Ed Kranepool

by John Delach

On Sunday, September 8, the same Sunday that the New York Football Giants opened their 100th football season, Ed Kranepool, an original member of the New York Metropolitans (Mets) passed away from cardiac arrest in Boca Ratan, Florida.

The Mets had drafted “Young Ed’ directly out of James Monroe High School in the Bronx when he was 17-years old. He joined the team on September 22, toward the end of their 1962 season He played at their temporary home in Manhattan, the Polo Grounds, in 1962 and 1963 before moving to brand new Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens in April of 1964.

“Kranepool grew up a Yankee fan in the Bronx, but he took a detour to upper Manhattan and Queens where Mets fans got to embrace him as a hometown boy of their own – one whose modest personality and baseball resume fit the underdog franchise.”   

Assigned No. 21, he began his career playing first base as a defensive replacement for the aging Gil Hodgers who would go on to become his manager. Kranepool’s early participation in the Mets line-up gave him the dubious distinction of being part of this team that lost 120 games in 1962, a record that still stands.

“He was still a Met when he retired after the 1979 season – leaving as their all-time leader in games played, by far, with 1,853.” Columnist Neil Best wrote this f/or Newsday’s September 10 edition. His obituary included a photograph of Kranepool with fellow 1969 World Champion Mets, Cleon Jones and Art Shamsky,  taken during a 2019  spring training outing.

Best quoted Jones: “I just spoke to Ed last week and we talked about how we were the last originals, still alive,  who signed with the Mets. The other 1962 guys came from other organization. Eddie was a big bonus baby and I wasn’t. He never had an ego and was just one of the guys. He was a wonderful person.”

“Kranpool’s statistics were modest. He finished with 1,418 hits, 118 home runs and a .261 batting average. In the championship season of 1969, he had 11 home runs, 49 RBIs and a .238 average.”

“Kranepool failed to live up to the potential star status predicted for him, but he was always valued as a bridge from the teams dreadful early years to the breakthrough in 1969. For example, when 44-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn joined the Mets in 1965, Kranepool gave him his No. 21 and switched to No. 7, the number the big lefthand hitter wore for the rest of his career. “

My connection to Ed Kranepool was simple but disconcerting; he was born on November 8, 1944 and I was born on February 22, 1944. That made him the first major league baseball player who I realized was younger than me, a fact I found depressing especially at my tender age of 18 in 1962.

R.I.P. Ed Kranepool.