Mets Malapropisms

[Valadius]

Folks with the Mets have said some really strange things. I'll start with these quotes from Ralph Kiner taken from Baseball-Almanac.com:

"All of his saves have come in relief appearances"
"All of the Mets road wins against the Dodgers this year occurred at Dodger Stadium."
"Cadillacs are down at the end of the bat."
"Darryl Strawberry has been voted to the Hall of Fame five years in a row."
"Hello, everybody. Welcome to Kiner's Korner. This is....uh. I'm...uh"
"He's going to be out of action the rest of his career." - about Bruce Sutter
"If Casey Stengel were alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave."
"I think one of the most difficult things for anyone who's played baseball is to accept the fact that maybe the players today are playing just as well as ever."
"It's like watching Mario Andretti park a car." - on Phil Niekro's knuckleball
"Jose DeLeon on his career has seventy-three wins and one-hundred and five rbi's."
"Kevin McReynolds stops at third and he scores."
"Now up to bat for the Mets is Gary Cooper."
"On Fathers Day, we again wish you all happy birthday."
"Solo homers usually come with no one on base."
"(Don) Sutton lost thirteen games in a row without winning a ballgame."
"The hall of fame ceremonies are on the thirty-first and thirty-second of July."
"The Mets have gotten their leadoff batter on only once this inning."
"The reason the Mets have played so well at Shea this year is they have the best home record in baseball."
"This one deep to right and it is way back, going, going, it is gone, no off of the top of the wall."
"There's a lot of heredity in that family."
"Tony Gwynn was named player of the year for April."
"Two-thirds of the earth is covered by water. The other third is covered by Garry Maddox."
"You know what they say about Chicago. If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes."

[nymr83]

]"This one deep to right and it is way back, going, going, it is gone, no off of the top of the wall."

i'll defend him on this one, we've all been confused.
the rest... oye

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah, failed homer calls come with the territory. Everyone around long enough has one.

The Maddox thing was hardly a malaprop. It was Kiner at his best.

To hear Southern Californians tell it, Hall-of-Fame Padre broadcaster Jerry Coleman makes Kiner seem like a malaprop amateur.

[Guest KC]

>>>"There's a lot of heredity in that family."<<<

Who can't utter this about someone from time to time and
not make complete sense?

Fun stuff, I miss Ralph.

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: The Maddox thing was hardly a malaprop. It was Kiner at his best.

Agree. The person who put it on that list made the mistake.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

The only problem with that line was that Ralph saw fit to use it virtually every time the Mets played the Phillies. And while it may have been amusing the first 147 times ...

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: The only problem with that line was that Ralph saw fit to use it virtually every time the Mets played the Phillies. And while it may have been amusing the first 147 times ...

And how many times did disc jockeys use the term "The King" when they played an Elvis song? Or "Ol' Blue eyes" when they played a Sinatra song?

Just because you heard that every time, it didn't make Elvis less a king or Frank's eyes less blue.

Later

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Sometimes when I heard a DJ mention "The King" I'd think he was talking about Jack Kirby.

[Frayed Knot]

Big difference between a nickname and a joke.
One encourages repeated usage virtually by definition while the other discourages it for the same reason.

[MFS62]

I can see your point.

Later

[Theoldmole]

No one knew more about baseball than Ralph Kiner, and he was a delight to listen to, malaprops and all.

[RealityChuck]

Except none of those are actually malapropisms. It is abused to say so.

[Frayed Knot]

btw, it was Ralph's birthday Friday

[Guest KC]

Belated happy b'day to Ralph, and an amen to what the mole says.

[metirish]

Yes ,Happy Birthday to Ralph,we still sponsor him at Baseballreference.com.....I agree with mole....

[Guest Edgy DC]

So why are we talking about him in the past tense?

[Theoldmole]

Just that he's not an everyday thing any more.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I've always liked and appreciated Ralph as well.

And even if the Mets are down by 11 runs, I'll watch those Friday night innings when he's in the booth just so I can hear him chat with Gary and Ron or Keith.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Agreed, but I find those innings to be too brief, and too scripted.

They tend to only engage him on pre-determined subjects. And I understand. (1) He needs to prepare, and (2) he can't possibly know the league as well as he did even ten years ago.

But they seem shy about drawing him into a theme that pops up, not because it was agreed before hand, but because of the game.

One of his shiniest moments was when it was announced in the booth that David Wright would be (fatefully) in the All Star Home Run Derby. Ralph had this great, seemingly off-script, well of wisdom about how to approach a power contest.

That said, I realize that letting an octagenarian off-script can be dangerous, and anxious for a director.

[Willets Point]

]"Two-thirds of the earth is covered by water. The other third is covered by Garry Maddox."

Now I finally understand why Ralph always referred to Grex Maddux as Gary.