As the Mets congregate for their second spring training of the year — this one at Citi Field — here are five questions they’re facing. I will support them all the way.”Even after he knew my name and called to me, I tried to avoid Kleppel and his claque of senior citizens. Alas, there were more critical numbers — the three made up an outfield with 19 children and a combined age of 102.While most of the reporters, including me, saw this as further proof of the Mets’ inevitable haplessness (why else would I have taken my glove? He followed the team to Shea Stadium in 1964, and he was there for the seven years in 9th or 10th place until that amazing 1969 season when the Miracle Mets won the World Series. He thought if he could learn to sacrifice, he wouldn’t be lifted for a pinch-hitter in the late innings.By night, when I wasn’t at Stengel’s elbow, I’d be in the hotel lobby with Hornsby. I give them my voice. In fact, PECOTA projects the Mets to finish with the second-best record in … Publication Date: Sunday, 1 March 2020 at 14:47:01 Maybe if he were 15, said Murphy, he might have a shot, but he had too much to learn. He provided a play-by-play of the historic ride along with sidebars on propulsion and the problems of re-entry. Andy Vasquez. By. From left, Don Zimmer, Felix Mantilla, Charlie Neal and Gil Hodges.Manager Casey Stengel, a spry 71, watching the right-hander Roger Craig during the Mets' first spring training in 1962.Stengel managed Roger Maris, left, and Mickey Mantle, right, with the Yankees.The 1962 Mets included Richie Ashburn in his last season. The nutty language called Stengelese (“So this here fella on second base, let me tell you he was not as horseapple as he was in Kankakee, which was amazing for a left-handed dentist, which I did not get to be”) was a construct of big-time columnists parachuting into camp for 15 minutes with “the ol’ perfesser.” Heard in their entirety, his hours-long monologues made perfect sense.I spent many nights in the hotel bar, at his elbow, absorbing his intricate, though coherent (if you were there from the beginning, that is) theories of platooning and pinch-hitting and his ribald reminiscences of players he managed, especially Joe DiMaggio, whom he did not like and referred to by an Italian slur. Since 1957, when the Dodgers and the Giants went west, New York had felt baseball-deprived, none more so perhaps than Mrs. Payson, who had owned a piece of the Giants and pined for Willie Mays. He gestured at Gil Hodges, posing for $750. It was recognizable Stengel: cruel to players, contemptuous of the news media.He could also be incredibly kind, particularly sensitive to the disabled.
After Chrysler, he rose to senior management positions at Rockwell International and Masco before retiring to become a professor in Northwestern’s M.B.A. program.
We were disappointed. “If Hodges smokes Viceroy, it might do something for you, too.”It seems almost churlish now to add that the laconic, stoical Hodges died after his second heart attack, at 47. The scene had to be shot over and over because Stengel clutched too hard and brightened too quickly.One of the ad men told me that ballplayers were easy to deal with.“They’re regimented, so they take orders well,” he said. But he was a baseball player first. Grant was no Bernie Madoff, to be sure, but imperial enough. He was endlessly quotable.
Their fame was affirmed in the next day’s issues of the seven daily New York City newspapers. My favorite was a skinny, sallow, round-shouldered 21-year-old from Astoria named John Pappas. When he emerged, he said, “Now I’ve seen everything.” When the game was over, a fan uttered the mantra of the next seven years: “Same old Mets.”Hook and I shared a favorite coach, Rogers Hornsby, the Rajah, considered the greatest right-handed hitter of the century. Lobby sitting was his hobby, according to The Baseball Register. He was big on getting a good night’s sleep. “The Mets will repeat,” he boomed. Baseball, finally, is starting up again. He was wild, and not very fast. They like to see their pictures around town.”Stengel later complained about how hard he worked on his Alka-Seltzer commercial.Almost as ubiquitous as the ad men were the walk-on Mets who believed our stories about how bad this team would be. And I’ve had it.”But I found him again outside for the home opener in 1963. She trilled over them, offering a gloved hand, as Grant hovered.Grant seemed to have attended that first spring training in 1962 primarily to get massages in the trainers’ room. )The new owner installed her stockbroker, M. Donald Grant, as chairman of the board. I watched the way Casey kept you sportswriters entertained so you would write about the team for his customers, the fans.”Hook took care of his customers.
He raised his voice. Actually, this fit with the more relaxed mood of that day. Eavesdropping on players took no skill at all. “The Mets are my team now. During New York Mets spring training, one of the battles to watch will be between backup catcher candidates Tomas Nido and Rene Rivera. The man claimed to have played for Stengel years ago in the minors. “And they’re vain. ... Noble worked for the Herald news and The Record in the 1970s before moving to … It was the right decision.”Hook, who had worked on his master’s degree in thermodynamics as a Met, was remembered for explaining Bernoulli’s Law, which describes how planes stay aloft and baseballs curve. He was up early, instructing the younger players on life (“Get yourself in shape now, you can drink during the season”) and hitting (“He who stands up to bat is all right; he who sticks his fanny out isn’t worth a road apple”) while bantering with fans and holding a running news conference. Spring Training Magazine Online, Schedule, cactus league master schedule, masticket and travel information for baseball's Spring Training in the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues Spring Training Team Standings, 1984-2006 But not under the Triborough Bridge.”Pappas got 18 minutes at a nearby high school field with a fourth-string Mets catcher.
As they left with arms around each other, Stengel rolled his eyes at me and shrugged. He felt reconnected to the game, now and 50 years ago, a prospect again on a brand-new team.“I’d forgotten what a good time I had,” he said.