The Mets who are darned quick to send me a press release about a new ticket offering didn’t send me anything about Kranepool. There appear to be two mailing lists, despite how many times Mets Insiders tell us there aren’t (I have discussed this with other bloggers) and it appears they used List A.
Anyway…I first became fascinated by Ed Kranepool when at some point in the late 70s the TV announcers told me he was an original Met. WHOA that seemed insane – especially because I was younger than the Mets. This guy must be GREAT!
Well, Ed was good but he wasn’t great. He did however have a Mets World Series ring which not too many people can say.
I met Ed at least once, I think twice, at various Queens Baseball Conventions.
Ed. like all of the 69 Mets that I met, came across as a regular guy. Those old school neighborhood guys that happened to play baseball, as opposed to the new-fangled player making millions and millions and has nothing in common with you.
It seems everyone somehow met Ed. I’ve seen tons of tweets and articles about people sharing their anecdotes. In my case, I asked him about a house.
Way back when. a realtor showed me a house with an indoor pool. The house was straight out of the 70s with wood paneling and a San Diego Padres color scheme. And did I mention an indoor pool. Not just an indoor pool, a ig giant indoor pool in the middle of the house. Where the living room should be. If you walked from the bedroom to the bathroom or over to the kitchen, you’d walk past the pool. Not a place to raise children.
The realtor told me it had been Ed Kranepool’s house. I asked Ed about it. He said no. I imagine he would have remembered owning such a place.
So, we’ve lost another one of “my” Mets as this franchise increasingly becomes someone else’s Mets.
Can you imagine Ed, or Buddy, or Ed Charles, or Shamsky, or Grove or Seaver (all Mets I met) going out of their way to give the Mets fans a thumbs down. I sure can’t.