RIP Ken MacKenzie, 1934-2023

[G-Fafif]

Original Met Ken MacKenzie, he of the 1962 pitching staff's only winning record, has died at 89.



https://metsinsider.mlblogs.com/original-met-ken-mackenzie-has-passed-away-6558f650cd0bhttps://metsinsider.mlblogs.com/original-met-ken-mackenzie-has-passed-away-6558f650cd0b

Edited December 14, 2023 by Guest

[G-Fafif]

Ken joined Jay Horwitz along with Hojo and Billy Wagner ahead of Old Timers Day in 2022. A tingling recollection about a 1963 clubhouse game of bridge is a highlight toward the end.



[media=youtube]Y2C_20sddDg[/media]



Ken was the first Old Timer Howie Rose introduced when the big day came.

[Edgy MD]

Those interviews were always something of an awkward listen because Jay would pair elderly guys with middle-aged guys, so the cadences of the chat would fluctuate wildly.



Good on Ken to show up in uniform, however. Wagner and HoJo can learn something there.

[G-Fafif]

Billy seemed to vibe with Ken, lefty reliever to lefty reliever.



Alas, the pic that runs with the linked article above is a different No. 19, Bobby Ojeda.



OE: Somebody caught the mistake and replaced it with a 1962 team pic.

[MFS62]

RIP.

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Dom Amore: Pitcher Ken MacKenzie came out a winner with baseball's most loveable losers, the 1962 New York Mets



Excerpt:

" ... baseball never had anything quite so joyful as the birth of the New York Mets, now celebrating their 60th anniversary. No team has ever lost more games. The 1962 Mets finished 40-120, so deep in the cellar they might've been closer to the other side of the planet, yet they drew 922,530 to the wrecking-ball ready Polo Grounds. There have been more books, documentaries, anecdotes and one-liners written about the '62 Mets — who healed the wounds left by the removal of the Dodgers and Giants to California five years earlier — than most championship teams. MacKenzie, 87, a native of Gore Bay, Ontario, who graduated from Yale in 1956, was in the middle of all the good, the bad and, mostly, the laughable. A lefty who wore glasses, he was the only pitcher to post a winning record that season, 5-4 with a 4.95 ERA. MacKenzie once told Stengel that, at $10,000 per year, he was the lowest paid member of Yale's Class of '56. “But you had the highest ERA,” Stengel fired back with flawless timing.

[FIMG=400]https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2022/02/15/B6CFAA5YF5GR3BOZU2TSDDAJMQ.jpg?w=1200[/FIMG]

Ken MacKenzie, 87, of Guilford, holds copy of Sports Illustrated, dated March 5, 1962, featuring Mets manager Casey Stengel. MacKenzie was an original Met, the only pitcher to post a winning record on one of the worst teams in baseball history.



https://www.courant.com/2022/02/15/dom-amore-pitcher-ken-mackenzie-came-out-a-winner-with-baseballs-most-loveable-losers-the-1962-new-york-mets/https://www.courant.com/2022/02/15/dom-amore-pitcher-ken-mackenzie-came-out-a-winner-with-baseballs-most-loveable-losers-the-1962-new-york-mets/

[Benjamin Grimm]

Prior to his death, MacKenzie was the fourth oldest living Met.



Now, Rick Herrscher moves into the Top Ten , Al Weis moves into the Top Twenty, and debuting in the Top Forty is Ken Sanders.

[Edgy MD]

It must've bugged him that he went to Yale, but Jay Hook was the coverboy of Sarcoscope magazine.

[MFS62]

MacKenzie once told Stengel that, at $10,000 per year, he was the lowest paid member of Yale's Class of '56. “But you had the highest ERA,” Stengel fired back with flawless timing.

The Stengel/MAcKenzzie story I remember is when Stengel came out to visit Ken on the mound and said "Make believe they're the Harvards".



Later

[G-Fafif]

A https://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2023/12/16/pitcher-of-winning-record/celebration of the only Met pitcher to post a winning record in 1962, 1963 or (although he'd been traded) 1964.