won.”

Believing in the importance of righty/lefty matchups, Hodges instituted platoon systems at several positions, and never wavered. Shamsky, for instance, a lefty, batted .538 in the 1969 NLCS, but then didn’t start game one of the World Series, because Orioles’ starter Mike Cuellar was also lefthanded.

“Everybody on that team believed in him,” Shamsky said. Some players, he said, felt the platoon system negatively impacted their career prospects — “and I was one of them. But we believed in it. We believed in him.”

That, Shamsky said, was what made Hodges stand out as a manager. It wasn’t just that the players believed in his strategies, although that was important too; it was also that in the ninth inning, with lefthanded Cuellar still on the mound for Baltimore, Hodges sent Shamsky up to pinch-hit, thus expressing that while Shamsky hadn’t gotten the start, he still had his manager’s confidence.

“That’s his greatest quality,” Shamsky said. “Being able to handle the players and get them to believe in what was best for the team.”

After the ’69 season, Hodges kept right on managing. The Mets had played far beyond their capabilities to win the division and the World Series; their pitching was excellent, but the Mets of the early 1970s could never seem to muster much on offense. The ’71 team only had one everyday player with an OPS above .800. Hodges led the Mets to back-to-back 83-79 finishes. He died shortly before the 1972 season began.

The wrap on Hodges’ career is actually pretty simple. He hit 370 home runs, batted .273/.359/.487, and was the preeminent offensive and defensive first baseman of the 1950s. He was an eight-time All Star, won three Gold Gloves, and probably would have won ten to twelve if the award had existed before 1957. Then he retired, took over a Mets team that had never won more than 66 games, and managed them to the greatest upset win of all time.

***

That’s Hodges as a player and a manager. On their own, those two qualifications — premier first baseman of a decade, plus managing an upstart team to one of the greatest victories ever — seem like they should be more than enough to merit Hall of Fame induction. But then his character enters the equation, and his case gets even stronger.

“He’s a Hall of Fame human being. He’s a Hall of Fame person,” LeRoux said. ““He never had a steroid problem, he never drove a car into a telephone pole, he didn’t slap anyone. This guy was one of the nicest gentlemen the game of baseball has ever seen.”

Gil Hodges, the old folk legend goes, was the only player never booed in Brooklyn. Except it’s not a folk legend. Carl Erskine says it’s true.

“I’m here to testify, I never heard them boo Hodges in Brooklyn,” he told me. “It didn’t seem appropriate that these raucous fans in Brooklyn would have such a sentimental and soft touch on Hodges, but they embraced his behavior. First base is a busy place. There’s a lot of close plays. And the way Gil handled it, it reflected somehow that the fans respected him for how he played his position.”

Erskine remembers all the opportunities Hodges had to get angry — and how he almost always refused.

“You can imagine how many close plays happen at first base, and how many opportunities there would be to confront the umpire about a close call,” he said. “That will give you some idea of the restraint he had. The umpire made the call, and that’s the way it was, that was it.”

Everyone knew about Hodges’ reputation. Dodgers’ manager Charlie Dressen once offered Hodges $100 if he would argue enough to get himself thrown out of a game. The bill never came due.

Hodges himself knew about how people saw him, and wasn’t above making fun of himself for it. Once, Erskine remembers, umpire Dusty Boggess called Hodges out on a pitch below his knees. Hodges quietly returned to the bench. His teammates were furious.

“He’s taking the bread and butter right out of your kid’s mouth!” Hodges’ Dodger teammates were yelling at him. “You don’t ever say a bad word to these umpires when they call these terrible pitches and take the bat out of your hand! You’ve gotta quit that!”

“Oh, okay, okay,” Hodges responded. “The next time I go to the plate and Dusty Boggess is back there, I won’t even ask him how his wife and kids are.”

Hodges wasn’t just respectful to umpires. He was fiercely loyal to his teammates — and even opponents realized that he wasn’t someone to fight with.

“There were a number of instances on the field, around second base with Jackie, that Gil stepped in,” Erskine said. “Everybody seemed to respect Gil. He was pulling guys off the pile, and nobody was taking a fist to Hodges.”

“If he raised his voice a little bit,” Shamsky echoed, “you could see that he was somebody you didn’t want to mess with.”

That’s an aspect of the story that’s rarely discussed, but feels more important than the coverage it’s been given: for years, Hodges played first base, and Jackie Robinson played right next to him at second.

“They often talked about Pee Wee playing alongside of Jackie,” Erskine said. “Well, Hodges played alongside Jackie on the other side, and he had just as much to do with keeping the peace. Maybe more than anybody.”

In an MLB.com essay, Vin Scully, who watched Hodges for more than a decade with the Dodgers, wrote about the dynamic between Hodges and Robinson. Once, he remembered, the two players were chasing a foul pop-up near the first base stands at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis when a whiskey bottle came flying from the upper deck, clearly thrown by someone aiming at Robinson. Thankfully, it missed.

“I remember Gil patting Jackie on the back,” Scully wrote, “as if to say, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. I’m with you.’”

Robinson noticed Hodges’ presence. Years later, at Hodges’ funeral, Gil Hodges Jr. was sitting in a church pew when Howard Cosell tapped him on the shoulder. Cosell was a friend of the Hodges family. Hodges Jr. followed Cosell out of the church and around a corner, where he found a car double-parked.

“Hop in the back of the car,” Cosell told him. Hodges Jr. got in. Jackie Robinson was sitting in the car, crying hysterically. Robinson hugged Hodges Jr.

“Next to my son’s death, this is the worst day of my life,” Robinson told him.

As a manager, Hodges was every bit as kind and respectful as he’d been as a player. Dave Kaminer went to his first Dodgers game in 1950, and Hodges instantly became his favorite player. 18 years later, though, Kaminer was a young sports reporter for a Westchester paper, covering the Mets. The week before the 1968 season began, though, he was drafted. He sent Hodges a note explaining what had happened. “Looks like I’m not going to be around,” he wrote.

Kaminer reported for induction on April 14, 1968. But he got lucky: examiners found psoriasis on his ankle and sent him home. A few days later, he was at Shea Stadium, covering Hodges’ first home game as Mets manager.

When Hodges saw him from across the field, he pointed at him. “Stay where you are,” Hodges called. He made his way over to Kaminer and asked what had happened. Kaminer explained. Hodges, the former Marine, smiled.

“That’s great,” he said. He grabbed Kaminer’s hand and shook it. At the time, maybe it was painful; Hodges was famous for his strong, enormous hands.

“He would shake hands with you, and you’re hoping you would still have a hand after that,” Kaminer said. But all the same, the personal touch from the Mets manager and personal hero wasn’t exactly what he’d expected.

“Made me feel like a million dollars,” Kaminer said. “The part of the Hall of Fame that says ‘character,’ that should have Gil’s picture.”

Rod Gaspar remembers an argument he once had with a clubhouse attendant. The attendant told Hodges about it. Soon, Hodges called Gaspar into his office.

“That’s the last time I was ever in his office,” Gaspar said, chuckling. “No problems after that. If he saw any little thing that could disrupt the club’s momentum, he would take care of it real quick.”

They say, “never meet your heroes.” Gil Hodges, it turns out, was the exception.

“When you’re a kid, we all have heroes,” Kaminer said. “And very few of us get to meet our heroes. And some of us, when we finally meet them, we find out, ‘jeez, this guy’s a jerk.’ But Gil was the best. It made me feel wonderful about my choice.”

***

There aren’t many critics of Hodges’ Hall of Fame candidacy. As Gaspar said, “I’ve never heard anybody say that he doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame.” But there are a few.

The basic arguments against Hodges go like this. First, his career numbers don’t measure up to other Hall of Fame first basemen. Second, he may have managed the ’69 Mets, but overall, he was under .500 as a manager. Third, he may have been a wonderful person, but being a nice guy doesn’t make you a Hall of Famer.

I don’t buy any of them, for a number of reasons. First off, right at the beginning of his career, Hodges lost two seasons to World War II. Given those two seasons back, Hodges likely develops as a hitter far faster; he makes the big-league club in 1945 or 1946 with his development curve two years ahead of where it ended up; he almost certainly finishes his career with more than 400 major league home runs, a nice round number that, combined with everything else, seems like enough to win over even some of Hodges’ critics.

Hodges also suffered from the simple fact that the Gold Glove didn’t exist until his age 33 season. If he’d retired with 400 home runs, eight All-Star appearances, and nine or ten Gold Gloves (which, as the widely acknowledged best defensive first baseman of the 1950s and winner of the first three N.L. Gold Gloves at first base from 1957 to 1959, he seems fairly likely to have won), his Hall of Fame case would have been a no-brainer. He probably would have gotten in during his first few years on the ordinary ballot.

Photo: Gil Hodges, MLB.com

Second, sure, Hodges was under .500 as a manager. There’s one obvious problem: would he have remained under .500 as a manager if he hadn’t died at age 47, but rather, had gone on to live a long baseball life, managing for decades? Maybe, maybe not. Even just working with his existing managerial portfolio, though, I’m not too impressed by arguments about his win-loss record. Hodges took over a terrible Senators team, slowly but surely started turning the team around as he learned how to manage, then left for New York and managed the Mets into the history books. He is universally regarded as one of the three best managers in Mets history, along with Davey Johnson and Bobby Valentine, and those who played for him vouch endlessly for what an excellent manager he was, and how deserving he is of Hall of Fame induction. Of the Golden Days Era Committee ballot, Ron Swoboda told me, “If that process can’t include him in the Hall of Fame, the process is wrong.”

Also, managerial record sometimes just doesn’t capture the full picture of a manager’s contributions to baseball. Connie Mack was below .500 as a manager. So was Felipe Alou (he’s not in the Hall of Fame, but he certainly should be). So was Frank Robinson. So was Ron Gardenhire. So was Gene Mauch. Some of these guys aren’t in the Hall of Fame, of course, but of the ones who aren’t, none were also the best first baseman of a decade — and none managed the 1969 Mets. Sometimes a manager’s contributions to baseball aren’t reflected in their overall record. That’s especially likely when a manager dies at age 47 instead of getting to spend decades perfecting his craft.

The “managerial winning percentage” argument seems to just be a sly way of saying something else that Hodges critics don’t want to say out loud: Hodges wasn’t actually a good enough manager for it to push him over the line for Hall of Fame induction. But A) there’s the matter of his tragic, untimely death, and B) his players vehemently disagree.

“One of the best managers ever, in my book,” Gaspar told me. “He deserves it, but not just now. 50 years ago, he deserved it. Always has deserved it.”

“He was a manager who managed by feel,” Shamsky said. “He knew all the players on his team, he knew the strategies of the game. He was a step ahead of everyone else.”

Third — yes, of course being a great guy isn’t enough to make someone a Hall of Famer on its own. I think I’m a great guy; I don’t belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and you may quote me on that. But when you put it together with being the premier first baseman of a decade and managing one of the greatest upstart winners of all time, doesn’t it start to matter more?

Character counts. Character should count. The argument against counting character is a sort of rhetorical trick; it groups players into a binary, where the only possibilities are that someone is either a great guy or they’re not. Obviously, there are a lot of nice people in the world, so the “great guy” group is pretty big, which Hodges’ opponents can use to render character meaningless: “There are lots of nice guys! Are we going to start inducting every nice guy who hits a few home runs into the Hall of Fame?”

The key point that this argument gets wrong is that Hodges was not just another nice guy. This, more than anything, is the defining feature of his candidacy. If you look at Hodges and see a nice guy but nothing more, than maybe it makes sense to dismiss his Hall of Fame qualifications. But when you hear the stories about Hodges, you realize that he wasn’t just a “nice guy.” He was an unfailingly and uncommonly kind, respectful, respected, thoughtful, hard-working, conscientious leader, who poured his heart and soul into the game of baseball and in the end, gave it his life.

It’s not hard to see how much more than a “nice guy” Hodges was, and what a rare character he brought to baseball.

“Gil often came over in the middle of a tough ballgame, men on base, after a play at first base and time was out,” Erskine said. “He’d walk over to the mound and bring the ball to me. And in doing that, he’d say, ‘if anybody can get out of this jam, you can do it.’”

When he rounded the bases on a home run, Kaminer told me, he would pause to blow a kiss to his wife.

“Gil blew a kiss to his wife,” he said. “Maybe it’s time for baseball to blow a kiss to Gil.”

At Hodges’ funeral, similar sentiments were in the air.

“I’m sick,” said Johnny Podges. “I’ve never known a finer man.”

“If you have a son,” said Pee Wee Reese, “it would be a great thing to have him grow up to be just like Gil Hodges.”

“Gil Hodges is a Hall of Fame man,” said Roy Campanella.

“The older I get, the more I think Gil Hodges should be in the Hall,” said George Vecsey, longtime New York Times reporter who covered Hodges as both a player and manager. I reached Vecsey via email. “He was a fine man and a great player.”

“He was a class player,” Erskine said. “You wouldn’t be wrong to point to Hodges to your kids and say, ‘that’s the kind of gentleman you ought to grow up to be like.’”

“I am often asked who the best ballplayer was that I watched during my broadcasting career,” Scully wrote in his essay. “In looking back over my 67 years behind the microphone, I was truly blessed to watch firsthand so many of the all-time greats performing at their very best on the biggest stages in the game’s history. It is truly impossible for me to single out just one player. However, in terms of the players I watched who performed at a high level on the playing field, but at an even higher level off the field in how they lived and carried out their lives, my response is an easy one — Gil Hodges.”

Simply put, most people don’t get talked about this way. You have to be more than just a nice man for people to tell their sons to grow up to be like you. Vin Scully broadcast Dodger baseball for 67 seasons, and Gil Hodges, he says, had the best combination of on-field play and off-field character that he ever saw. You don’t hear that every day.

Character counts. Character has to count. And Gil Hodges is the picture of strong baseball character more than almost anyone else. He was the shortstop turned third baseman turned minor league All-Star catcher turned elite big league first baseman, who never complained but always did what his team needed. He was the manager who taught a young Mets team that it wasn’t okay to accept losing, and that wearing a Major League Baseball uniform was a privilege that came with responsibility — and that if they embraced that responsibility, selfless teamwork, and determination, they could shock the world.

“He was a player whose major-league career was interrupted by World War II,” Swoboda told me. “He was a manager whose career was interrupted by death. If you can’t simply add up what he was as a player and as a citizen, and include in it the character that he carried with him every day, and add to that what he was as a manager…if you can’t come up with a Hall of Famer, you really shouldn’t be in a position to vote, in my humble opinion.”

Inducting Hodges will also mean inducting the last rock of the Golden Age Brooklyn Dodgers. Campy, Jackie, Pee Wee, and The Duke are all there, but the team isn’t whole. They’re still waiting for Gil.

“When you see a teammate make it to that status, part of you went with him,” Erskine said. “That’s what I’ll feel if Gil makes it. I’ll feel a piece of that. If he goes into the Hall of Fame like Pee Wee and Duke Snider and Campanella did…I’ll feel like a piece of me went with him.”

Hodges belongs in the Hall of Fame because of his accomplishments as a player, a manager, and a human being. He belongs because he was the best first baseman of the 1950s on both sides of the ball. He belongs because he was the kindest, most respectful, most devoted person that many people ever played with or played for. He belongs because he taught the Mets to win. He belongs because of everything that he did.

When he was young, Hodges Jr would travel all over the country with his father’s team. He remembers sitting in the visiting manager’s office at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on October 11^th, 1969, reading over the stat sheets for both teams before game one of the World Series.

“I couldn’t even comprehend that they were going to play this team,” he told me. “They were a juggernaut.”

The Orioles looked unbeatable. They had gone 109-53 in the regular season. They had two 20-game winners in their rotation, along with a young Jim Palmer, who had just put up a 2.34 E.R.A. They had Boog Powell (37 home runs, .942 OPS) at first base, solid-hitting Davey Johnson at second, elite defender and competent hitter Mark Belanger at short, and Brooks Robinson, the greatest defensive third baseman of all time, at third. They had Frank Robinson and his .955 OPS and 32 home runs in right field, and two OPS’s above .800 in center and left. The next year, Palmer would join the 20-game winners, and the Orioles would win 108 games and beat the Reds four games to one in the World Series.

Looking at the stats sheets, Hodges Jr. was confounded. “Dad,” he said, “what are you doing on the field with this team?”

Hodges stood up. He walked to his office door and closed it. He sat back down.

“Don’t say that again,” he said. “There’s 25 guys outside who believe that they can win.”

The post Gil Hodges Has Always Belonged in the Hall of Fame appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

On April 2, 1972 Mets skipper and  Gil Hodges passed away from a heart attack during spring training after playing a round of golf. He was two days shy of his 48th birthday.

Rob Silverman of MMO accurately wrote that Donn Clendenon was the final piece to the championship puzzle in 1969. Hodges was the first piece.

Hodges, who played 18 seasons (16 with the Dodgers, two with the Mets) and slugged 370 home runs, was named manager of the Mets for the 1968 season, taking over a team that had struggled since its inception in 1962.

The Princeton, IN native had managed the Washington Senators of the American League from 1963-1967, posting a 321-444 record over five seasons. In Hodges’ first season, the Mets showed notable, if not significant, improvement finishing with a 73-89 record.

Beyond their record, the Mets had a pitching staff of young arms that was starting to come together. Tom Seaver won 16 games in 1968, and southpaw Jerry Koosman logged 19 wins. Fireballing right-hander Nolan Ryan was on the staff, along with fellow righty Jim McAndrew.

After 1968, it seemed better days were ahead for the guys from Flushing, how quickly those better days came shocked the baseball world.

Mets’ shortstop Bud Harrelson famously said that Hodges watched the 1968 team as if he were studying for an exam.  Hodges, the former Marine who was honored and decorated for heroism recognizing his service in World War II, developed a strong sense of what he had and did not have on his ball club, and used that information to help deliver a championship the following season.

In an article from Radio.com, former Met Ed Kranepool recalled Hodges’ style as a manager, where the manager’s Marine pedigree clearly came through:

“You know, he was a strict disciplinarian, but he was a great leader,” Kranepool said. “It’s because of his leadership that we really have changed everything around. We went from the last-place laughingstock to a championship team in ’69.”

Art Shamsky agreed with his former teammate.

“You know, you’ve got 25 personalities and you really have to deal with certain things,” he said. “But Gil was a very strong disciplinarian and when he talked, we listened.”

Many people point to “the Cleon Jones incident” as an example of Hodges’ focus on discipline, though the former left fielder said it was anything but. Resetting the scenario, in July of 1969, the Mets were being pounded by the Astros in a game at Shea Stadium.

Johnny Edwards of the Astros hit a ball down the line that went for a double, and the manager came out of the dugout to ask why Jones could not have held Edwards to a single. Jones told the story in article by Kevin Kernan of The New York Post:

Hodges asked, “Are you all right?”

“I said I’m fine. He said, ‘Do you think you could have held him to a single?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Gil, look down.’

“When he looked down, his feet were under water and so was mine. It had rained pretty good that day. And we had had a talk in Montreal, a week or so before that. I had a bad ankle. It comes from my old football days and every now and then it would puff up on me.”

After the exchange, Hodges felt it was in Jones’ best interests to leave the game and not risk injury. Though a stern leader, Jones said his manager would never publicly embarrass a player. However, Hodges cleverly used the event to motivate his team.

“He had a plan and a purpose, and the plan and the purpose was, if I can go out and talk to Jones and when I’m hitting .350, maybe all these other guys will get the message,” Jones said. “And sure enough, it worked.’’

Indeed, whatever Hodges was trying to do on that July day, and during the entire 1969 season, day did work. The Mets ended their regular season with a record of 100-62, swept the Braves in the NLCS, and defeated the heavily-favored Orioles in the World Series.

In a sadly ironic twist of fate, as written on MMO by Joe D., the day of Hodges’ death he and some coaches met Expos’ outfielder Rusty Staub in church on Easter Sunday. The Mets had completed a trade for Staub, though the right fielder was not yet aware.

It’s a shame that they never had the opportunity to work together, as Hodges passed just hours later. Yogi Berra was named manager for the 1972 season.

The combination of Hodges’ playing career, managerial achievements with the Mets, and military service led to his long-awaited election into baseball’s Hall of Fame in December of 2021. Hodges had been passed over for the Hall of Fame for many years, and his getting the call delighted Mets fans and former Mets players.

In an article by Christian Red in Forbes, Jones put it this way:

“Well, it’s been a long and grinding road for the (Hodges) family,” said Jones, the 79-year-old former Mets All-Star left fielder. “I was tickled to hear about it, that he got in. My personal opinion? I thought that he should have been in years ago.”

“Every first baseman in America in the ‘50s emulated Gil Hodges,” said Jones. “When we think back to that particular time, with Campy (catcher Roy Campanella), Jackie (Robinson), Duke Snider, Pee Wee (Reese), all the big names, Gil was just as big and just as good.”

Ron Swoboda, who made the amazing catch in Game 3 of the 1969 World Series, added:

“Although Hodges’ baseball numbers fell a little short of classic Hall of Fame numbers, as a manager he lost a whole lot of years because of a second heart attack that took him,” said Swoboda, 77. “When you consider what a strong, and decent character he was, what he meant as a player in that (Dodgers) clubhouse, what he meant in our (Mets) clubhouse… I think all of us 1969 guys were over-the-top happy that Gil was voted in.”

While Hodges had the disciplinarian reputation as noted above, his ability to use his roster to its fullest potential was perhaps his greatest strength as a manager. Here’s Jones from the Forbes article:

“When you think about ‘69, you think about only four guys who were starters — that was (catcher Jerry) Grote, (shortstop Bud) Harrelson, (center fielder Tommie) Agee and myself,” said Jones. “Everybody else platooned. All of these guys were excellent teammates, and somewhere down the line, they contributed to winning.”

Gil Hodges had as much of an impact on the Mets ascension to champions as anyone else affiliated with the team in the late 1960s. Could the Mets have won another championship in the 1970s if he had survived? Of course, we will never know.

Rest in peace, Gil Hodges.

The post OTD 1972: Mets Manager Gil Hodges Passes Away appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

If the Mets hadn’t converted all their disbelievers by now– those who were still convinced the Orioles superiority would overcome New York’s combination of pitching, timely hitting, and spectacular plays in the field — would be given even more of a reason to believe in miracles after game 4.

Of no miracle was the performance by Tom Seaver on this afternoon. Following a shaky opening game loss in Baltimore, Seaver was vintage at Shea Stadium as he even carried the Mets into extra innings. But the game probably would never have gotten to that point, and the Mets wouldn’t have taken a 3-1 series lead, if not for the heroics of a most unlikely defensive star. On the heels of Tommie Agee‘s exhibition in center field one day earlier, Ron Swoboda garnered the spotlight with one incredible catch that still ranks among the best ever in a World Series.

Here are some highlights to look for:

• Enjoy the pregame show plus commercials. Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle were among the many who predicted a Baltimore series victory, and provided analysis from a room that must have been used for a darts tournament.
• Original Mets manager Casey Stengel tosses out the first pitch around the 29:00 mark.
• Donn Clendenon, the eventual series MVP, continues to feast on the Orioles’ left-hand pitching at 59:00. It would be his second of three homers (each off southpaws) in the five-game set.
• Orioles skipper Earl Weaver proceeds to get tossed by home plate umpire Shag Crawford beginning at 1:05:31, becoming the first manager to be ejected from a World Series game since 1935.
• At 2:22:10, the play of the game — and maybe of the Mets’ franchise: Ron Swoboda’s sensational, diving play with runners on first and third and one out in the top of the ninth robs Brooks Robinson. Frank Robinson manages to tag up and score the tying run, but Swoboda’s heroics limit the damage.
• The Mets win it in the tenth as J.C. Martin “drives” in the winning run. His sacrifice bunt attempt is fielded by Baltimore reliever Pete Richert, whose throw to first base strikes Martin in the wrist and allows pinch-runner Rod Gaspar to come in from second base. The Orioles contest afterward that Martin interfered with the throw, but to no avail. Everything was coming up Mets.

The post Mets Video Vault: 1969 World Series Game 4 appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Good morning Mets fans! The New York Mets (35-40) dropped their series opener against the Chicago Cubs (41-33) by a score of 7-4 on Thursday night at Wrigley Field. They will continue their four-game series with the Cubs with an afternoon game in the Windy City.

Latest Mets News

Jason Vargas (3-3, 3.74 ERA) is set to start against the Cubs after cramping up in his last start against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 16. If all goes as planned, he will go up against Yu Darvish (2-3, 4.65 ERA). The game will start at 2:20 p.m. EDT and can be followed on SNY, WCBS 880 and ESPN Deportes 1050.

The Mets fired pitching coach Dave Eiland and bullpen coach Chuck Hernandez. Phil Regan and Ricky Bones were named as their replacements, respectively. Bones returns to the bullpen coach position after holding it from 2012-2018.

Additionally, the Mets added a new position to their coaching staff called “pitching strategist.” They promoted minor league pitching coordinator Jeremy Accardo to the newly-created position.

After hitting his 25th home run in the third inning of Thursday’s game, Pete Alonso tied Cody Bellinger‘s NL record for most home runs hit before the All-Star break. The homer also makes the 24-year-old the first NL rookie to have hit at least 25 home runs in their team’s first 75 games of the season.

Alonso now only trails Darryl Strawberry‘s Mets rookie home run record by one.

Latest MLB News

MLB gave the Tampa Bay Rays permission to explore the possibility of splitting home games between Tampa Bay and Montreal sometime in the future, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. However, the Rays are still required to play all home games at Tropicana Field as in their current agreement with the city of St. Petersburg. Furthermore, John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times reported that St. Petersburg mayor, Rick Kriseman, told the team that he would not grant permission for talks with Montreal.

Matt Eddy of Baseball America provided a midseason update on minor league park factors.

The Cincinnati Reds are open to being buyers and adding a hitter before the trade deadline according to Jon Morosi of MLB Network.

John Sickels of The Athletic released an updated version of his Top 100 Prospects list.

Jayson Stark of The Athletic analyzed possible explanations to the dramatic increase in home runs throughout MLB.

The Toronto Blue Jays hired former MLB pitchers Zach Stewart and Scott Rolen to pitch a more competitive form of batting practice to the players.

Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic delved into the friendship of Mike Trout and Albert Pujols.

Latest NL East News

The Washington Nationals beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-4 and the Miami Marlins beat the Cardinals 7-6. The Atlanta Braves had the day off.

The Braves (44-31) remain in first place followed by the Phillies (39-35; 4.5 games back), Nationals (36-38; 7.5 games back), Mets (35-40; 9.0 games back) and Marlins (27-46; 16.0 games back).

Garrett Cooper left the Marlins game against the Cardinals after aggravating a left triceps injury. He originally sustained the injury after crashing into the tarp while catching a foul ball on Tuesday.

Latest on MMO/MMN

Mathew Brownstein interviewed 1969 World Series champion Ron Swoboda.

Brian Greenzang broke down Steven Matz‘s start from Wednesday.

John Sheridan continued his “3 Up, 3 Down” series following the Mets’ three-game set with the Braves.

Michael Mayer analyzed Chris Flexen‘s improved velocity since being converted to a reliever.

Jack Ramsey wrote a scouting report for Mets’ 2019 second-round pick Josh Wolf.

This Day in Mets History

1964: Jim Bunning of the Phillies pitched a perfect game against the Mets. In doing so, Bunning became the first modern pitcher to throw a no-hitter in both leagues.

2006: Jose Reyes became the ninth Met to hit for the cycle.

Birthday(s): Jeff Musselman turns 56.

The post Morning Briefing: Mets Pitching Struggles Again Amid Coaching Shakeup appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Even though Ron Swoboda wasn’t the best player or one that possessed a ton of tools, his name is forever revered by Mets’ fans for his contributions in bringing the first championship to Queens in 1969, after seven-straight losing seasons since the club came into existence in 1962.

What Swoboda was to many was ‘the affable everyman,’ a grinder on the field with a competitive will and drive to succeed, despite any shortcomings. What Swoboda lacked in talent, he made up for with his strong work ethic coupled with a benevolent charm.

The players who continually strive to improve and adhere to a team-first mentality are generally beloved and well-received, with Swoboda fitting that description perfectly. When an average player comes up big in the clutch, fans seem to gravitate to them even more, recognizing the height of the moment and appreciating the effort exerted on that pivotal play.

And boy, does Swoboda know something about coming up big on the grandest of stages.

Swoboda, 74, was a key member of the ’69 World Champion Mets, a team that had a 27-game improvement in the win column from their 73 victories in 1968. Their surge late in the season saw them eclipse the mighty Chicago Cubs and won the East Division by eight games.

Swoboda’s six hits in the World Series led both the Mets and Baltimore Orioles, and batted .400 with a .904 on-base plus slugging (OPS). What ‘Rocky’ is most remembered for in that Series was one of the greatest catches in Fall Classic history.

The setup was such: The Mets were up 1-0 to the O’s heading into the top of the ninth with a 2-1 lead in the Series. Tom Seaver was back on the mound looking to get three more outs to secure the complete game shutout and place the Mets one win away from a championship that the fans had clamored for.

Seaver retired centerfielder Paul Blair with a fly out to Swoboda, before back-to-back singles from Frank Robinson and Boog Powell put runners on the corners with one out in the inning.

The next batter was Brooks Robinson, the eventual winner of 16-consecutive Gold Glove Awards at third, who went to the opposite field with a hard line drive that appeared to be trouble. Racing in and to his right, Swoboda – who was not known for his defense – laid out and caught the sinking liner on his backhand, propping to his feet quickly to make a strong throw home as Robinson tagged from third to tie the game.

Swoboda could’ve taken the conservative route and played the ball in front of him, however, he recalls reading the ball of the bat extremely well and getting a swift jump in his pursuit of the ball.

At that point, he was all in.

Seaver and the Mets got out of the inning, allowing just the one run to score, and won the game in the bottom of the tenth as Rod Gaspar scored from second after Orioles reliever Pete Richert was charged with a throwing error on pinch hitter J.C. Martin’s sacrifice bunt.

One day later, the Mets would take Game Five and be crowned the champions of baseball for the 1969 season, a memory that Swoboda will never forget.

Swoboda recounts the storied ’69 season in his memoir titled Here’s the Catch: A Memoir of the Miracle Mets and More from St. Martin’s Press, released on June 11. In the book, Swoboda shares interesting anecdotes and memories from his baseball career, which started with the orange and blue.

Signed by the Mets for $35,000 in 1963, Swoboda made his major league debut with the club in 1965. In his rookie season, Swoboda hit 19 home runs – a Mets rookie record until Darryl Strawberry broke it in 1983 with 26 – drove in 50 runs and posted a 103 OPS+. His 19 homers were third-most among all rookies that season.

In total, Swoboda played nine seasons with the Mets, Expos and Yankees before transitioning into broadcasting, where he’s currently calling games for the Miami Marlins’ Triple-A affiliate, the New Orleans Baby Cakes. While he currently resides in New Orleans, the fondness and affection he holds for New York come through in the animated cadence in his voice when he recounts the years of memories he made with the Mets.

Swoboda’s book is a fun read that offers detailed insight into what it was like to navigate through the game, through good times and bad. With terrific anecdotes about some of the Mets’ all-time greats, including Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges, Tug McGraw and Tom Seaver, along with what it was like to go through laborious slumps, dealing with being lifted late in games for defensive replacements and coming through in the biggest moments, the book brings about great nostalgia for one of the most beloved teams in franchise history.

I had the privilege of speaking with Swoboda in mid-June, where we discussed his memoir, the Miracle Mets and the upcoming 50th-anniversary celebration at Citi Field at the end of this month.

MMO: Talk to me a bit about your new book Here’s the Catch. When did you decide you wanted to write a memoir, and was the 50th anniversary of the ’69 Mets a main motivator behind writing it now?

Swoboda: I had been telling these stories to friends and folks at dinners, men’s clubs and whoever would listen. I loved relating all of the stuff that I had been fortunate enough to go through as a player and just trying to put together all these little stories and entertain people.

I had a lawyer friend who told me that I needed to write this stuff down. And honestly, I didn’t feel any great compelling feeling to do that. He said to me if I didn’t write this stuff down and put it together now for the 50^th anniversary, no one will ever buy it. [Laughs.] And I went, ‘I get that; I understand that.’

A few years ago, I started writing stuff. I had a big stack of stuff I started putting together, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I had an agent, and he called me and asked how the manuscript was coming. I said, ‘How does dead in the water sound to you? I have this big pile of stuff, and I don’t know what a book looks like. I don’t know how to put it together. I need somebody to help me whittle this thing into a book form.’

He introduced me to a guy named Jamie Malanowski, who was a writer in his own right. He’s published a couple of things, but he’s also a speechwriter for Andrew Cuomo in New York, and he said, “Send me the stuff.”

He started editing, and we got it down to what looked like a decent manuscript size. He knows what a book looks like, and that’s what we handed to the agent who shopped it around, and St. Martin’s Press bought the idea.

You want it to have your voice in the way you speak and the way you tell stories. Obviously, when you’re writing, there’s a little more detail than you can pluck off the top of your head; that’s why you write it. But you want it to have that voice, that sense of excitement and humor.

I wanted people to know how I felt going through slumps, sitting on the bench and going from that to the heights. Getting a little something going, and now all of a sudden you’re in this thing and you’re producing something offensively and trying to make yourself a better outfielder at the same time.

I wanted people to feel the feelings I had when this was all happening. I hope that’s all in there because I was going for that.

MMO: What I also loved about your book is that you wrote about the environment and culture around the country at the time. You brought readers back to that era.

Swoboda: I couldn’t stress to people who’d aren’t old enough to have lived through that period of time – 1968-1969 – the culture, the war in Vietnam, Woodstock and all these great music festivals. The war and anti-war, identity politics, Stonewall Inn riots, women’s liberation movement and gay awareness.

And here comes the New York Mets! One of the least predictable things, and we were center stage there. It was an incredible time when everything seemed possible.

MMO: Where did your passion for baseball come from and what’s your earliest memory of the game?

Swoboda: I was a kid growing up in Sparrows Point, Maryland, hard by Bethlehem Steel. Bethlehem Steel was the first integrated tidewater steel plant in America, meaning it was the first time they brought iron ore in by ship from outside the continental U.S.

The iron ore came from Cuba after the Spanish-American War, and it sailed up not far from where I grew up. It sailed up and docked, and they smelted the iron down and made from the iron steel and all kinds of steel products. Bethlehem Steel employed 35,000 people at its peak when I was growing up in high school, around the clock.

Around that steel mill were all these value-added companies that made other products from their steel. It was an incredible economy and dominated our world as we were growing up. But I was a kid that never felt any destiny; I just loved baseball and practicing the game. I played all kinds of things that I could do by myself.

I’d come to New York as a kid and saw these guys playing stoop ball, and I had a set of steps in my house that I played step ball on. I threw the ball against the steps, and I played that for hours.

I’m out in the street playing these games, and I lived on a gravel road, and there was an open field that I used to saw one of my mother’s brooms, and she wondered, What the hell happened to the broom?

I’m down there hitting rocks, hitting gravel rocks into the woods, and imitating the batting stances of the Baltimore Orioles, who were our team. And spending this time alone and doing this practice because I don’t’ know why I loved it. I loved the zen of it.

I’d get lost in these little one-man games I would play, and then I eventually played on teams. You’re practicing with guys, and I had a great friend of mine who I grew up with, Larry Butts, and he and I would practice together. I always liked the practice. I loved the zen of it and getting lost in the movements. I think without that I didn’t bring any natural, extraordinary abilities to the game except for the fact that I liked to practice. I think because of that I was able to refine some things.

I played in a big amateur talent in Johnston, Pennsylvania. They had a really good tournament. I’m 18 going on 19 and two guys walk in my house, a part-time scout that I had played for earlier with the Mets and a full-time scout, and offer me $35,000 to sign with them. They sort of presented it in a give or take way. My mom and dad were making about $12,500 between them, barely getting to $13,000 with both of their salaries. And here’s a guy offering you $35K! I was going to sign, and it was simple.

MMO: Were the Mets the only team to make you an offer?

Swoboda: The only team, the Orioles never did. I was planning on going back to the University of Maryland and being a physical education major, and then this thing happened.

The big selling point from the Mets was they’re an expansion team and they’re terrible. They’re terrible now, but they’re going to get better, and the road to the big leagues will be shorter because of that.

I didn’t need anything more than that and the $35K. I never saw that kind of money! I paid off my mom and dad’s house, bought myself a car and I bought my brother a car. We shared in it because that’s what it meant to me, a chance to make the world a little better for my family, who gave me the opportunity. How could you feel any other way?

MMO: You detail a lot about Casey Stengel in the book. What was the Old Professor like to play under, and what was your relationship like with him at a young age?

Swoboda: Amazing, amazing, amazing! Look, Stengel was a legend walking around, he was a treasure. The guy could sit down with the writers around him and reel off fifty years of baseball history. He may not get your name quite right, but he knew who you were and you knew what he was talking about.

I loved to eavesdrop on these sessions that Casey had with the writers, and ‘Stengelese’ was this verbal journey he would take guys on. If he didn’t want to answer your question, he would take you on the same journey down around the primrose path, and by the time you came back, you might not remember what the question was.

There are two ways to censor: one is deprivation, you know, no comment. The other is inundation. He gave you so many words and stories that you may have forgotten your real question, which he didn’t answer. But he did in some of these verbal journeys. There were little stories, like parables, nuggets of gold about how you play and examples of how players reacted in certain situations and what you needed to know as a major league player, and I listened to that stuff. I thought I extracted some good ideas and good stories out of it.

I thought he knew I was doing that, and our relationship was excellent. He’d put me up there as a rookie in 1965, and he said, “You can’t learn how to hit these guys sitting on the bench,” in that gravelly voice.

It all started on Opening Day 1965. I’m on the bench in my uniform in Shea Stadium with 56,000 people there and the Dodgers and Don Drysdale on the mound.

Late in the game, we’re trailing – no kidding – and I hear Casey in that voice go, “Swoboda, get a bat.”

And you’re like, really? What are you going to say? No thank you; I’d rather not. No. You’re going to walk down there like you’re the king of the world and put your helmet on and walk up there and try not to pass out on the way.

Your heart is beating so fast that you’re dizzy and nervous as hell. You step in the batter’s box, and you really wonder if people can physically see you shaking. You’re trying to act like a player, and Drysdale throws you a fastball. BOOM, strike one. I’m like, I never saw it! I still haven’t seen it, but it sounded like a strike. You tell yourself that you need to get some hacks up there, and he throws you another one and you swing a couple of beats behind it and you’re 0-2.

I remember this thought occurred: The good news is that it doesn’t seem like this is going to take very long. [Laughs.] And then the next pitch is a slider, and I could actually see it. I hit it on the line to the second baseman, Jimmy Lefebvre, and I’m out.

I’m going down the first base line and made that right turn towards the dugout, but I was elated. I’m going, ‘Holy cow, I just hit a line drive off of Drysdale! You can have the out!’ The best out I ever made as a big leaguer, you know?

The next series I pinch-hit against Turk Farrell, and it was late in the game and I hit a home run. I hit that as far as any home run I ever hit. I just caught up with a fastball and banged it over the second wall in left field past the visiting bullpen. I mean, I bombed it and that was my first home run.

After the game, this shows you how naïve I was. They had a guy come up who said he had gotten the baseball and he wanted to know if I wanted it. I told him to keep it. I said, ‘Besides, I’m not sure that’s the baseball.’

The guy said, “What do you mean?”

I said, ‘If that’s the baseball, you couldn’t have gotten here that fast!’ [Laughs.]

Supposedly, Babe Ruth said that along the way, and for some reason, it came out of my mouth. We’re two Baltimore guys, you know what I mean? Two former Yankee right fielders, and there the comparison starts to break down.

MMO: Conversely, you write that your “failure to get along with Gil Hodges when I was playing for him sits like a stone in my gut.” Were there certain reasons that you believe were the cause of not being able to get along with Hodges?

Swoboda: I’ve had some time to think about it obviously, and I’ve always had a fractious relationship with authority. When it leans on me when I feel like it’s pushing on me, I don’t react well, and Hodges was an authoritarian figure.

I had a pretty good year in 1967, my third year in the big leagues. I thought I sort of knew how to operate. But Gil had the way he wanted you to play as a player and the things he wanted you to do.

When I look back on it, the problems we had were all on me and my immaturity, and it caused a little friction between us. All Gil wanted you to do was act like a grownup and be the best player that you could be and help the Mets. I couldn’t always do those things. I could do some of them but not all of the time.

I would do things that would just annoy him and I wasn’t trying to annoy him, I was just immature. And because of that our relationship didn’t grow; it was rocky and it was on me. I’m responsible for that and it annoys me to this day that I couldn’t figure out how to make it better because he was a great manager and an incredible baseball mind.

One of the things I’ve taken putting 1969 back together [for this book] was you can go online and look at all the play-by-play sheets and box scores, and you can look at the decisions Hodges made as a manager at various points in games and what he did. It was incredible. He had one of the most creative and adroit baseball minds that I’ve ever been around, and I played for Gene Mauch, reputed to be a genius and certainly a guy that knew a lot more about baseball than me. But I felt like Mauch was so brilliant that he could lose you in the complexity of his thoughts.

When Hodges did creative things, they all seemed to resolve themselves in an understandable way. And when you’re managing in the big leagues, the last thing you want to do is confuse your players, and he never did. You might not agree with it, and you might not want to get pinch-hit for, but when you look back at the rationale for the things that he did, you go, wow, that was brilliant. And he did that all the time.

He should be in the Hall of Fame, and that should be a no-brainer. The process that can’t make that happen to me is wrong.

MMO: You write how Hodges believed in platooning. which became clear early in spring training in 1969. You platooned with Art Shamsky, who you note was a better hitter for average. How difficult was it for you to play in a platoon, and did that ever affect relationships with guys on the team?

Swoboda: Sham and I always had a good relationship. I thought he was a great player. He was a great hitter and he wasn’t writing the lineup card, so we knew what the deal was. It was a strict platoon with Shamsky and me in right, and that didn’t really happen until later on when I started to produce a little bit, and made myself a little better outfielder.

We started platooning strictly in right field and you knew what the deal was down the stretch. Just like Donn Clendenon and Ed Kranepool at first base, Clendenon could’ve played against everybody, but Hodges believed that Eddie had something to offer against the right-handed pitchers, and he strictly platooned. He did it at third base with Eddie Charles and Wayne Garrett and at second base with Al Weis and Ken Boswell, so we knew what the deal was at those positions.

It never entered the relationship with the guy. Sham and I hung out, and we’re still good friends today. He’s one of the better organizers of the ’69 guys because he lives in New York, and when there are things to be done with appearances and such my phone rings. I appreciate that because he’s been a good friend over the years and will be until the end.

MMO: Heading into the ’69 season, did you have any idea that your club would be exponentially better like it turned out to be that year (73 wins in 1968 to 100 in ’69)?

Swoboda: Exponentially? No. I thought we would be better. I remember Gil Hodges told the writers in spring training that he thought we could win 85 games. I remember me and Kranepool looking at one another going, ‘Us? Is he talking about us?’

We had won 73 games the year before, so 85 wins seemed like you were putting the carrot on a really long stick. But that was Gil. If we finished .500 that year, if we had won 81 games, to me, that would’ve been a pretty good improvement. And that’s where we were until about mid-June, bubbling around .500, and thinking that we’re a little bit better but no great shakes.

The next thing you know, we’re in the middle of June, and we just reeled off an eleven-game winning streak that started against the California teams at Shea Stadium and continued to the Coast, and we vaulted into relevance. We’re looking at one another, and there were five or so one-run games that we won in that streak, and I think management, Hodges and Johnny Murphy, the GM, thought, we have to rethink this thing.

They had a chance to make a deal for Joe Torre with the Braves in spring training. The Braves wanted to get into our young pitching into maybe a Nolan Ryan or Gary Gentry and guys like that. Guys that they thought might be on the roster, and Murphy said no thank you to the deal. The Braves traded Joe Torre straight up to the Cardinals for Orlando Cepeda; they didn’t get the pitching that they were looking for.

They [Mets] started talking to Montreal because Donn Clendenon was available. Mauch wanted to trade Clendenon to the Astros for Rusty Staub – which he eventually does – but Clendenon is not going to Houston because Harry “The Hat” Walker was there and the African American players thought Harry was a racist.

Clendenon had an option; he had an offseason job with Scripto Inc. He said, “You try to trade me, and I’ll just leave baseball.”

So they had to deal with him. They told him to get in shape, play for Montreal and we’ll find a deal.

The deal was the New York Mets, and they asked him if he’d go there, and he said you bet your life! It was a 5-for-1 deal, and Clendenon came our way, and we had something we didn’t have because he had some serious power and a guy that platoons with Krane at first.

I think as we rolled out of June, we’re a better team. Our pitching started to come around, and Clendenon started showing what he could do for you, and the rest starts to become history. We got better and reeled off some pretty good winning streaks. The Cardinals fell by the wayside, the Pirates fell by the wayside, and it was us and the Cubs. I remember thinking at some point, Here we are playing better and better than I thought we could play, and we can’t catch the Cubs. I’m thinking, We arrived at something that we had never experienced before, and we’re going to end up as the pumpkin in somebody else’s Cinderella story.

The Cubs looked like they were uncatchable.

Well, the last week in August and the first week in September is when the Cubs broke and collapsed. Was it because they were more mature and Leo Durocher – who didn’t invent baseball but certainly thought he did – played the same guys? They had Ernie Banks and Billy Williams; Hall of Famers and All-Stars. They had man-for-man maybe better players, but they played the same guys, and I think they hit the wall at the end of August, and when they faltered, we blew by them and never looked back.

I think we were coming out of the weeds and people still didn’t know if they should take us seriously or not, so we had that factor. People didn’t know what to make of us, they didn’t have a handle on us until we started rolling. We didn’t have the responsibility; we weren’t carrying the baggage of expectations. We were just playing, just surfing on these amazing times. We were up on top of the wave and just rolling.

It was the easiest baseball I ever remember playing.

MMO: You write about the work you put in with Eddie Yost in ’69 where he hit you thousands of fly balls, grounders and line drives with the fungo bat. How crucial was that extra work in helping to refine your defense in the outfield?

Swoboda: A lot of people don’t understand that Shea Stadium was a hard outfield to play because the stadium stood so tall. Most fly balls and balls in the air never came out of the stadium, out of the backdrop of the fans. We always had pretty full stadiums, and the fans are moving around. It’s like a fluid background, and it changes with the atmospheric, and it’s a tougher read and background. It’s tough to play there, and a lot of people in their first exposure to Shea Stadium, outfielders especially, made mistakes on reads, and I made my share.

With Eddie Yost, we came up with this routine. He’d get about 150 feet away with his fungo bat, and he’d hit me line drives and groundballs; left, right, over my head and in front of me. I’m working on my hands and working on my footwork, but the thing you were really working on without even thinking about it was reading the ball off the bat. That read off the bat was so tough off that bad background in Shea Stadium. I started reading the ball better off the bat, and if you did it good there, you did it better everywhere else.

I became a better outfielder at a certain point in time, and platooning with Shamsky in right field, Hodges stopped putting in Rod Gaspar as a late-inning replacement. He had done so in Seaver’s almost perfect game against the Cubs. I was sitting on the bench when Jim Qualls got his base hit to break the thing up. He had put Gaspar into the field in the eighth inning, and so it was something that I felt like I was better at and didn’t want him to do. In my mind, I thought I could do better, and I accomplished that before the end of the year. I wish I had learned more about hitting.

MMO: Can you walk me through your brilliant catch in Game 4 of the 1969 World Series? What was going through your mind in that moment?

Swoboda: We’re up on the Orioles, the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles for all the right reasons. They’ve got one out in the top of the ninth, and we have a one-run lead. Frank Robinson singles, Boog Powell singles behind him, and it’s first and third and one out.

Brooks Robinson was up, and I was in a little bit, not way in, a couple of steps. I always moved back on the ball pretty well and I was comfortable with that. You wanted to be in a better position if you had the chance to catch a fly ball and throw Robinson out at home plate. I didn’t move so close that I was exposing myself to something over my head.

Robinson hits a line drive off to my right, and I’m going from the get-go. I make the best jump I could make, and from the get-go, I’m taking an angle like I’m trying to catch the damn thing. And what am I thinking? Well, Joe Pignatano, one of the coaches and a good friend of Gil Hodges, once said to me and he wasn’t joking, “Don’t think, Swoboda. You only hurt the team.”

I wasn’t thinking anything but baseball, and I took a line that I thought would get me there. And 99 percent of the way there, I wasn’t sure I was going to catch it. I was trying to intersect it, and at the last second I laid out, thinking that was the next best thing I could do. On my backhand, that ball hit me up in the webbing where I knew it was going to stay. I’m on a full head of steam and sliding through the grass and doing the roll and came up and threw home, and fortunately, I was pointed in the right direction when I came up.

Frank Robinson, a smart ballplayer, tagged up like he should’ve and scored just ahead of my throw. But we stopped what could’ve been a two-run triple, or at the very least it drives in the tying run and puts Powell on third base. It would’ve been second and third at the very least if that thing gets by me and tied with them having the chance to go ahead. With every chance also that if we don’t get to it, Powell could score from first. I always thought that Boog was going to have to wait just like Robinson to see if I caught it or not. He’s not tagged up at first, but he has to wait and stop to see what happens with me and the ball.

MMO: And I think an underrated aspect of that play was how quick you got to your feet and made a strong throw home.

Swoboda: It’s funny, with this full-bore momentum on my backhand, it was kind of balletic and for someone not normally associated with ballet in the outfield. But I did, I kind of skidded and got my feet back under me, and as I said before, fortunately I was pointed in the right direction because that was where I probably was going to throw it.

I threw it home, and it was all in a flash, and in your mind it plays back like those stop-action pictures that were taken and captured. The Daily News owns that full layout still shot. They had a big, mechanical stop-action camera that was invented after World War II to take pictures of rockets that they were trying to develop in stop-action pictures. That camera was a big, bulky thing. It’s now in the Smithsonian Institute, but it was a connection of a motor drive and a big, long lens; the thing was huge! And that was the camera that caught the still shots.

MMO: It must be a great feeling to forever be remembered for such a crucial play in the World Series.

Swoboda: For an average player, and that’s really what I’m trying to say in this book, I’m just an average guy who, like every guy who gets a chance to play in the major leagues, tries to be the best you can be, and about all I could manage was flat average. But there are great moments possible when you are reaching out.

I think I quoted Robert Browning in there, the poet, about a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. It’s true that you can, in striving, be a little bit better than you are under normal circumstances for a moment. The average takes over later on, but you can be a little better than you think you are. Everyone who is trying to do hard things should keep that in mind.

MMO: I loved the way you ended your book, with grafs from a New York Times article called “I Am Swaboda.” The article essentially is about how you resonated with fans because you weren’t a star player but you still were able to come up big and draw such fan appeal.

Swoboda: Do you remember the movie Frequency? It’s a kid, and he’s got a radio, and there’s an atmospheric disturbance, and it turns out he’s talking to his father (Dennis Quaid) on this two-way radio back in time. His father had been killed in a fire, and he’s talking to his father, and they have no idea that he’s talking back to 1969. And the father is talking about the New York Mets, and he says something to the effect of I’ll always love Ron Swoboda.

My picture is up in the movie, and I met the guy that wrote the screenplay. I asked him, ‘Why did you pick me? We had all kind of cool guys on that team.’

This guy was not even a Mets fan; he was a California guy, and he said he went into the newspaper files for that season and read my quotes and how I reacted to things that were happening in the ebb and flow of the season and said I sounded like the everyman.

And I went, wow, because that was all I was ever shooting for. That’s all I was ever after was to sound like a human who happened to be playing this game, and in my book I hoped I’ve accomplished how you felt when you were going through the ups and downs of the season and you didn’t feel like you were Willie Mays or someone great. You were just a guy trying to do what you could do and lucky to be amongst 24 other guys trying to do the same thing who lived the dream.

MMO: Obviously, the recent news about Tom Seaver’s health was disheartening and emotional for so many. Can you talk about what it was like playing behind a Seaver pitched game and the kind of competitor he was?

Swoboda: You had Tom Seaver followed by Jerry Koosman at their best, you’re not going to have too many losing streaks, period. They’re going to interrupt that. Seaver as your ace, Koosman as your warrior, and he ended up drawing the other team’s ace a lot of the time.

Seaver was number one for good reasons. When Tom showed up in the big leagues in 1967, he was Hall of Fame quality from the get-go, from day one. When they took him out of the box and put him on the mound, he was the same guy with the same confidence and the same stuff. All he needed was the time to accumulate Hall of Fame statistics, which he would do.

He was the same guy from day one.

I was talking about dementia and that Tom is fighting his way through and Bud Harrelson is experiencing the opening phases of Alzheimer’s. And I said this to somebody: those memories are treasures to me, treasure. And the thought that something insidious can sneak in there and steal them from you and they’re gone is a tragedy on the level that I have no words for. The joke on the other side of that is I don’t have any marbles to spare, and it is a frightening thing to me that it can happen to all of us. It scares the hell out of me, more than dying.

My dad passed away in April at the age of 96, and he really had his marbles and really had clarity up until the very last. I’m hoping that I’ve inherited some of his genetics. He lived it all though. We had a 96^th birthday party, and he let us celebrate him. After that, he stopped taking all of his medications and he let nature take its course, and he was gone in less than a month. I felt like he said, that’s it, that’s enough. And he left with the dignity that he deserved.

MMO: At the end of this month, you along with many of your teammates will gather for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the ’69 Championship at Citi Field. What are you most looking forward to?

Swoboda: It’s going to be a crazy, busy and wonderful time. I think some of the guys that we haven’t seen, I’ve gotten to see Art a lot, Eddie Kranepool and I have stayed in contact, but they’ll be more fellas that you don’t see, and that will be the joy for us.

There was a wonderful quote from Fred Shero when he was the head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, and I was always a big Islanders fan, so I wasn’t a great fan of the Flyers. Going into Game 6 of one of the Stanley Cups, Shero wrote on the blackboard for his team, ‘Win today, and we walk together forever.’

That quote to me is all over the experience I’ve had with the 1969 New York Mets.

We walk together forever.

MMO: Thank you very much for your time today, Ron. It was a pleasure to speak with you about your memories and contributions to the 1969 Championship team. Enjoy the 50th celebration and best of luck with the book.

Swoboda: Thanks, man. This is going to be a wonderful celebration. Take care.

Purchase Ron Swoboda’s book here.

The post MMO Exclusive: ’69 World Series Champion, Ron Swoboda appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

No other position has seen more turnover at the starting spot for the Mets than Right Field. In 52 seasons, they have seen 33 different players who would be classified as the “primary” player at the position. Darryl Strawberry was the man for eight of those seasons. The other 44 seasons saw 32 different players. The last 16 seasons have seen 15 different regular right fielders for the Mets.

The following are the top eleven players to have regularly manned right field for the Mets.

10 – Alex Ochoa (1996-97) – 170 games (132 starts). In 1996, Ochoa hit .294 with 4 HR and 33 RBI.

10 – Carl Everett (1995) – 170 games (136 starts). In 1995, Carl Everett hit .260 with 12 HR and 54 RBI.

9 – Jeff Francoeur (2009-10) – 192 games (183 starts). In 2011 (with the Mets), Frenchy hit .311 with 10 HR and 41 RBI.

8 – Bobby Bonilla (1992-93) – 229 games (226 starts). In 1993, Bobby-Bo hit .265 with 34 HR and 87 RBI.

7 – Roger Cedeno (1999, 2003) – 238 games (189 starts). In 1999, he hit .313 with 4 HR, 36 RBI and 66 stolen bases.

6 – Joe Christopher (1964) – 263 games (244 starts). In 1964, he hit .300 with 16 HR and 76 RBI.

5 – Jeromy Burnitz (2002) – 290 games (262 starts). In 2002, Burnitz batted .215 with 19 HR and 54 RBI.

4 – Joel Youngblood (1979-80) – 309 games (244 starts). In 1979, Youngblood hit .275 with 16 HR and 60 RBI.

3 – Ron Swoboda (1967-70) – 434 games (372 starts). In 1967, Swoboda batted .281 with 13 HR and 53 RBI.

2 – Rusty Staub (1972-75) – 535 games (531 starts). Rusty had some solid years for the Mets and in 1975 he batted .282 with 19 HR and 105 RBI.

1 – Darryl Strawberry (1983-90) – 1,062 games (1,022 starts). A former number one pick, in 1987, Darryl hit .284 with 39 HR, 104 RBI, and 36 stolen bases.

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When a player already makes the big leagues at a young age and shows signs of being able to hold his own against major league competition while still a teenager or barely in his 20’s, it’s reason to get excited. The future seems unlimited and especially for a losing team as the Mets certainly were in their early years, fans begin to envision great things and a bright future for years to come.

The Mets’ very first great prospect was clearly Ed Kranepool who was signed out of James Monroe High School in the Bronx where he had broken Hank Greenberg’s home run records. In the days before the amateur draft, the Mets gave Ed an $80,000 bonus in 1962 with all the fanfare you’d associate with a #1 Draft Pick today. Kranepool was quickly brought up to the big leagues that same season after a brief and successful stint in the New York-Penn League. Although hardly ready at the age of 17, Ed was penciled in as the first baseman of the future and got a shot at the regular job the following year after Marv Throneberry was released. While Ed is remembered fondly as one of the heroes of 1969 and a solid contributor as a pinch-hitter for many years to come, without a doubt, he was a disappointment in terms of the expectations the organization and the fans had for him.

Ed was slow-footed and never hit more than 16 home runs in any season. Although he looked like he could be a .300 hitter and even got off to red-hot starts a couple of years, you could basically count on Ed to hit in the .260 range. It wasn’t long before the banner “Is Ed Kranepool Over The Hill ?” made its appearance at Shea Stadium. The Mets certainly wanted him to succeed, but bringing in players like Dick Stuart was a pretty good sign that the team realized that Kranepool would never be the player they expected. Ed was even put up in the 1968 expansion draft , still just 24 years old, and wasn’t taken by either Montreal or San Diego before the Mets pulled him back after a few rounds. I know there are still lots of Kranepool fans out there and certainly his career was considerably longer and more successful than many other players but he didn’t come close to what we all thought his “potential” was.

In 1964, a powerful outfielder recently signed out of the University of Maryland made a remarkable splash in spring training. Ron Swoboda displayed prodigious power and for all the world looked like the future cleanup hitter for the Mets for years to come. He was so impressive that despite no minor league experience, the Mets started him in AAA Buffalo. He was a little overmatched at the plate and his fielding was atrocious so the Mets sent him to AA Williamsport. Swoboda’s season statistics at AA and AAA were extremely impressive for a player with no previous professional experience – a combined 17 home runs, 72 rbi’s and a .271 average. At the time, baseball rules dictated that first-year pros had to be carried on the major league roster the following year or be subject to a waiver claim, so Swoboda’s presence on the 1965 Mets was much anticipated.

And Swoboda started off red-hot in 1965, giving fans hope that here was a player who could hit about 40 home runs and drive in 85 to 100 runs every year. His poor defense would get better with experience as would his .228 batting average which he compiled in 1965. As for his 19 round trippers, that was just the beginning. Well, Ron never came close to even hitting 19 home runs in a season again and after 6 disappointing years with the Mets (1969 heroics aside), was traded away and never really achieved major league success.

Of course, both had their great moments with the Mets, but as prospects, neither measured up to the potential everyone thought they had. Would the Mets have even thought about trading either in their first two years ? Highly unlikely. It’s something to think abut when the Mets or any other team call their prospects untouchable even in prospective deals for established big league players. Great prospects don’t always become great ballplayers.

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