RIP Ed Kranepool – IOTW Report

RIP Ed Kranepool

Monday, 9 September 2024, 18:42 BFH Uncategorized 13

Ed Kranepool, Mets legend who was a big part of the 1969 World Series win, dead at 79.

NYP-

Ed Kranepool, who jumped from a Bronx high school to the big leagues with the original Mets at the age of 17 and who spent all 18 of his major league seasons in Flushing, died Sunday in Boca Raton, Fla., after suffering cardiac arrest. He was 79.

Kranepool, a left-handed hitting first baseman who was a member of the Mets’ first two World Series teams, had received a kidney transplant in 2019. He also suffered from diabetes.

“He battled for so long and never complained about anything,” teammate Ron Swoboda said of Kranepool. “I thought once he got his kidney transplant things would be great. He was a wonderful guy and even better teammate. We went into the restaurant business together. I can’t believe he is gone.”

Fellow 1969 champion Art Shamsky said he was “just devastated” by Kranepool’s passing.

~~~~~

I met Ed when I was 12. He gave me a 1973 Mets ball signed by the entire team, which included Willie Mays.

I put it on a shelf. Over the years, the sun bleached it out. All the names disappeared.

13 Comments on RIP Ed Kranepool

  3. One of the 69 Mets is from my town.
    Just a regular guy who drove for a bread company in the off season and after baseball.
    They didn’t make the salaries they pay now.
    Baseball was still a game then.

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  5. Yep, Mets won the World Series in 1969 when I was serving in SE Asia. Some soldiers from NYC ignored the Yankees long enough to make them Mets fans for a few weeks.

    The NY Yankees have been the class act of MLB since 1921-22 when they pried the Babe out of Boston. No other team can match the Yankees in overall success.

    But nowadays most MLB teams play in suck cities. Think NYC, Philly, Chicago, St. Louis, SF, LA, Oakland, Seattle, Miami, Cleveland, Minnie. oops, almost forgot Detroit. I didn’t mention Toronto because it has not quite yet reached the low depths of the US cities. Give it time, it’s getting there.

    What those cities have come to in the last 60 years is a tragedy.

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  6. @Different Tim

    I don’t think any sports leagues before the 1970’s paid well enough so that the players could lounge around during the off-season like they do now.

    Gordie Howe the hockey player had to sling around heavy wooden boxes of beer for a brewery in Detroit during summer. The plus side for him was the development of his upper arms and chest, the old-fashioned way.

    I finished watching Moneyball a couple of weeks ago. The salaries for the Oakland A’s in the early 2000’s was $35 million. The A’s could not compete with the Yankees who had a salary budget of $130 million or so. This led A’s GM Billy Beane to come up with a scheme called Moneyball, where players were judged on their on-base percentage. It didn’t translate into a World Series win for the A’s, but the Boston Red Sox adopted the concept and won their first WS since around 1918 because of it, so it’s been said.

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  8. Jimmy Margarita-Drunkard Buffet playing music at Fenway Park should have resulted in another Red Sox thrashing by the Yankees during the AL Playoffs – assuming they played against each other in the playoffs that year. God works in mysterious ways.

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  9. Big Fur Hat , great story ! Saw my first baseball game at the Polo grounds introducing the Mets (class trip). Was too shy to ask for autographs but they actually won that day although I don’t remember who they played. My classmates and I were a bit distracted by the pigeons who were concentrating on helping us to devour our boxed lunches.

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