1969!!!!!!

[Edgy MD]

Also a high-achieving motorsports enthusiast.



https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/casey-whitey.jppg_.jpg>

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Also a high-achieving motorsports enthusiast. https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/casey-whitey.jppg_.jpg>

Wow! Is that the back cover of the Whitey Herzog book? If so, I think I'm gonna buy that one. That pic of Casey on the motorbike, alone, is worth the price of the book.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Also a high-achieving motorsports enthusiast. https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/casey-whitey.jppg_.jpg> Wow! Is that the back cover of the Whitey Herzog book? If so, I think I'm gonna buy that one. That pic of Casey on the motorbike, alone, is worth the price of the book.

You know, Herzog had a big hand in both of the Mets World Series titles. He was instrumental in scouting and developing the young talent that would be key to their first championship in 1969. And then, some 15 years later, he practically singlehandedly traded --no -- traded isn't the right word here-- Herzog gifted Keith Hernandez to the Mets. Gifted. In a fancy box with giftwrapping.

[roger_that]

Iowa has weird town names, or at least memorable ones. In addition to having "Lost Nation" seared into my brain, the hometown of Jack Hamilton, Morning Sun, is similarly seared, mainly because it was Bob Murphy's practice to mention them every time these two men pitched. Murph liked mentioning hometowns: I must be among the few who associate the name "Waco, Texas" not with David Koresh immediately but rather with "Little Alvin Jackson of Waco Texas," which I thought was his full name.



It was practically Homeric, the epithets Murph employed, without much rhyme or reason. He would give players' middle names for no reason at all ("David Arthur Kingman in the on-deck circle...") and I took his epithets as normal, though no other Met announcer used them. Eventually, I saw them as tiresome and old-fashioned and pretty irrelevant, but when I was young I liked to do fulsome over-the-top imitations of Murphy calling games. "The bi-ig righthander from Morning Sun, Iowa, steps on the rubber and takes the signal, and we're underway...."



A huge change in pitching staff management that applied to both Hamilton and McAndrew was the dual starter/reliever roles both of them filled (and Ryan, too, with the Mets). For the past few decades you're either one or the other, but these two guys switched roles like you switch TV channels. Whenever you thought they were starters, they'd spend a month in the bullpen, and vice versa.

[batmagadanleadoff]

More Waco! Murph loved to point out that Pat Zachry was from Waco, too.


=roger_that post_id=98014 time=1656790499 user_id=128]


A huge change in pitching staff management that applied to both Hamilton and McAndrew was the dual starter/reliever roles both of them filled (and Ryan, too, with the Mets). For the past few decades you're either one or the other, but these two guys switched roles like you switch TV channels. Whenever you thought they were starters, they'd spend a month in the bullpen, and vice versa.

[Edgy MD]

Waco, TX means Pat Zachry to me.

[roger_that]

Does anyone have this book? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3376833-the-miracle-has-landedThe Miracle Has Landed: The Amazin' Story of How the 1969 Mets Shocked the World by Matthew Silverman (Goodreads Author) (Editor)

Now I do. Quite a good book, so far, with several stories I hadn't seen before, covering some players I haven't thought about in a long time. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.



I stopped buying Mets books around the last time I moved, and pared down my baseball library, but this was available electronically (for free, as a sabr member, which was basically worth the annual dues alone--it's really a great bargain) and doesn't take up any shelf space, which is good because I don't have any. The chapters seem especially well-researched and carefully written, unlike some other Mets books I own.

[roger_that]

Not trying to bust anyone's chops here, especially not if anyone here actually wrote the chapters I'm going to remark upon (Edgy has taken responsibility for the chapters on Charles and Clendenon, both of which I enjoyed) but as I read it, I might come up with a few questions and comments as a way of remembering some fine points about the 1969 Mets. There's a quote from Hodges to Don Cardwell before the World Series that struck me as odd:



‘Cardy, don't feel hurt because you did a great

job all year for us and got us into the playoffs and

this Series, but here's what we're gonna do. Rube

[Walker] and I agreed that we're gonna start Seaver,

Koosman, and Gentry in the three games, and then

we're gonna come back with them. But you're our

seventh game pitcher if it goes seven games.”



Does this seem a strange promise to make? I mean, Seaver, his 25-game winner, could have (and nearly did) pitch excellent winning games in #1 and #4, and for all Hodges knew, he could have thrown an 80-pitch shutout in game 4 and then, in regular rest for game 7, but Hodges is committing to starting Don Freaking Cardwell? Why offer Cardwell a game 7 start at all unless you're sure there's not going to be a game seven? Seems kinda nuts, as told.

[roger_that]

The Jack DiLauro chapter gave me the documentation I wanted that he was, in fact, on the Series roster. It also provided a quote on Gil Hodges that more or less supports what I'd been speculating about his managerial style, particularly his communication with young players:



"I wasn't very comfortable with

Gil Hodges there. He just never talked to me. I don't

think he talked to anybody other than his coaches.

I don't think there was a single player on that team

who had a one- to- one with Gil. I hung out with the other

rinky- dinks on the

team, [Rod] Gaspar, Bobby Pfeil after he came up

from Tidewater, a couple of the scrubs. I got close to

Nolan Ryan. He was very unhappy there. He never

got along with Hodges. He was not used properly.

Anybody could see the greatness in him. Somehow

or other he was never used in turn, something would

come up, a rainout, an injury, anything to disrupt

his schedule. They never explained anything to him.

Nolan never talked negatively about anybody, but

you could see he was unhappy."

[roger_that]

One of the oddities about the Cardwell chapter that I became aware of recently was that Cardwell's breakout season, 1961, which is described accurately and in great detail



He won a career- high 15 games for the 1961

Cubs and "finished over .500 for the first time despite

the Cubs winning just 64 times and finishing seventh

for the second straight year. Cardwell led the Cubs

in ERA (3.82), complete games (13), and strikeouts

(156). His 38 starts were the most in the National

League that year



neglects to mention that Cardwell arguably might have deserved the NL's Cy Young Award that year, if the NL had had one (there was just one for MLB), at least measured by WAR. Yes, Cardwell had the NL's best WAR for a pitcher in 1961 (appropriately, 6.1 WAR) but he got no notice not only because there was no WAR back then but because he pitched for a bad team in Wrigley Field, giving him a so-so W-L record (15-14) and a none-too-fancy ERA. He was, in other words, performing at a stellar level in 1961, but he never made the All-Star team in that or any other year.



I came across this information in an article about an even weirder fact, that the AL WAR crown in 1961 was (retrospectively, of course) won by Jack (who?) Kralick, another Cardwell-level type of pitcher, mainly as I recall with the Twins and Indians, pitching in the rotation most years but with substantial relief work, but never thought of as a star pitcher. The actual CYA went to Whitey Ford, a far better pitcher than either Cardwell or Kralick, but maybe not in 1961.

[roger_that]

Caught an error in the Bud Harrelson chapter!!! On the groundball that resulted in the infamous Pete Rose-Harrelson fracas, the Mets' first baseman is identified as "Eddie Milner," a later outfielder for the Reds, I believe, who never was a Met, instead of "John Milner," who was. Later "Koosman" is spelled with a 'z'--sloppy proofreading job, I'd say. But it's a good chapter, up to date on Bud's Alzheimer's diagnosis. It refers to Art Shamsky's terrific memoir, AFTER THE MIRACLE, so maybe this was written fast and proofed faster?





edit: typo

[batmagadanleadoff]

Or it could be that they simply don't know how to spell "Koosman" over there. You do, though, obviously.



Keep up the good work. This is riveting stuff. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can chip in by unearthing other spelling errors for our fascination, even though I'm fairly certain that you'll beat me to finding more spelling errors. Happy Hominen.

[Edgy MD]

Eddie Milner, of course, is John's cousin.



Catching errors is important.

[batmagadanleadoff]

neglects to mention that Cardwell arguably might have deserved the NL's Cy Young Award that year, if the NL had had one.... I came across this information in an article about an even weirder fact, that the AL WAR crown in 1961 was (retrospectively, of course) won by Jack (who?) Kralick, another Cardwell-level type of pitcher, mainly as I recall with the Twins and Indians, pitching in the rotation most years but with substantial relief work, but never thought of as a star pitcher. The actual CYA went to Whitey Ford, a far better pitcher than either Cardwell or Kralick, but maybe not in 1961.

The voters were way more often, wrong than right when awarding the baseball hardware back then. And when the voters got it right, it was either because the award winner had a thoroughly dominant season, leading in virtually all of the important statistical categories - or because the voters, from sheer luck, blundered into the right answer.



And to tie all of this into the theme of this thread, Tom Seaver didn't deserve his 1969 Cy Young award. He wasn't better than Bob Gibson that season. But Seaver led the NL in Wins, and Wins meant everything to the voters back then. A pitcher who led his league in Wins was probably the favorite to win the CYA back then. And if that pitcher also happened to pitch for a first place team, like Seaver did, he was a virtual lock for the award. Plus, Seaver had the better back story, the leader, not just on the field but spiritually as well, of the team that captured the imagination of the whole wide world with their fairy-tale climb to the top of the baseball world. Gibson should have won the CYA in three straight seasons. But instead, Seaver was awarded the 1969 CYA, essentially because in that season, Seaver's teammates played better than Gibson's teammates.



But decide for yourselves. Click on the link and expand the leaderboards.



https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1969-pitching-leaders.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1969-pitching-leaders.shtml

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Eddie Milner, of course, is John's cousin. Catching errors is important.

Yes. And I'm happy to report your error free post. Although, if you were writing about the errors a catcher makes on the field, It would be: "Catching errors are important."

[Frayed Knot]

Iowa has weird town names, or at least memorable ones. In addition to having "Lost Nation" seared into my brain, the hometown of Jack Hamilton, Morning Sun, is similarly seared, mainly because it was Bob Murphy's practice to mention them every time ...

Hamilton's NYC tenure was both earlier and briefer than McAndrew's so I don't remember the Morning Sun mentions the way I did Lost Nation, hence that town not being on the sight-seeing itinerary.

[roger_that]

I mainly enjoy books about Mets history for nostalgic reasons. I don't often learn new things from them, mostly I get reminded of things I once knew but have forgotten (Shamsky's memoir provided some welcome exceptions--there were at least four stories I'd never heard before) but there was a detail in the MIRACLE HAS LANDED book that totally caught me by surprise, that of Ed Kranepool's first appearance on a Mets roster, in a Mets uni, ready to play in a major league game. I had thought for sixty years that Kranepool first appeared as a late September callup, and this is verified by bbref.com which lists his MLB debut as September 22, 1962 but I just found out that he had been put on the active roster the week he signed with the Mets, and



flew out to Los Angeles—his first plane ride—to join the Mets, who

were facing the Dodgers on June 30.



This was a big day in Mets history, actually, or MLB history anyway since Kranepool's



first day

in a Mets uniform was only a harbinger of what his

experiences would be in those early years with the

team, as he watched Sandy Koufax no- hit his new

teammates





And he nearly got into that game, too, as



manager Casey Stengel went to the bench

late in the game, but passed over the rookie in favor

of Gene Woodling.



As with my mystification about Jack DiLauro's spot on the 1969 Series roster when, because he appeared in no games, he doesn't show up on official records, I wonder where I could get documentation. There are other "ghost" Mets, who appear on the official roster but never played a game as a Met, but they're all, as far as I can recall, spring training guys, or guys who were acquired in November and traded in December, or maybe they were acquired but chose not to report or something of the sort (?) but Kranepool is the only player I know of who sat on the bench for a week or so in full uniform prepared to get into a game but did not. (In June or July--he later did make a few appearances in a Met uniform.) I'm satisfied that Kranepool's ghostly incarnation is accurate (he apparently has been describing it in print for decades) but where are things like this documented? I suppose I could look in old newspaper files or the like, if I were really curious.



I think Kranepool is the only signee this happened to, but I could be wrong. Anyone know if other players signed a contract out of high school and reported to the Mets as members of the 25-man team other than Kranepool? It seems kind of nutty, in retrospect, a nineteenth-century sort of thing, one step above hauling guys out of the grandstand to play a MLB game. I wonder who vacated a spot on the roster to allow Kranepool onto it.

[Edgy MD]

I'm pretty sure G-Fafif, without checking notes, can rattle off a list of what you call "ghost" Mets (aka "paper Mets") who made it to the big league roster, but didn't get into a game. Thus far, 2022 has given us Gosuke Katoh.



Some years back, we had a thread about a blog post in which Keith Olberman declares Wilbur Huckle to have been a big leaguer on paper, an assertion that researchers in this group couldn't support.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I'm pretty sure G-Fafif, without checking notes, can rattle off a list of what you call "ghost" Mets (aka "paper Mets") who made it to the big league roster, but didn't get into a game. Thus far, 2022 has given us Gosuke Katoh. Some years back, we had a thread about a blog post in which Keith Olberman declares Wilbur Huckle to have been a big leaguer on paper, an assertion that researchers in this group couldn't support.

Here are your ghost Mets, which I am rattling off from memory. I got stuck for a while on Anderson Garcia. He's always the last one to come to mind. It took me about 45 seconds to come up with his name after I recalled all of the others. If you want some documentation -- because you know, memories fade -- you can ask Brian Ostrosser. The last time Ostrosser came over to my house for dinner, I gave him a notarized affirmation, sworn to under oath and under the penalties of perjury, listing and documenting the Mets ghosts. They are:



Terrel Hansen, Jim Bibby, , Al Reyes, Ruddy Lugo, Jerry (or is it Gerry? or both?) Moses, Randy Bobb, Billy Cotton, Mac Suzuki and the aforementioned Anderson Garcia.

[Edgy MD]

And Gosuke Katoh.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: And Gosuke Katoh.

He was already mentioned.

[roger_that]

Not sure how the count of threads in the Baseball Forum has shrunk itself back to 1935 but I'm not starting a new 1969 thread when that number approaches again.



In the Seaver chapter, the story of June 15, 1977 is well summarized and well-told, from specific dollar amounts down to the Ruth Ryan fakeout that Dick Young perpetuated on The Franchise:



After Seaver won in Houston on June 12, the

Mets offered to extend his contract so that it would

be comparable to a free- agent offering elsewhere. He

would receive a three- year extension which included

a pay raise to $300,000 in 1979 and then to $400,000

in 1980 and 1981. On June 14, one day before the

trading deadline, Seaver contacted McDonald to

halt trade negotiations with the Reds. He planned to

remain a Met.



Conventional wisdom suggests that if something

sounds too good to be true, it often is. After he

agreed in principle to a three- year contract extension

with the Mets, the ordeal appeared over for Seaver.

However, as he read the Daily News on the road in

Atlanta, he became appalled by the latest offensive

launched from Dick Young's typewriter:

“Nolan Ryan is getting more now than Seaver,

and that galls Tom because Nancy Seaver and Ruth

Ryan are very friendly and Tom Seaver long has

treated Nolan Ryan like a little brother.” As Seaver

told Bruce Markusen years later, his welcome mat

with M. Donald Grant had finally run out. Incensed

that Young would pull a false punch aimed at his

family, Seaver bolted in search of public- relations

director Arthur Richman. “Get me out of here!” he

ordered Richman, “and tell Joe McDonald everything

I said last night is forgotten.”



One thing was going on here, looking at those contract figures, is that while Seaver was justified in seeking a huge contract and multi-year deals, baseball salaries were accelerating so fast at the time, that the Mets would have been smart to meet his "demands" at every step of the way. They did just that, as I recall, which is what got them and Seaver into this predicament. I believe Seaver had asked for a gigantic salary. and got it, before 1977, but the problem from his perspective was that the top salary in baseball got left in the dust, and so he asked for the "three-year extension which included a pay raise to $300,000 in 1979 and then to $400,000 in 1980 and 1981." The sticking point here, as I recall, is that by 1981, 400K was peanuts and Seaver would have again been badly underpaid, yet he would have been getting what he was asking for in the winter of 1976-7. I guess the answer was to keep extending his deal, one year at a time, at top dollar.



M.Donald Grant was an idiot, of course, not to jump at Seaver's demands and sign him instantly for what he was asking, but he played it wrong, dragging negotiations out, and making nasty remarks in the press to the effect of "He's under contract now, and we don't sign multi-year deals because we could lose money if Seaver's arm falls off, so ha ha ha on him." But it really wouldn't have taken very much, in terms of either money or of smarts, to lock Seaver up for life. And this chapter sums a complicated situation up very neatly.

[roger_that]

Kranepool is the only player I know of who sat on the bench for a week or so in full uniform prepared to get into a game but did not. (In June or July--he later did make a few appearances in a Met uniform.) I'm satisfied that Kranepool's ghostly incarnation is accurate (he apparently has been describing it in print for decades) but where are things like this documented? I suppose I could look in old newspaper files or the like, if I were really curious. I think Kranepool is the only signee this happened to, but I could be wrong. Anyone know if other players signed a contract out of high school and reported to the Mets as members of the 25-man team other than Kranepool? It seems kind of nutty, in retrospect, a nineteenth-century sort of thing, one step above hauling guys out of the grandstand to play a MLB game. I wonder who vacated a spot on the roster to allow Kranepool onto it.

Came across this article on FB about 1962 roster moves, which mentions Kranepool's getting called up from Syracuse in July (he didn't, ultimately) and I'm wondering if anyone knows how (other than reading old newspapers) you might learn which players got sent down to, or called up from, or released, or signed, or traded, put on the DL, or whatever. Does this data exist anywhere?

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[MFS62]

Under the rules at the time, first year players had to be retained on the major league roster or be exposed to the draft at the end of the year. You were allowed to option one other player.

IIRC, they kept Kranepool in the majors, optioned Cleon Jones, and lost Paul Blair in the draft.

Not sure what happened to the three other first year players they signed, but did not keep.

Later

[roger_that]

Thanks, but I'm hoping to find a site that tracks with OCD precision every single roster change, and the dates, of every MLB team, or at least the Mets. Sort of like the Transactions part of BB-ref, which tracks only trades, FA signings, releases and the like. I want one, preferably run by a crew of anal-retentives, that traces every minute adjustment that teams (or the Mets) have ever made. From reading the CPF, I can easily imagine the controversies, speculations, arguments, discussions, that accompanied each one at the time.

[Fman99]

I can remember watching Mac Suzuki warming up in the bullpen for a game in which he obviously never appeared

[MFS62]

=roger_that post_id=99896 time=1657918052 user_id=128]
Thanks, but I'm hoping to find a site that tracks with OCD precision every single roster change, and the dates, of every MLB team, or at least the Mets. Sort of like the Transactions part of BB-ref, which tracks only trades, FA signings, releases and the like. I want one, preferably run by a crew of anal-retentives, that traces every minute adjustment that teams (or the Mets) have ever made. From reading the CPF, I can easily imagine the controversies, speculations, arguments, discussions, that accompanied each one at the time.

[ashie62]

At that time the Sporting News annuals were the bible for most things.

[roger_that]

all of the information I was keeping them for was in Baseball-reference.com.

Obviously, not "all."





Sounds like they probably have these annuals at the library in Cooperstown.

[MFS62]

all of the information I was keeping them for was in Baseball-reference.com. Obviously, not "all."

Read the complete sentence, "all of the information I was keeping them for".

I was trying to help.

Later