The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of the Mets: Ed Kranepool

In the film "Forrest Gump", the titular character ran across the country from one ocean to the other just because he "felt like runnin' ".  His travels took him across flat land, up the highest mountain, back down again, and even through a pile of dog ... ahem ... poo.  After spending three years, two months, 14 days and 16 hours on the roads of America, Gump decided to stop running because he was tired.  There was no fanfare as his run came to an end.  He just quit and went home.

Gump's spirited jog commenced around October 1, 1979, as a news broadcast that was airing at the beginning of his cross-country trek was reporting that President Jimmy Carter had collapsed that day while attempting to complete a six-mile race.  Just one day before Gump began his long run in the fictional town of Greenbow, AL, another long run was coming to an end in the very real city of St. Louis, MO.  And when this run of 18 seasons with a single major league franchise came to an end, it also had no fanfare.  It just marked the quiet close to the career of the last man who played for the original Mets.

He was steady.  He was Eddie.  But as a teenager, was he ready?  (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Edward Emil Kranepool was barely out of his James Monroe High School cap and gown when the Mets signed the amateur free agent to an $85,000 contract in June 1962.  The new expansion team was enamored with the young man who broke Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg's home run records at Monroe, promoting him to the big club before its inaugural season was over.  At age 17 and just three months out of high school, the Bronx-bred Kranepool collected his first major league hit at Manhattan's Polo Grounds - an opposite field double off Cubs reliever Don Elston.

In 1963, Kranepool split his time between AAA-Buffalo and the Mets, producing an impressive .310 batting average and .507 slugging percentage in 53 minor league games, while being overmatched at the major league level, batting .209 and slugging .289 in 86 games.  The following year, his last as a teenager and his first at the newly opened Shea Stadium, Kranepool became just the 13th player to appear in 100 or more games in a single season prior to blowing out 20 candles on his birthday cake.  The first baseman improved greatly during that 1964 campaign, batting .257 and finishing among the team leaders in hits (108), doubles (19) and home runs (10).

Although Kranepool was blossoming into an offensive talent, the Mets continued to bring up the rear in the National League standings.   After losing 111 and 109 games in 1963 and 1964, respectively, the Mets found a way to regress in 1965, finishing the year with a 50-112 record.  The team could actually have been a lot worse had it not been for Kranepool's performance in the first half of the season.

Through games of June 3, Kranepool batted a hefty .344 and produced a .922 OPS, while racking up 21 extra-base hits and 29 RBI.  As a result, Kranepool was chosen to be the Mets' sole representative in the All-Star Game, his first and only selection for the Midsummer Classic.  Kranepool didn't get to play in the game, as N.L. manager Gene Mauch chose to play Ernie Banks at first base during the entire contest, but the Mets' first baseman did become the youngest player at that position to become an All-Star - a distinction Kranepool still holds to this day.

Kranepool ran out of gas in the second half of the 1965 campaign, as evidenced by his .216/.268/.292 post-All-Star Game slash line.  He also had to deal with the unexpected retirement of the only manager he had ever played for in the big leagues, Casey Stengel, who broke his hip in a fall in late July and called it a career a month later.

When the Mets signed Kranepool in 1962, they were hoping to get the player who broke all of Hank Greenberg's high school records.  Instead, they got a mediocre player who seemed to be living out a real life "Groundhog Day" situation, doomed to repeat the same campaign year after year.  From 1964 to 1967, an average season for Steady Eddie saw him put up a .258/.312/.383 slash line with 19 doubles, 12 homers and 52 RBI.  Kranepool never hit below .253 or above .269 in any of those four seasons.  He also hit exactly ten home runs in three of the four years (he flexed his muscles in 1966 when he bashed a career-high 16 homers) and produced between 45 and 57 RBI during the quadrennium.  Kranepool was also playing almost every day, averaging over 500 plate appearances per season.  That all changed in 1968, when a new manager came aboard and ended up extending Kranepool's career by playing him less.

Prior to 1968, the Mets had lost 100 or more games in five of their first six seasons.  They had also established a permanent residency in the National League cellar, coming out for a sniff of ninth place just once in 1966.  But after six seasons of playing like a first-year expansion team, the arrival of skipper Gil Hodges shifted the mindset of the team.

"Spring Training, Gil Hodges wanted you to lead by example," Kranepool said about his former teammate and current manager.  "He built the ballclub around leadership."

Kranepool made his debut as a defensive replacement for Hodges, then played under him.  (Herb Scharfman/Getty Images)

The Mets won 73 games in '68, fueled by the pitching of rookie Jerry Koosman and sophomore starter Tom Seaver.  Unfortunately, Kranepool had his worst season since 1963, batting .231 with only three homers and 20 RBI despite getting the majority of the starts at first base.  Kranepool continued to get the bulk of the playing time at first base during the early part of the 1969 season as the team got off to an 18-23 start.  But after a club-record 11-game winning streak in late May and early June suddenly thrust the Mets into second place, the team felt the need to upgrade its offense, especially after being held to three runs or fewer in 34 of their first 56 games.  The team addressed the problem by trading for veteran slugger Donn Clendenon.

At the time of the trade, Kranepool was back to his typical pre-1968 self, which meant he was batting .256 with six homers and 26 RBI while getting most of the starts at his customary position. The lefty-swinging Kranepool and the right-handed batting Clendenon were then platooned at first base by Hodges, which maximized power production at the corner infield spot.

From June 15 until season's end, Kranepool and Clendenon combined to produce 17 homers and 60 RBI in 441 plate appearances.  Kranepool also produced some huge hits along the way.  His walk-off RBI single off future Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins on July 8 capped a three-run, ninth-inning rally and gave the Mets a thrilling victory over the rival Cubs, just one day before Seaver shut down Chicago with his Imperfect Game.  Five days after his hit against Jenkins, Kranepool delivered another game-winner, this time a tie-breaking RBI double in the eighth inning against Montreal that gave New York a 4-3 victory.  The Expos were once again victimized by Kranepool on September 18, when the veteran homered and drove in both runs in the Mets' 2-0 victory.  Six days later, the Mets wrapped up their first N.L. East division title.

"We kept applying the pressure, and the Cubs knew they were in a pennant race," Kranepool said.  "Every time we played a big series, we won it.  We beat the Cubs head to head in every series after that.  We got some breaks - but look, a winning team makes its breaks."

Buoyed by their late-season push for the playoffs, the Mets miraculously won it all in 1969, sweeping the Atlanta Braves in the inaugural National League Championship Series and needing just five games to upset the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.  Kranepool started four of the Mets' eight postseason games, collecting a hit in each contest.  In the Mets' first-ever playoff game, Kranepool scored two runs and delivered the fielder's choice that plated the go-ahead run in the eighth inning.  The following day, Kranepool got the Mets on the board first with an RBI single in the first inning.  Kranepool played in just one World Series game because the Orioles started left-handed pitchers in four of the five games, but he made the most out of his sole appearance, clubbing a home run in the Mets' Game Three victory - the first Fall Classic game ever played in Flushing.

The look of a champion.  (Focus On Sport)

Although he was only 24 at the time, Kranepool had become the longest tenured Met.  He was also a world champion and one of the leaders in the tight-knit clubhouse.  Third baseman Ed Charles, the poet laureate of the Mets, said it best when he discussed the team's camaraderie during their championship season.

"We felt like a family," Charles said.  "It started with Mrs. Joan Payson, the owner, who had a habit of making people feel at home.  It included the leadership of Gil Hodges.  And there was the chemistry of the team.  We were all close.  I went to barbecues at the home of Kranepool, (Art) Shamsky, (Ron) Swoboda.  We went out together on the road.  I never saw a team with so much closeness."

As close as Kranepool was to his teammates in 1969, he ended up playing far away from them for most of the 1970 campaign.  Kranepool batted just .222 in April, then went 0-for-May, failing to collect a hit in the 12 games he appeared in during the month.  After not collecting a hit in five June games, which dropped his batting average to a pitcher-like .118, Kranepool was unceremoniously demoted to AAA-Tidewater, spending the next two months there trying to regain his hitting stroke.  Kranepool batted .310 in 47 games with the Tides and was called back up to the Mets in mid-August, where he was used exclusively as a pinch-hitter.  His final major league stats for the year: .170 batting average, eight hits, no homers and three RBI in 43 games.

While Kranepool was in the minors in 1970, his bat wasn't missed in the starting lineup, as Clendenon batted .288 with 22 homers and a then-franchise record 97 RBI.  But Clendenon saw a significant drop-off across the board in 1971 (.247, 11 HR, 37 RBI in 88 games), which allowed Kranepool to re-establish himself in the big leagues.  Kranepool's renaissance season ended with a .280 batting average, 14 homers and a career-high 58 RBI.

At the conclusion of the 1971 campaign, Clendenon was released by the Mets, allowing Kranepool to take over first base on a full-time basis for the first time since before Clendenon's arrival.  But the sudden death of Gil Hodges prior to the start of the 1972 season changed the direction of the club, with Yogi Berra tabbed to replace the beloved Hodges.  The passing of his manager and mentor also affected the play of Kranepool, who batted just .204 with four homers and 14 RBI through the team's first 87 games.  Kranepool eventually recovered after a three-month mourning period, batting .326 with 15 extra-base hits and 20 RBI over his final 195 plate appearances.

As good as Kranepool was during the second half of the 1972 season, he was surely going to lose playing time the following season to John Milner, who finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year vote in '72.  Milner played mostly in left field during his stellar rookie season, but was more suited to play first base.  In 1973, Milner and Kranepool switched positions, with Milner getting most of his starts at first base and Kranepool splitting time between first and left.  Kranepool did not respond well to the switch, batting .239 in 1973 with just one homer and 35 RBI.  He was also mostly a spectator during the Mets' run to their second division title in five seasons, appearing solely as a pinch-hitter during the last two weeks of the regular season.  But even in limited action, Kranepool was instrumental in getting the Mets back to the World Series.

The Mets played a dozen games during the 1973 postseason; Kranepool started one of them.  That lone start occurred in the first do-or-die playoff game in franchise history and only happened because right fielder Rusty Staub injured his shoulder in Game Four of the NLCS while making a spectacular catch against the outfield wall.  With the Mets and Cincinnati Reds having split the first four games of the best-of-five series, Kranepool got the nod from Berra to start Game Five in left field, with Cleon Jones moving to right in lieu of the injured Staub.  Kranepool rewarded his manager immediately, driving in the first two runs of the game with a bases-loaded single.  The Mets never trailed in the game and advanced to their second World Series, which they lost in seven games to the Oakland A's with the underhand-throwing Staub returning to right field and the healthy Kranepool returning to the bench.

The bench became a familiar place for Kranepool for the rest of his career.  From 1974 to 1978, Kranepool started just 317 games over the five-year period, making more than 82 starts in just one of the five seasons (1976).  Although he performed well as a part-time starter, batting .286 with a .399 slugging percentage, Kranepool was lethal as a pinch-hitter.  When he came off the bench from 1974 to 1978, Kranepool batted an eye-popping .396 (57-for-144) and slugged .590.  Included in the torrid stretch was a .486 batting average as a pinch-hitter in 1974 - the first of four consecutive seasons in which Kranepool batted .400 or higher as a sub - and a .300 pinch-hitting average in 1978, which doesn't seem as impressive until you consider that he hit .065 (2-for-31) during the season when he batted in other roles.

In the mid-to-late '70s, Kranepool was the team's top pinch-hitter and top mustache-grower.  (Michael Zagaris/Getty Images)

By the time 1979 rolled around, the team was in shambles.  Gone were Seaver and Koosman, with The Franchise being traded to Cincinnati as part of the Midnight Massacre in 1977 and Kooz being dealt to the Minnesota Twins following the 1978 campaign.  Not a single player from the '73 pennant-winning team remained at the start of the 1979 season.  Except for Kranepool.  And his days as a Met were also about to come to an end.

Following the death of team owner Joan Payson in 1975, control of the club went to her husband, Charles, and daughter, Lorinda de Roulet, neither of whom shared the same passion for the game that Mrs. Payson had.  Baseball operations fell into the hands of team chairman M. Donald Grant, who had no intention of spending much money to better the team.  Instead, he pared the roster of veteran players who were asking to be paid like their counterparts in other cities.  The camaraderie that existed between the players when the Mets won the World Series in 1969 was completely gone a decade later, and so was Grant, who was removed as the team's chairman by the club's board of directors prior to the 1979 season.

Kranepool, who was never one to mince his words, had some harsh feelings about the questionable transactions made by the team during the ill-fated M. Donald Grant era.

"Look at some of the deals they made," Kranepool said.  "They were horrendous.  They unloaded everybody and didn't make a good deal."

And although most of the negativity surrounding the team following the death of Payson fell on Grant, Kranepool always dished out more vitriol towards general manager Joe McDonald.

"I didn't have a good relationship with Joe McDonald," Kranepool said matter-of-factly.  "I didn't respect him.  I didn't like him; he didn't know anything about baseball.  There were termites who ate away at the organization, and he was part of the termites.  Donald Grant got blamed for it, but Joe McDonald was the one who made the trades."

Because of his testy relationship with McDonald, Kranepool knew that when his contract expired at the end of the 1979 season, he would no longer be a Met, regardless of how he performed.  In what would be the final year of his long career, Kranepool batted .232 and managed just two homers and 17 RBI in 174 plate appearances.  To add insult to injury, the Mets closed out their season at Shea Stadium on September 23 by honoring Lou Brock of the Cardinals, who set a major league record when he stole the 938th base of his career in his final appearance at Shea.  Kranepool, the only man to play for the Mets in each of the franchise's first 18 seasons, didn't even get to play in the game and received no ovation from the home crowd.

Following the season, Kranepool was not tendered a contract and became a free agent.  Although he was only 34 at the conclusion of the 1979 campaign, Kranepool never played another game in the majors.  He finished his career as the Mets' all-time leader in nearly offensive category, even though a good chunk of his career was spent riding the pine.

Ed Kranepool wasn't just a hometown kid living out his dream on the baseball diamond.  He was also a stockbroker and a restaurateur.   He appeared in commercials, movies and TV shows, doing everything from plugging shaving cream to being accused of stealing Chico Escuela's soap in a classic Saturday Night Live sketch.  And on multiple occasions, he used his business savvy to try to purchase the team he once played for.

Krane.  (Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images)

Following the 1979 campaign, the newly-retired Kranepool joined forces with a small group of investors in a failed attempt to buy the Mets from the Payson/de Roulet family.  The Mets were eventually sold to the team of publisher Nelson Doubleday and real estate investor Fred Wilpon.  Three decades later, when Wilpon encountered financial difficulties due to his connections with Ponzi scheme swindler Bernard Madoff, he attempted to sell a small percentage of the team to increase his cash flow.  Once again, Kranepool stepped up to the plate, this time with a group of investors that included Martin Luther King III, but no purchase was ever made.

When Doubleday and Wilpon bought the Mets in 1980, Kranepool officially ended his career in baseball.  His retirement as a player ensured that he couldn't affect the Mets on the field, and his inability to purchase a part of the team meant that he couldn't have a say off it.  But despite his numerous failures - not being able to buy a part of the team, not developing into a perennial All-Star and not even being an everyday player for the majority of his career - Kranepool remains beloved by Mets fans to this day.

His career began as a 17-year-old when the expansion Mets called the Polo Grounds home.  He developed into a serviceable player as the team moved into their new home in Queens.  He owned a World Series ring before he turned 25.  He thrived as a pinch-hitter during the latter part of his career.  And he was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame after his playing days were over.

Forrest Gump got to experience and influence many key moments in American history just by being there.  Ed Kranepool's longevity did the same for him, as he witnessed and participated in many of the Mets' seminal moments.  Kranepool was there for the highs of two pennants and one World Series championship.  He was also present for the decline and dismantling of a once-proud team.  And when his run as the longest tenured Met was done, the native New Yorker just went home.

Kranepool will always have a home when it comes to the Mets.



Note: The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of the Mets is a thirteen-part weekly series spotlighting those Mets players and personnel who experienced the best of times and the worst of times with the team.  For previous installments, please click on the names below:

January 2, 2017: Tom Seaver
January 9, 2017: Mike Piazza
January 16, 2017: Wally Backman
January 23, 2017: Daniel Murphy
January 30, 2017: Frank Cashen

Bears On Film: 42

Hi, everyone!  We're Joey and Iggy Beartran, your fav'rit Studious Metsimus film critics.  In today's edition of Bears On Film, we'd like to give you our thoughts on the movie "42", starring Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey.

What can we say about this film that hasn't already been said?  (And it's been said by pretty much everyone, considering we're reviewing the film six weeks after it was released.)  The film tells the story of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in the major leagues, focusing on the three-year period from 1945 - when Brooklyn Dodgers' executive Branch Rickey got the idea to sign an African-American player - to 1947, when Robinson led the Dodgers to the National League pennant.

In the film's opening scene, Rickey (played beautifully by Harrison Ford) explains his intention to sign a man of color, saying that "money isn't black or white - it's green."  Rickey chooses to sign Robinson over his other Negro League contemporaries because he's young, college-educated, and has experience playing with white teammates from his time on the UCLA baseball team.  But Robinson's academic and baseball education in California wasn't enough to prepare him for the education in bigotry and hatred he would receive as a member of the Dodgers organization.

Chadwick Boseman embodied the spirit of Jackie Robinson in the film.  He was a fighter who wasn't afraid to stand up for himself and his beliefs (as evidenced by a scene in which he told a white gas station attendant that his team would find another service station if he wasn't allowed to use the bathroom) and he was also a devout family man who loved his young bride, Rachel (brilliantly portrayed by Nicole Beharie) and their newborn son, Jackie Jr.

The love shared by Jackie and Rachel Robinson rivaled their love to fight for what was right.

Both Boseman and Beharie were excellent in their roles, with Boseman perfectly conveying the struggles of being a black player in a white sport and Beharie showing her devotion to her husband and his dream of succeeding under difficult conditions.  And what difficult conditions they were!

Robinson had to deal with opposing players (and several of his own teammates) who didn't want him on the field.  Opposing managers also weren't keen on the idea of facing a black opponent.  Phillies manager Ben Chapman (played with villainous accuracy by Alan Tudyk) was the worst offender of them all.  His repeated use of the "n-word" and other vile epithets whenever Robinson stepped up to the plate did what no other man could do.  It nearly broke Robinson.

But in one memorable scene (though not one that was exactly factual), Branch Rickey finds Robinson in the tunnel behind the Dodgers dugout after Robinson had broken his bat into pieces following a racist tirade by Chapman.  Rickey tries to convince a distraught and nearly broken Robinson to return to the game because he's better than those who try to bring him down.  Robinson, still shaken, ponders the situation before informing Rickey that he'll need a new bat.

Robinson did return to the game and before long, he returned the National League pennant to Brooklyn, a place it had rarely been in team history.  On the way to the pennant, the viewer got to see iconic moments from the 1947 season.  From Robinson's major league debut to Pee Wee Reese famously putting his arm around the shoulder of his first baseman at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, the film stayed close to true events and showed the extreme difficulties of being ostracized by an ignorant society.

Iggy and I re-enact the scene between Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson.

On personal notes, both Iggy and I loved seeing the old, defunct ballparks in the film.  From Ebbets Field (and the Abe Stark sign on the outfield wall) to the Polo Grounds (with the Longines Clock in center field), it was a delight to see parks we were too young to see in person.  Also delightful were the performances of Andre Holland as Pittsburgh Courier reporter Wendell Smith, Christopher Meloni as suspended Dodger manager Leo Durocher (as a long-time fan of Law & Order: SVU, Iggy was quite fond on his performance) and John C. McGinley, who was "foist-rate" as Dodger broadcaster Red Barber.

But of course, as Mets fans, we can't finish our review without mentioning the performance of 11-year-old Dusan Brown.  The young Master Brown played the role of a child who was in awe of Jackie Robinson and couldn't wait to see him play in person, which he did when he attended a spring training game in Florida with his mother.  In his first at-bat, Robinson walked on four pitches, then promptly stole second and third.  The pitcher (who, like many other players at the time, was not in favor of Robinson sharing a field with him) got so rattled by Robinson's antics on the bases, he dropped the ball on the mound, allowing Robinson to score on a balk.

In one of the film's funniest lines, Master Brown explained to his mother that the pitcher "was discombobulated" by Robinson's baserunning wizardry.  Long-time Mets fans should not be surprised by the 11-year-old's use of the polysyllabic word, as he grew up to become "The Glider" on the 1969 World Series champion New York Mets.  And of course, in addition to being the team's third baseman in their miraculous season, Ed Charles was the team's poet laureate, crafting numerous rhyming couplets in his days with the team.  So it would be safe to say that "discombobulated" was a word that a future poet laureate would be familiar with as a middle-schooler.

Glad to see that Dusan Brown was not "discombobulated" as he portrayed a young Ed Charles.

In summary, "42" was a wonderful tribute to the man who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947.  The film was clearly a labor of love by writer/director Brian Helgeland and accurately captured what it was like to live in a world where tolerance and acceptance of people of color were still new concepts.

Baseball fans will certainly enjoy the on-field scenes featuring the Brooklyn Dodgers in action.  But fans of American history (and Robinson's life is quite an important part of the history of our country) will truly appreciate the film for its portrayal of a real American hero.  We can't think of anything to complain about this film (although Iggy wishes the film would have shown the iconic moment when Jackie Robinson stood in front of the Dodgers clubhouse wearing his Montreal Royals jersey), and as a result, we gladly give "42" two paws up.

"42" is a film no true baseball fan should miss.  Heck, it's a film no true American should miss.  It's a grand slam in every sense of the word.
 

The Mets That Got Away: Amos Otis

Many players in major league history are so attached to one team that people have trouble thinking of them in another uniform.  For example, when someone mentions Babe Ruth, no one thinks of him as a Boston Brave.  Similarly, no one thinks of Reggie Jackson as a Baltimore Oriole.  But Ruth finished his storied 22-year career playing on Boston's National League team in 1935, while Jackson spent one season in the prime of his career playing for Charm City's best in 1976.

This doesn't just apply to Hall of Famers and it doesn't only apply to former Yankees.  There have been a number of players who suited up for the Mets whose names were so attached to other teams that people always say, "wait, those players played for the Mets?"

As ESPN loved to remind us, Frank Tanana "threw 90 in the 70s and 70 in the 90s", referring to his pitch velocity at various stages in his career.  Of course, he was throwing 90+ MPH while blowing away hitters as Nolan Ryan's teammate on the California Angels from 1973 to 1979.  Then he was soft-tossing 70 MPH pitches as a member of the New York Mets in 1993, going 7-15 for the 103-loss Metropolitans before being traded to the Yankees for Kenny Greer, a player who is mostly only known for being mentioned in the afterword of Greg Prince's "Faith and Fear in Flushing" book.  Similarly, Jeff Conine, otherwise known as Mr. Marlin for his contributions to each of Florida's two World Series championship teams, played the last 21 games of his career as a member of the New York Mets in 2007. 

But there is another famous player who is so associated with the team for which he played the majority of his career, that hardly anyone remembers that he got his first taste of the big leagues in a Mets uniform.  When this player ended his major league career after the 1984 season, he was the Kansas City Royals' all-time leader in numerous offensive categories and to this day, remains in their top five in virtually every cumulative offensive statistic.  Yet somehow, the Mets traded him away because they needed help with their offense and decided he was expendable.  Shows how much they knew about the potential of Amos Otis.

Amos Otis as a Met, before he became an All-Star with the Royals.

Amos Joseph Otis was originally drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the fifth round of the 1965 amateur draft.  After playing in the Red Sox minor league system for two seasons, Otis was selected by the Mets in the December 1966 minor league draft and sent to AAA-Jacksonville to start the 1967 season.  Otis played well in Jacksonville, batting .268 with 21 extra-base hits in 126 games.  But the best part of his game was his speed, as Otis swiped 29 bases in 34 attempts for the Suns.  His successful season in the minors earned Otis his first call-up to the big leagues in September.  But in 19 games with the Mets, his minor league success failed to translate at the big league level, as Otis hit .220 with two doubles and one RBI.  He also was thrown out in all four of his stolen base attempts.

Otis spent the entire 1968 season at AAA-Jacksonville, where he had a tremendous season.  Otis batted .286 and led the team in doubles (29), RBIs (70), runs scored (76) and stolen bases (21).  He also showed more power at the plate, belting 15 homers for the Suns.  In two seasons with the organization, Otis had become "the best piece of property we've got", according to farm director Whitey Herzog.  The Mets' belief in Otis was so high that they refused to send him to the Braves when Atlanta was trying to unload Joe Torre after the 1968 season.  Atlanta eventually dealt Torre to the St. Louis Cardinals prior to the 1969 season, where he became a batting champion and National League MVP.  Otis remained in New York, but didn't stay for long.

After a successful 1968 season at the Triple-A level, Otis forced himself onto the Mets' 1969 Opening Day roster.  But manager Gil Hodges had a plethora of talent in the outfield, with four players (Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Ron Swoboda, Art Shamsky) all competing for playing time.  As a result, Hodges decided to play Otis at third base, a position that had seen nearly four dozen players participate in a game of musical chairs with each of them losing their hold on the hot corner when the music stopped.  Otis was not pleased with Hodges' decision and struggled at the plate, batting .136 (9-for-66) with no homers and no stolen bases in 36 games, despite starting only three games at third base.

On June 15, the Mets acquired Donn Clendenon from the Montreal Expos to give the team an offensive boost, sending the unhappy Otis back to the minor leagues.  While Clendenon was turning into the offensive spark the Mets were counting on Otis to be, Otis sparkled once again at the Triple-A level, batting .327 with ten homers, 43 RBIs and 19 stolen bases in only 71 games at Tidewater.  With the Mets closing in on their first division title, Otis was recalled by the team on September 13 and played in 12 of the Mets' final 18 games.  But once again, Otis failed to make an impression, batting .185 (5-for-27) with no homers and two RBIs, although he finally did steal his first base on September 17.  The Mets went on to win the World Series in 1969, but Otis did not participate in the postseason.

Amos Otis, who had been deemed untouchable at the beginning of the year, was now becoming very touchable entering the 1969-1970 off-season.

Less than two weeks after third baseman Ed Charles danced joyously on the mound following the Mets' World Series victory, he was released by general manager Johnny Murphy.  With Amos Otis clearly not turning into the third baseman of the future, the Mets decided to part ways with him as well.  After parts of two seasons in New York, where he batted .178 with no homers and five RBIs in 152 at-bats, Otis was dealt to Kansas City (along with pitcher Bob Johnson) for third baseman Joe Foy.  Foy enjoyed some success for the Royals in their inaugural season, batting .262 with 11 home runs, 37 stolen bases and a team-leading 71 RBIs and 72 runs scored.  In other words, he had produced the numbers the Mets were expecting out of Otis.

Although Foy did produce a career-high .373 on-base percentage for the Mets in 1970, his other numbers were far short of what the Mets expected from him.  Foy batted .236 with six homers, 37 RBIs and 22 stolen bases.  He also crossed the plate a mere 39 times in 99 games.  In addition, Foy was a horrible defensive third baseman, committing 18 errors at the hot corner despite starting only 94 games there.  Needless to say, Foy's 1970 campaign was his only one butchering balls at third base for the Mets, as Foy was taken by the Washington Senators in the 1970 Rule 5 draft.  Amos Otis, on the other hand, finally displayed the talent the Mets expected to see when they wouldn't trade him for Joe Torre.

Upon acquiring Amos Otis from the Mets, Kansas City wasted no time in naming him the team's starting centerfielder.  Batting primarily out of the three-spot in the lineup, Otis rewarded his new team immediately, batting .284 with 11 homers, 58 RBIs, 91 runs scored and 33 stolen bases in 1970.  Otis also finished tied for the American League lead with his 36 doubles and was named to his first All-Star team.

Otis continued to grow as a five-tool player in 1971, batting .301 with 15 HR, 79 RBIs, 80 runs scored and a league-leading 52 stolen bases.  In just their third year of existence, Otis became the first Royal to surpass 50 steals in a season.  By comparison, no Met stole 50 or more bases in a season until the team was in its third decade.  (Mookie Wilson became the first man to accomplish this feat when he stole 58 bases for the Mets in 1982.)  For his efforts, Otis was named to the American League All-Star team for the second straight year, won his first Gold Glove Award and placed eighth in the AL MVP vote.

All-Star nods, Gold Glove Awards and Most Valuable Player consideration became a common theme for Otis during his tenure in Kansas City.  From 1970 to 1978, Otis made the All-Star team five times, won three Gold Gloves and finished in the top ten in the MVP vote four times, including a third-place finish in 1973 when he blasted a career-high 26 homers and led Kansas City to a then-franchise best 88-74 record.

As consistent as Amos Otis was, his team was not.  In Otis' first six seasons in Kansas City, the team alternated winning and losing seasons.  In each odd-numbered year (1971, 1973, 1975), the Royals averaged 88 wins and finished in second place in the American League West.  But in even-numbered years (1970, 1972, 1974), Kansas City had two fourth-place finishes and a fifth-place finish and averaged 73 wins.

But all that changed in 1976 when the Royals, under the leadership of new manager Whitey Herzog, earned their first crown as AL West champions, ending the Oakland Athletics' five-year reign atop the division.  Less than a decade after declaring Otis as the best piece of property on the Mets, Herzog was now managing the star player to his first - and the team's first - postseason appearance.  However, Otis barely played in the ALCS against the Yankees, injuring his ankle while running to first base on a groundout in the first inning of Game 1.  His loss would go on to hurt the Royals, as they would go on to lose the best-of-five series on a walk-off homer by Chris Chambliss in Game 5.

Kansas City would repeat as division champions in 1977 and 1978, only to lose to the Yankees in the ALCS both times.  Otis did everything he could to help his team in the 1978 ALCS, batting .429 (6-for-14) with two doubles and four stolen bases in the series, but once again was forced to watch the Yankees celebrate winning a pennant at his team's expense.  The Royals were becoming to the Yankees what the Brooklyn Dodgers were in the 1940s and 1950s, a team that was a consistent winner but could never get over the hump.  After many failed attempts, the Dodgers finally defeated the Yankees in the 1955 World Series.  A quarter of a century later, the Royals followed in their footsteps, with Amos Otis leading the way.

In what was a relatively easy three-game sweep of the Yankees in the 1980 ALCS, Otis collected hits in every game, batting .333 with two runs scored and two stolen bases.  With the Royals down by two runs in Game 1, Otis started a rally by singling off Yankees starter Ron Guidry.  He later came around to score on Frank White's game-tying two-run double.  One inning later, Otis hit a ground-rule double and later scored on Willie Aikens' go-ahead two-run single.  The Royals only trailed for one half inning for the rest of the series.

The Royals would go on to play the Phillies in the 1980 World Series, a series won by Philadelphia in six games.  Mike Schmidt won the World Series MVP Award, an honor that surely would have gone to Amos Otis had the Royals emerged victorious.  Otis batted .478 (11-for-23) in the six-game series, batting .550 over the first five games before going 0-for-3 in Game 6.  After not hitting a home run in his first 13 career postseason games, Otis slammed three homers in the World Series.  He also drove in seven runs in the series, including at least one RBI in each of the first five games.  But the veteran Phillies were too much for the youth-infused Royals, who would have to wait another five years before finally winning their first World Series title.

Although Otis had a tremendous postseason for the Royals in 1980, he failed to play in 130 regular season games for the first time since coming to Kansas City.  In fact, from 1980 to 1983, Otis never reached the 130-game plateau, as nagging injuries whittled away at his playing time.  In that four-year span, Otis averaged 107 games per season and only produced one year that could be considered a typical Amos Otis-type campaign (1982, when he batted .286 with 11 HR and 88 RBIs in 125 games).  The 36-year-old Otis played his final season with the Royals in 1983 before finishing out his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1984, playing in only 40 games with the Bucs before he was released in August.

Amos Otis doesn't have to look far to find his place among the greats in Royals history.

Two years after Otis played his final game in the big leagues, the Kansas City Royals established a Hall of Fame honoring their best players.  The original class of 1986 featured two players.  One was Steve Busby, a two-time All-Star who pitched for the Royals from 1972 to 1980 and became the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter in each of his first two big league seasons.  The other was Amos Otis.

On the official website devoted to the Royals Hall of Fame, there is a page devoted to 1986 inductee Amos Otis.  The slideshow devoted to the star centerfielder probably states it best when it discusses the trade between the Mets and Royals that brought Otis to Kansas City prior to the 1970 campaign, saying:

"Originally drafted by the Red Sox, Otis made his major league debut with the Mets.  New York would eventually trade him to the Royals for highly regarded prospect Joe Foy in a deal that would come to be thought as one of the worst in Mets history.  Their misfortune would prove to be Kansas City's gain."

Otis played 14 of his 17 big league seasons in Kansas City, helping the Royals to four full-season division titles (1976, 1977, 1978, 1980) and one split-season division crown (1981).  When he played his final game as a Royal in 1983, Otis was the team's all-time leader in a multitude of offensive categories, most of which were surpassed by Hall of Famer George Brett, who remained in Kansas City until his retirement in 1993.  But still, to this day, Otis' name can be found all over the Royals' all-time leaderboard.

Amos Otis is in the Royals' top five in games played (1,891; 3rd all-time), at-bats (7,050; 3rd), hits (1,977; 3rd), doubles (365; 4th), triples (65; 3rd), home runs (193; 3rd), total bases (3,051; 2nd), runs scored (1,074; 2nd), RBIs (992; 3rd), walks (739; 2nd) and stolen bases (340; 2nd).  Had he produced those numbers for the Mets, he'd be the team's all-time leader in games played, at-bats, hits, doubles, total bases, runs scored, RBIs and walks.  He would also be second in triples, fourth in home runs and second in stolen bases.  But alas, none of this was allowed to happen because the Mets desperately needed Joe Foy.  Long-time Mets fans are still saying "Foy Vey!" over the deal.

Otis' career is not one that can be defined by one great season.  Whereas some players attain personal bests in various offensive categories in the same year, Otis spread out his best years throughout his entire career.  In 1970, he posted a career-best 176 hits.  He followed that up in 1971 by setting career highs with a .301 batting average and 52 steals.   In 1973, he achieved his personal best by hitting 26 homers.  In 1976, his 40 doubles set a new personal benchmark.  The 1978 season saw him reach his high in RBIs with 96.  And in 1979, he scored a career-best 100 runs.  He also finished in the top ten in the AL MVP vote at age 24 and repeated the feat at age 32.  That's one decade of greatness for one great former Met.

(Amos Otis video shared on YouTube by Kerry Kellermeyer)

If Nolan Ryan is the best Mets pitcher to get away, then Amos Otis is arguably the best Mets hitter that got away.  But that's not the only distinction shared by the two former Mets.  Both players were sent packing before they got a chance to blossom in New York for the same reason - because the Mets needed an offensive-minded third baseman.

In 1969, Amos Otis was part of a package sent to Kansas City for Joe Foy, who was supposed to be a marked improvement at the plate over the recently-released poet laureate, Ed Charles.  But when Foy produced Glider-like numbers for the Mets in 1970, he was taken off the team and was scooped up in the Rule 5 draft by the Washington Senators.  Following the 1971 season, the Mets once again coveted a good-hitting third baseman and traded Nolan Ryan for shortstop - not third baseman - Jim Fregosi.  Needless to say, Fregosi failed at the hot corner for the Mets and Ryan became a Hall of Famer.  Otis didn't quite make it to the Hall of Fame, but he did become a legend in Kansas City.

In the late '60s and early '70s the Mets took a page out of Shakespeare's "Richard III", offering their kingdom for a third baseman.  But instead of getting durable horses to play third, they received broken down players who should been been put out to pasture long before the Mets acquired them.  Amos Otis was one such player who galloped away and became a star elsewhere, while the player he was traded for was anything but a stud.  Not even Shakespeare himself could have penned the tragedy that became the ill-advised Otis-for-Foy transaction.


Note:  The Mets That Got Away is a thirteen-part weekly series that spotlights those Mets players who established themselves as major leaguers in New York, only to become stars after leaving town.  For previous installments, please click on the players' names below:

January 7, 2013: Nolan Ryan
January 14, 2013: Melvin Mora  
January 21, 2013: Kevin Mitchell 

To Continue This Rare Season, The Mets Must Win Now

On Saturday, the Mets lost for the seventh time in eight games since the All-Star Break.  Their 8-5 loss to the Dodgers dropped their record to 47-47.  It was the third time this year the Mets fell to .500, as they were 8-8 in April and 13-13 in May.  They have yet to fall under .500 at any point this year.

Should the Mets win today to go back above .500, they would continue to hold out hope that they can play an entire 162-game schedule without ever spending a day below the break-even point.  How rare is it for the Mets to play an entire season without ever falling below .500?  Let's put it this way.  They've had an easier time winning division titles than they've had playing an entire campaign at or above the .500 mark.

Since their inaugural season in 1962, the Mets have won five division titles (making a total of seven playoff appearances overall).  But they've only had four seasons in which they never spent a day below .500.

The 1969 Miracle Mets might have won 100 games en route to a World Series championship, but even they didn't spend every day of the season at or above .500.

From 1962-1969, the Mets lost on Opening Day every year, ending their chances of playing at or above .500 for an entire season before they had earned their first victory.  From 1970-1976, the Mets had six winning seasons, with 1974 being the sole exception to this era of winning baseball.  But in each of those seasons, the Mets couldn't get through the year without spending a day below .500.

The 1970 Mets were under .500 by the seventh game of the season en route to an 83-79 record.  In 1971, the team got off to a fantastic start.  Going into July, they were 45-29 and had yet to spend a single day below .500.  But over the next six weeks, the team played as bad as their 1962 counterparts, going 13-31.  They fell under .500 for the first time on August 14.  It was the first time a Mets team had gone past the All-Star Break without spending a day below .500.

Although the 1972 Mets became the second team in franchise history to finish a season at least ten games above .500, they spent exactly one day below the break-even point.  After three games, the Mets were 1-2, ending any chances of going an entire season with ever having a losing record.

The 1973 Mets had to believe they were going to win the pennant, but they didn't for most of the season.  In fact, from May 30 to September 20, the Mets were below .500 every single day.  They did recover to win a very mediocre National League East and shocked the Big Red Machine in the NLCS, but their late season success did not carry over into 1974, as the Mets finished 20 games under .500 that season.

1975 and 1976 brought the team back to the winning baseball they had known in the early '70s, but both teams spent time under the .500 mark before the calendar turned to May.

Should we even talk about the 1977 to 1983 Mets?  Let's just say those seasons were darker than Grant's tomb.  Needless to say, those teams spent plenty of time below .500 during that bleak era of Mets baseball.

But in 1984, things started to turn around for the franchise.  The Mets spent one day under .500 all season, and that was after their Opening Day loss to the Reds.  The team recovered from that 8-1 defeat to win their next six games, never dropping below .500 again all year, although they did fall to exactly .500 twice, at 22-22 and 23-23.

Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez and Dwight Gooden played together for the first time in 1984.  By 1985, they were part of a Mets team that did something no other Mets team had accomplished before.

Then it finally happened.  In their 24th season of existence, the 1985 Mets did not spend a single day below .500, becoming the first team in franchise history to play an entire season of winning baseball.  Of course, the St. Louis Cardinals, who spent most of April and May below .500, went 77-38 after June 2 and went on to take the division title from the Mets during the last week of the season.

Although the Mets had an extended era of greatness in the mid-to-late 1980s, the team didn't play another full season at or above .500 for another 13 years.  (The 1991 team came close, not going under .500 for the first time until August 16.)  Just like the 1985 team, the 1998 Mets were in the second season of a renaissance after an extended slumber.  The 1998 squad spent three days at exactly .500 (1-1, 13-13, 14-14), but never succumbed to the dark side, although a five-game losing streak at season's end once again kept the Mets from making the postseason.

In 1999 and 2000, the Mets made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history.  But both teams spent time below .500 at some point of their magical seasons, with the 1999 squad dropping under .500 two times (0-1, 27-28) and the 2000 team losing six of their first nine games.

The 2001 Mets finished the season with a winning record (82-80) but needed a strong finish to get there after spending most of the season below .500, just one year after their fourth World Series appearance.  That would be the last time the Mets would finish an entire season above the break-even point until 2005, when the team finished 83-79 (although they didn't go over .500 for good until September 25).

The 2006 Mets were good enough to win the World Series.  But they weren't good enough to win the pennant.  However, they were good enough to become the third team in franchise history to spend every day at or above .500.  After dropping to .500 with a loss in their second game of the season, the Mets didn't see .500 again until the 2008 season.  That's right.  In 2007, the Mets also never spent a day below .500.  In fact, they became the first team since 1985 to never even finish a day at exactly .500, as they won their first four games of the season and never dropped back to the break-even point.

The 2006 Mets began a two-year run in which the team never spent a single day below .500 during the regular season.  Unfortunately, the same could not be said about the postseason.

That brings us to the Citi Field era, an era in which the Mets have finished under .500 for three consecutive seasons (2009-2011).  The 2012 Mets have yet to spend a day under .500.  But after losing to the Dodgers on Saturday, the Mets fell back to the mark of mediocrity for only the third time this season.  The first two times they fell to .500, they recovered to win their next game.  They'll have to do the same again today.

Only four times in franchise history have the Mets played an entire season without ever falling below .500.  The 1985, 1998, 2006 and 2007 Mets are the only teams in the franchise's 50-year existence to accomplish that feat, making it a rarer accomplishment than winning a division title, which the Mets have done five times.

The 2012 squad is looking to become the fifth team to join that exclusive Mets fraternity.  But if they lose today, their dream will end.  Instead of becoming one of the lucky five, they will join the 1971 and 1991 Mets as the only teams in franchise history to spend their first day below .500 after the All-Star Break.  It's not such a bad thing to be compared to a Gil Hodges-led Mets team, but it would be much more of an accomplishment to be associated with the four teams that never spent a day below .500, as those teams were all part of an extended era of success for the franchise.

Will this year's team be the start of another extended era of success?  Spending every day at or above .500 for an entire season usually leads to that.  But the Mets have to win today to make sure 2012 can continue to be an unexpected magical season.

Joey's Soapbox (of Chocolates): My Mets Valentine

Greetings, everyone!  This is Joey Beartran.  How has everyone been celebrating their Valentine's Day?  As you can see, I got a heart-shaped box of Mets chocolates today, which got me thinking.  What is it that I love the most about the Mets?  And why is it so great to be a Mets fan?

I hope you're ready, because I'm about to get on my soapbox.  But today will be a little different, as today will be a loving rant on my fav'rit team.

It's not easy being a Mets fan.  Whereas fans of other teams get to root for players like Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton or Justin Verlander, we got to cheer to our heart's content whenever Jason Bay doesn't strike out or Mike Pelfrey holds an opposing batter to a single.  Anyone can root for a superstar when he does what he's supposed to do.  But as Mets fans, we have different things to root for.  And we take pride in doing so.  Except for maybe Cubs fans, who are used to rooting for anything positive, like Alfonso Soriano not tripping over his shoelaces when chasing after a fly ball, we come up with new and exciting things to be happy for.  Try topping that, Derek Jeter fans!

Speaking of Derek Jeter, the team for which he plays for considers it a failure if they don't win the World Series every year.  From 1996-2000, they won four championships, but because they didn't win in 1997, there was a flaw in their dynasty.  A .300 hitter can fail seven out of ten times, but try being a Yankee.  One championship over the past 11 seasons (which is one fewer than the Red Sox and Cardinals have won over the same time period) is considered a major disappointment.  That's something I love about being a Mets fan.  We rarely ever have such lofty expectations.  It's easy to be a frontrunner.  It takes a real fan to root for a team like the Mets.  And when the Mets do capture our hearts with a memorable season, it makes it all the more special.

The Mets have character.  They also have characters.  Over the past 50 seasons, we've seen Choo Choo, Marvelous Marv, the Glider, the Stork, Tugger, Mookie, Doc, the Straw Man, Turk, Jason Phillips' goggles and Don Aase.  Why Don Aase?  Because I like to say Aase.  Can another team claim so many characters?  Methinks not.  Being a Mets fan is always fun, even when the team on the field is not.

Finally, every once in a while, we get to see something truly special.  As Mets fans, we've seen the Miracle of 1969, Ya Gotta Believe, Lee Mazzilli's pants, Hendu Can Do, the Hotfoot, Jesse Orosco's flying glove and the Grand Slam Single.  "Every once in a while" still doesn't include a league MVP or a no-hitter, but hey, if Anthony Young could win a game, then anything is possible.

Today is Valentine's Day.  It's a day people show their love for each other with cards, gifts, etc.  The greatest loves in my life wear orange and blue.  And nothing will ever cause my love for them to waver.  They may break my heart sometimes, they may collapse every once in a while (or twice in a  while, or three times if you count 1998), and they may give Oliver Perez $36 million to suck more than Dracula at a blood bank, but they're my team.  And nothing will ever make that change.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some chocolates that I have to take care of.  Don't forget to tell that special person or team you love exactly how you feel about them.  Even if that person is Mel Rojas.

Happy Valentine's Day to all!  And as always, let's go Mets!!!