Really fun read here that goes beyond the generic “Mets opened a camp” angle and has cool anecdotes I hadn’t heard before.
About the only time anyone saw Stengel perturbed that spring was when Hook went over his head, asking Ralph Kiner and Lindsey Nelson to broadcast a plea for fans to help find housing for players. The front office was not expecting that and refused to take the calls. Hook threatened to boycott the first regular-season road trip if the club didn’t find a place for him, his wife and their two young children. “Which was a bluff,” Hook said recently from what he calls his grandchildren-friendly farm in Michigan.