Five years ago, when I was promoting a book I’d written commemorating the 50th anniversary of Gil Hodges’ 1969 Mets pulling off the greatest upset in World Series history, I wanted to see if I could find a member of the team to join me for a Q. and A and book signing at a Long Island bookstore. I knew it would be hard to do better than Ed Kranepool, a native New Yorker whose roots with the team go back to the Mets’ infancy in 1962. So I gave Eddie a call, and even though he was awaiting a kidney transplant and wasn’t in great health, he agreed, and what ensued was a delightful evening full of reminiscences about the most remarkable and improbable New York baseball season of them all. It was one of the first memories that came to me when I heard of Ed’s passing at his home in Boca Raton earlier this week.
“If there’s a Mr. Met, it’s Eddie Kranepool,” Ron Swoboda, his dear friend and teammate, told Jon Heyman of the New York Post. “He was through and through a New Yorker, and a New York Met.”
Born and raised in the Bronx, Ed Kranepool was named for his father, who died in combat in World War II when his mother, Ethel, was pregnant with him. He grew into a big, strong lefthanded kid who would break the home-run records of Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg at James Monroe High School and become one of the most sought-after prep baseball players in the country.
Like most Bronx kids, Ed grew up a Yankee fan and rooted for Mickey Mantle (it’s why he wore No. 7), dreaming of following the path of another homegrown New York slugger and fellow first baseman, Lou Gehrig. The Yankees wanted him; virtually every big-league club did. In fact, Kranepool was scheduled to take the first flight of his life to work out with the Chicago White Sox the next day when Mets’ front-office executive Johnny Murphy and scout Bubba Jonnard showed up at the Kranepools’ door on Castle Hill Avenue in the Bronx and offered him an $85,000 signing bonus. Ethel Kranepool had been supporting her two children on a military pension and income from odd jobs. This was life-changing money. Ed signed. He was 17 years old and had just graduated high school. He would spend all 18 years of his big-league as a New York Met, playing in more games – 1,853 –than any player in club history.
There were plenty of ups and downs in Kranepool’s Met career, to be sure. The Mets rushed him to the big leagues at the end of 1962, doing him no favors at all, no matter that he picked up his first big-league hit in front of some 10,000 fans at the Polo Grounds. (If you knew it was a double off of the Cubs’ Don Elston, you must be either Howie Rose or Gary Cohen.) It was neither fair, nor realistic, for a club or its fan base to look to a teenager to be an organizational savior, the kid who would lead the Mets out of the bowels of the National League, but Kranepool soldiered on and became a Flushing fixture. His first season as a regular, in 1965, he hit .253 with 10 homers and 53 RBI and made his one (and only) All-Star team, emerging as a solid player with a slick glove and a potent, line-drive bat, even as the Mets continued to pile up last-place finishes. I asked him about that when I interviewed him for the book.
“Winning is contagious, and so is losing,” he said. “It gets tiring and frustrating. Anybody can play on a winning ball club. Being on a winning ball club is so much easier. You go to the ballpark every day with a positive attitude and you have something to look forward to, meaningful games in August and September. When you are eliminated at the All-Star break, it makes for a long second half.”
Kranepool was still only 24 when he finally got to experience life on the plus side of .500. When the first-place Cubs visited Shea Stadium in early July 1969, the Mets were 45-34 and on a roll. Kranepool homered off Cubs ace Ferguson Jenkins in the fifth inning, but that was all the offense the Mets could muster as Jenkins took a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth. A sellout crowd of over 55,000 roared for a comeback, and Cleon Jones, the Mets’ top hitter, didn’t disappoint, drilling a two-run double down the left-field line to tie the game. Up stepped Kranepool. Mindful that Kranepool had taken him deep four innings earlier, Jenkins worked him away with breaking stuff and went up 1-2.
“I knew I wasn’t going to see a strike,” Kranepool said.
Jenkins stayed outside and Kranepool reached across the plate and looped a ball to short left. It fell just beyond the glove of Cubs shortstop Don Kessinger. Jones raced home with the winning run in what was, at the time, the most important game in Mets’ history. Ed Kranepool was mobbed by his teammates. It was the biggest hit of his career.
With the Mets’ acquisition of Donn Clendenon at the trade deadline, Kranepool became a platoon player for Hodges that season, but he remained a key contributor down the stretch, started all three games of the NLCS against the Braves, and homered in Game 3 of the World Series.
Even after winning a championship ring, Kranepool had to contend with one more setback a year later, getting sent to the minors so the Mets could bring up Ken Singleton, a promising young switch-hitter. The demotion hit hard but he handled it like a pro. He hit .310 over a couple of months in triple A and then returned for good, becoming one of the elite pinch-hitters in all of baseball over his final seasons, and the longest tenured Met the club has ever had.
Ed Kranepool spoke recently about how he hoped the hapless 2024 White Sox would surpass the 1962 Mets record of 120 defeats. “Let them have it. It’s not a record I’m proud of,” he told a reporter. He watched his Mets on TV all the time. He was enjoying the club’s push for a postseason berth. He was tuned into the Mets game against the Reds last Sunday afternoon when his heart finally gave out after a long run of health challenges. It’s hard to imagine Ed Kranepool leaving us any other way. RIP, No. 7.
Lovely salute to a sweet guy.
Great read. I can remember my dad talking about him. We are from THE BRONX. RIP.
Thank you!
Nancy Picciano Malcolm