Ralph Kiner

[Ceetar]

That Kiner played against the Boston Braves blows my mind a little bit.

[Edgy MD]

Too bad the one guy who didn't know it was White Shirt Day at Forbes Field is bent over puking in the aisle.

[Benjamin Grimm]

They probably poisoned him for not being with the program.

My guess is that he's a vendor in uniform, and he's bending over his bin of hot dogs or peanuts.

[Edgy MD]

You're no fun.

But check out the guy to the right of the vendor's butt, with the seat right behind the steel support girder

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: You're no fun. But check out the guy to the right of the vendor's butt, with the seat right behind the steel support girder

If you want that experience at Citi, section 103, rows 4 and up, seat 1. Right behind the foul pole.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Edgy MD wrote:

This picture is what I was trying to go with in words in my Facebook status yesterday.

[Centerfield]

Edgy MD wrote: Centerfield doesn't give himself enough credit as a writer. Look around at what's on the internet, and you realize we're particuarly blessed here. Most of us can write at least a little. A lot of good voices here, and Centerfield is certainly not the least in that regard.

Thanks Edgy. I was just impressed the way Greg captured that moment. It was perfect.

Not to take anything away from the rest of the forum. We're fucking awesome. And I can write sometimes some ok stuff good too.

[Lefty Specialist]

Another thing about that picture....real men like Ralph don't need batting helmets.

[seawolf17]

I'm surprised I didn't get more emotional with Ralph. I openly wept multiple times when Bob Murphy died.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I cried yesterday, and today ... I'm a sap.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Been diggin' around ... found the 'McCarver carries Kiner' part
laugh out loud funny from twenty years ago ...

TV SPORTS; Caray and Kiner: Still Giving Spring Its Voice By Richard Sandomir Published: April 12, 1994 Half an hour before game-time yesterday at Shea Stadium, Ha-REEE Ca-RAAAAY had not appeared in the Chicago Cubs' WGN-TV broadcast booth. That gave WGN staffers time for some heavy lifting without Harry in their hair. "I need your help before Harry pushes the monitor out the window!" one station staffer said to another as he rushed out of the booth. Caray shambled in shortly afterward, wearing his trademark oversized Elton John glasses. His white hair was combed back. His voice had its usual beery timbre, as if Ed McMahon had taught a Clydesdale to sing. He recited his career stats as he would his Army serial number. "Thirteen years with the Cubs," he said. "Eleven with the White Sox. One with Oakland. Twenty five years before that with St. Louis." Caray, who is 74 years old, and his son, Skip, the Atlanta Braves announcer on TBS, are perhaps the two most listened to baseball voices in America because they work for superstations that go out on cable systems around the country. "I was derelict," Harry said. "I have a son, Skip, and a grandson Chip, who calls baseball for the Mariners. I should have called myself Flip." Caray is a member of a flip, incorrigible school of his own: the homer, the clown, the promoter, the loudmouth, the singer. He's a bigger star than Ryne Sandberg, the Cubs' biggest star. "I just do what's natural for me," he said. "I'm a fan. I get happy. I get bored. I'm excited when it's exciting. All the times I was about to be fired, the owners found I was a better liaison with fans than they were." Now in his 50th year of calling baseball, Caray looks his age, but at game-time, the raucous, rascally fan takes over at the microphone. His style can't be judged by modern urbane, streamlined, blow-dried standards any more than Phil Rizzuto's can. He's an original, from a different galaxy. "Ah, what the hell, it's a game," he said. "You're supposed to have fun. I'm supposed to yell at players when they're not playing well. I'm mad when they don't play well. I want to boo. I'm what every fan wants to be." And as for those glasses that make him look like a myopic bullfrog? He removes them for a moment. "Gotta cover these bags," he said. About 40 feet closer to home plate sits Ralph Kiner, who calls nearly 150 Mets games yearly on WWOR-TV and SportsChannel. He's a hardy perennial, teller of old tales and master of the malaprop. Again, an original. Yesterday he was working for SportsChannel. Over his shoulder, Fran Healy, one of his two partners, said, "He should be in the broadcasters wing of the Hall of Fame." Well, maybe. Is there room for Red Barber and Kiner? In the SportsChannel booth, Kiner nursed a cigar while he filled in his scorecard. His craggy face lit up at talk of opening day at home. "My opening days go back to 1941, to the minor leagues in Albany," he said. "It's always a great day of anticipation. Everything starts new, even after last year, which was sometimes tough to announce." He wondered why Tom Seaver did not show up, as part of a pre-game salute to the 1969 Mets. "I'm surprised," he said. "He was the most important guy on the team." (Other commitments, said Seaver's agent, Matt Merola.) The preference here is to listen to Kiner on WWOR, with Tim McCarver, rather than SportsChannel, with Healy and Rusty Staub. McCarver knows how to mine Kiner for his best stories, producing a better Ralphie Boy. McCarver carries Kiner to greater heights; too often, Kiner has to carry Healy and Staub. A brief moment from Sunday's game illustrated the McCarver-Kiner chemistry: something during the Mets-Astros game somehow reminded McCarver to discourse on banjo-playing Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, a jazz group. Kiner had never heard of anything Fleck-related, yet it led to his memory of a performance by Gene Autry, introduced by Phil Harris. "And that's a true story," he said. Then he started telling a tale about Autry on a stretcher, making believe he was riding a horse. "But I don't know if that one's true," he added. who is recovering from testicular cancer, was accompanied by a graphic saying: "Man, could we be gross here." Who's editing this trash? JIM ROME?

[Frayed Knot]

I was wondering if Ralph was the oldest living Ho-F-er at the time of his death; turns out he was 3rd oldest behind Bobby Doerr who is 95, and Monte Irvin who will turn 94 in a few weeks.
Red Schoendienst, 91 last week, is the only other living Cooperstown inductee over 90

[Lefty Specialist]

Murph was a little different. He hung up his mike and died a few months later.

Ralph was on a long glide path. He hadn't done a regular broadcast schedule since 1998 because of the Bell's palsy. So he became the old uncle you'd see occasionally, just enough to remain familiar with him.

[G-Fafif]

Ian O'Connor praises F. Wilpon for doing right by Ralph.

But as the franchise overlord, Wilpon, was the guy who kept Kiner in the game, and kept him there on Kiner's rules. If Ralph showed up at Shea Stadium or at Citi Field on an assigned night of work, and suddenly didn't feel up to calling a few innings of the game, it was his call. It was always Ralph's call. Wilpon set the organizational tone when it came to one of the Mets' few real treasures, and Kiner responded to that support. Even in a state of decline he remained a workaholic, an announcer who took his craft as seriously as any. Every January he'd call Jay Horwitz, the Mets' longtime publicist, and ask if Horwitz would finally send him the proofs for the media guide so he could get an early jump on his prep work. "Ralph was always very serious about his job and never took anything for granted, and ownership understood that," Horwitz said. "Ralph kept notebooks on stuff that happened 40 years ago, and he was looking forward to working again this year. "In 1980, when I was a young kid out of Fairleigh Dickinson, Ralph took me around to meet different managers, made suggestions about my press notes, just helped me any way he could. He never let on that he was a Hall of Famer. I mean, I don't know anyone who's ever said a cross word about him." The same cannot be said of his longtime employer. Wilpon has been rightfully ripped up, down and sideways in this market for his failure to consistently field a winning club, for failing to spend on free agents at a Steinbrennerian rate, and for all but making Bernie Madoff his de facto GM. But in Ralph Kiner, institution, Wilpon showed strength and humanity as a leader. He knew that "Kiner's Korner" was baseball's answer to "The Tonight Show," and that Ralph was equal parts Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. He suspected that, on some level, the game and the booth and the fans were keeping Kiner going. Keeping him motivated. Maybe even keeping him alive. So Wilpon never engraved Kiner a gold watch, never ordered up an official farewell banquet, and never told everyone's favorite grandfather that it was time for him to watch all 162 games at home on TV. And that's why Kiner was planning another one of his part-time comebacks in 2014 before he died in his California home. A little common decency can go a long way. No, Fred Wilpon hasn't always been a good owner. He was a good man here.

[Zvon]

[G-Fafif]

Nice Art Shamsky recollection among the interviews collected here by WFUV. Bottom line: one day when they were doing a game together, Ralph misidentified both teams...including the Mets.

[stevejrogers]

Kiner patch revealed:

http://metsmerizedonline.com/2014/02/mets-to-honor-ralph-kiner-with-patch-and-opening-day-ceremony.html/

[stevejrogers]

[Zvon]

I really like the patch. Hope it's bigger than a quarter tho.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Stately, tasteful... if a little generic.

I'll take it. But, hey, while we're wheel-spinning...



... a play on this would have been unique, and uniquely befitting Ralph, right?

[G-Fafif]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Stately, tasteful... if a little generic. I'll take it. But, hey, while we're wheel-spinning... ... a play on this would have been unique, and uniquely befitting Ralph, right?

Hoping that whatever they say they're planning for the museum is in that vein. Maybe they'll display the old set (displacing the high-end merch on the far end of the space that I've never seen anybody buy).

[Zvon]

I wanna own the old Kiners Korner set, like Kramer with Mike Douglas Show set. I'll invite people over and interview them.
Then, when no-one comes over, I'll donate it to the team under the stipulation that it is rebuilt in the Mets museum and available for fans to sit on, and interview each other.

The Kiners Korner logo/show title/header thing would be great in that left field corner, as pictured somewhere in this thread. Putting a large version of the patch on the OF wall is okay, but lazy. The patch is for the uniform, do something else special for Ralph on the OF wall (or wherever they are going to add a tribute to the stadium itself).

I'm very happy that the team will make this a season long salute, so I'm not complaining. Just wishin'.

[Gwreck]

Zvon wrote: The patch is for the uniform, do something else special for Ralph on the OF wall (or wherever they are going to add a tribute to the stadium itself).

At the risk of sounding unnecessarily curmudgeonly, I fail to see any need for something on the outfield wall, or naming part of the park "Kiner's Korner" or anything similar. Ralph didn't play for the Mets. They rightfully named the television booth after him. They're honoring him this year with a very nice patch.

Several other stadiums have put up statues or similar for longtime announcers. Seattle, for Dave Niehaus. I remember seeing something nice in St. Louis for Joe Buck. Something like that -- perhaps in the Mets Hall of Fame -- would be far more appropriate.

[Zvon]

I read about something going on the OF wall in addition to the patch. If they are gonna do it, do it right ( I suppose I really mean: do it my way dammit!).

A statue would be nice. If the Mets do that it will be a pleasant surprise. Too much? yea, a lil bit. I'd want one for Murph too. I would not mind if both were commemorated with statues (never was much of a Lindsey fan).

Ralph not ever playing for the Mets is a non-factor for me. The Mets fan in me feels more strongly for him than I do for about 80% of all the players who have ever worn the uniform. Maybe more.
Relatively speaking Ralph is up there in the annals of Met history and his place is by no means a small one. At least at this point of the teams existence.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Several other stadiums have put up statues or similar for longtime announcers. Seattle, for Dave Niehaus. I remember seeing something nice in St. Louis for Joe Buck. Something like that -- perhaps in the Mets Hall of Fame -- would be far more appropriate.

The Tigers have a nice Ernie Harwell statue, too. In fact, it's much better than the statues they have of players in a different part of the stadium.

I don't think the Mets could have a Ralph statue without a Bob Murphy statue, and then you have to deal with questions about a Lindsay Nelson statue.

I think the patch is nice. Murphy had his name embroidered on the sleeve in 2004 because the Mets already had the Shea Stadium 40th anniversary patch and "You Gotta Believe" for Tug that year.

Shea would have been 50 this year.

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Shea would have been 50 this year.

And we'll be celebrating the marriages of the 50th anniversaries of Shea Stadium and the Beatles arrival here in the good ol' USA in The Liverpool to Crane Pool Song Parody Contest, the second leg of the song parody triple crown, and the last tournament before the regular baseball season starts. It's a condensed, matchup-free tournament. You won't be required to write more than two parodies. /plug

Interested?




Picture Disc Winner's Trophy -- Liverpool to Crane Pool Song Parody Contest -- design concept by Zvon

[G-Fafif]

The Mets are, be still my heart, acknowledging the 50th with a canvas print giveaway on April 19th to the first 20,000 fans. Should there be any more than 20,000 fans, just forget you ever saw Shea.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Those huge protective canvas drop cloths that painters use to cover up furniture when they're painting a room -- I'd get one of those cloths in monster size, have someone paint the old Shea Stadium scoreboard on it, and then drape the cloth over the Citi Field scoreboard. That's how I'd honor Shea's 50th. For starters.

[Ceetar]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Those huge protective canvas drop cloths that painters use to cover up furniture when they're painting a room -- I'd get one of those cloths in monster size, have someone paint the old Shea Stadium scoreboard on it, and then drape the cloth over the Citi Field scoreboard. That's how I'd honor Shea's 50th. For starters.

Giant Budweiser ad ftw.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Those huge protective canvas drop cloths that painters use to cover up furniture when they're painting a room -- I'd get one of those cloths in monster size, have someone paint the old Shea Stadium scoreboard on it, and then drape the cloth over the Citi Field scoreboard. That's how I'd honor Shea's 50th. For starters. Giant Budweiser ad ftw.

Not when I was a kid.

[fimg=944]http://metspolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/1969open.jpg[/fimg]