Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Baseball - Hardcover

Larry Burke is a senior editor at Sports Illustrated. He is the author of four books, including The Baseball Chronicles: A Decade-by-Decade History of the All-American Pastime. He lives in Connecticut.

Peter Thomas Fornatale is an author and writer whose work has appeared in many places, including ESPN.com and the New York Times. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Jim Baker is an author at Baseball Prospectus and a frequent contributor to ESPN.com, and has contributed to baseball books by Bill James and Rob Neyer. He lives in Austin, Texas.

THE 1962 METS

Featuring

ROGER CRAIG: Veteran starting pitcher who had spent a dozen years with the Dodgers organization.

JIM HICKMAN: Rookie center fielder from the Cardinals organization.

JAY HOOK: Starting pitcher from the Reds organization who got the victory in the Mets' first win ever.

ED KRANEPOOL: Local high school phenom signed by the Mets and brought to the majors at the end of the season at the age of 17.

ROBERT LIPSYTE: A young writer who did feature stories on the team for the New York Times.

KEN MACKENZIE: Reliever acquired in a trade with the Braves.

FRANK THOMAS: Veteran slugger obtained in a trade with the Braves but most often identified with the Pirates.

WHEN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE doubled the number of big-league clubs to 16 at the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. population was about 77 million. Within 50 years that number had in turn doubled to 155 million and had grown an additional 25 million by 1960. In spite of those massive gains in potential ticket buyers, baseball remained as it was, a 16-team operation at the big-league level. And the recently transplanted Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants were the only major-league teams west of Missouri.

That number seemed almost sacrosanct and, as has so often been the case in baseball's attitude toward change, it was going to take external pressure for it to move forward. Because so much of the population was not being serviced by major-league baseball other than via television, the door was open to fill that need. The pressure on major-league baseball came in two forms. First, the Pacific Coast League made some noise about becoming a third major league, going so far as to change from a lettered classification to an open one in 1952, but a general decline in minor- league attendance and the westward franchise shifts of the Giants and Dodgers put an end to that talk. Secondly, the void created in New York by the Giants' and Dodgers' moves could not possibly go unfilled. It inspired William Shea, a New York attorney, to first make overtures about moving existing teams such as the Pirates and Reds to the city and then to create the Continental League, a third major league cut from whole cloth.

Whatever Shea's intentions--and some have suggested that the whole enterprise was a leverage move to get the National League back into New York after his attempts to land an existing team had failed--the Continental League did exist on paper for a full year. From July 1959 to August 1960, ownership groups were in place for seven cities. (All, save for one--Buffalo--would eventually get major-league franchises, some sooner rather than later.) This presence was enough for the major-league owners to finally increase their franchise number to better reflect the market realities around them. The Washington Senators would move to Minneapolis- St. Paul--a Continental League city--and be replaced by a new Senators franchise. The Minnesota Twins would be joined in the American League by a second Los Angeles franchise; both of those teams began play in 1961. (The Continental League had some prescient choices among its locales, but it did not extend itself to the West Coast.) The following year the National League would move into the Sun Belt by awarding a franchise in another CL city, Houston. The second National League expansion team would go to New York.

And therein begins this tale. While the other three new clubs managed to create rosters that would win at least 60 games in their first year of existence (the Angels were especially successful, getting outscored by only 40 runs in 1961 and finishing in third place in '62), the architects of the Mets managed to create a perfect storm of a ball club, one that lost a record 120 games. Although their counterparts did a much better job of hitting the ground running, it was those Mets, under their colorful manager Casey Stengel, who became legendary.

GETTING STARTED

The new teams' rosters were stocked by an expansion draft, the players for which were provided from the major- and minor-league rosters of the existing eight teams. In the first phase of the draft the Mets and Colt .45s would select from lists of 15 players submitted by each of the eight established NL teams. Eight of the 15 players had to have been on the 25- man major-league roster as of August 31, 1961, while another seven could come from elsewhere in the organization. The Mets and Houston Colt .45s were required to take two men from each team at a cost of $75,000 each. It was from this phase that the Mets landed their first player, catcher Hobie Landrith. (Baseball's most recent expansion teams, which joined the majors in 1998, began operating minor-league teams in the seasons leading up to their debut. Houston and New York had no such luxury.)

The second phase of the draft was dubbed the "premium" phase. Each team designated two more players from its major-league roster, and the Mets and Colt .45s could select no more than one from each club at $125,000 each. The first player the Mets got in this round was Cardinals pitcher Bob Miller. In all, the Mets spent $1.8 million on expansion draft day, a fairly sizable amount of money given the level of talent made available and the fact that this money wasn't included in the franchise fee. The Mets' premium picks were Miller, Reds pitcher Jay Hook, Cubs infielder Don Zimmer and Phillies corner infielder/outfielder Lee Walls. Two months after the draft New York shipped Walls to Los Angeles for Charlie Neal and a player to be named later, who turned out to be pitcher Willard Hunter.

Of the four premium choices, only Zimmer could have been considered a regular in 1961. Two of the players the Mets took in the initial draft were deemed expendable by their respective teams after they had been struck by routine maladies the year before. Cardinals catcher Chris Cannizzaro had lost playing time to appendicitis in 1961. Jay Hook had been hit by the mumps. Ironically, it was during a turn as a baseball goodwill ambassador that he caught the disease.

JAY HOOK: When [the Reds] wanted somebody to speak at schools or something where they didn't pay anybody to do it, they thought of me. So we were out in California and I had gone out to speak at the school--actually the guy had been the principal at the grade school I went to in Illinois but had moved to California. I must have contracted [the mumps] there but they really knocked me out for that 1961 season, which was a shame, because I ended up with mono; at the end of the season they insisted I go get a physical and my blood count was still high. So anyway, I had a terrible year in 1961 [1-3, 7.76 ERA in 622/3 innings] when we won the pennant. I really didn't get to pitch very much after I got sick. But I think they put me in the draft--they put me as one of the premium draft choices--because they probably didn't think anybody would pick me. My wife Joanne and I were driving home from the World Series in our little Austin-Healey--the kids had gone home early-- and we heard over the radio that we'd been sold to the Mets.

ROGER CRAIG: [The move to the Mets] had some possibilities because in 1960 I had had a collision with Vada Pinson and broken my clavicle and I came back and pitched after a doctor said I'd never pitch again. I came back eight weeks later and nearly had a complete-game victory against the Cardinals. I didn't really feel that bad because baseball is a business and sometimes you just have to move on.

JIM HICKMAN: Like anybody, I was glad to go to the big leagues; I was glad to get there.

ROGER CRAIG: I saw it as a chance to get a new start and pitch every fourth day. I was looking forward to playing for Casey Stengel--which, as it turned out, I really enjoyed for those two years. I knew we were going to lose a lot of ball games because we had a lot of guys--including me--that were near the end of their careers. I learned a lot that really helped me when I became a pitching coach and a manager later on.

Some were disappointed that they weren't taken in the draft, like Braves pitcher Ken MacKenzie, who turned out to be the only '62 Met who fashioned a winning record (5-4).

KEN MACKENZIE: I'm actually part of Mets history as the first non-draftee to join the team, although that requires a bit of explaining. The expansion draft occurred while I was playing in Puerto Rico and I remember being really depressed when neither the Colt .45s nor the Mets chose me. To put it more accurately, I wanted to get away from the Braves. I was stuck in a logjam in Milwaukee: the pitching staff had Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Bob Buhl, Carl Willey, Don Nottebart, Bob Hendley, and Don McMahon. Moe Drabowsky was also on that team. There was no place for me and I knew it. I hadn't pitched much for the Braves in '60 or '61 (151/3 innings total), and I was going to be 28 in '62. In '61 (Milwaukee manager) Chuck Dressen sent me down to make room for this young catcher named Joe Torre. I told Braves general manager John McHale that I was going to quit. Now back then someone like me was worth money to the club--about $25,000 would be the going rate. I was sold a couple of times for that amount. Players were being moved all over the place for numbers like that; it was the bottom price. So McHale said, "No, you go to Louisville and have a good season and I'll do something with you at the end of the season if you don't figure in our plans." That sounded good to me.

I did pitch well in Louisville and the Braves put me in the expansion draft. I was ready to quit when I didn't get picked. But, a few weeks later, while we were still in Puerto Rico, I got a letter from New York. The letter informed me that I had been purchased from the Braves by the New York Metropolitans Baseball Club. They had bought me from Milwaukee along with Johnny Antonelli, another lefty. The letter was on Continental League stationery--they were recycling the stationery. I didn't think to save it . . .

Slugger Frank Thomas came to the Mets via a trade with the Braves on November 28, 1961. The deal angered him, but not because it was to an expansion team.

FRANK THOMAS: I was kind of disappointed because, number one, I was promised that wouldn't happen. When I went in to talk contract with John McHale, I said to him: "If you have the intention of trading me, please, don't let me sign. Let me dicker with the club I'm going to go to." Then I asked him, "What are your intentions for me come 1962?" And he said, "Well, you're going to be our left fielder." I said, "If that's the case, then you bring out whatever contract you want me to sign and I'm doing it, because you're giving me the chance to play regularly again." That was in September. In November I was up hunting with my friends when my wife called and said, "You just got sold to the Mets." He lied to me.

Ed Kranepool came to the team later, signed for a nice bonus at mid-season right out of high school in the Bronx, and was brought up through three levels of the minor leagues, and finally to the big club, in the course of one summer.

ED KRANEPOOL: When I reached the majors the final bonus was over $100,000-- a lot of money back then. We didn't have a draft back in '62; you could sign with whomever you wanted to and you negotiated your own deal. The talks went very quickly. Bubber Jonnard [the Mets' chief scout] wanted me and he made no secret of it. I did give [White Sox scout] Steve Ray the last option. I told them what the Mets had offered so Hank Greenberg [a part-owner] and the White Sox could match it, but they didn't. That was fine with me. I wanted to stay in New York and the Yankees hadn't really pursued me. They knew the Mets were at every game and it was a foregone conclusion that they would go at me hard.

SPRING TRAINING AND A ROUGH START

It is not generally remembered that the '62 Mets played fairly well in spring training, further proof that anyone who puts stock in spring games is missing the point of the exercise. New York finished exhibition play with a .500 record. While no one thought they would contend, few saw what atrocities were in store for the team.

ROGER CRAIG: There were a bunch of really good ballplayers there: Gil Hodges, Frank Thomas, Richie Ashburn, Gus Bell, Felix Mantilla. We felt that even though we all came from different places we might be able to blend together and do something. It was a fun feeling. Casey Stengel brightened up the clubhouse even during the season when we were really losing. He would make you feel like today's another day and we have a chance to win. In spring training it was a lot of fun. It was a novelty.

JAY HOOK: It was a pretty optimistic feeling, because we had a number of guys who had had wonderful careers already. We had a manager who had won a number of pennants with the Yankees; Casey had a great relationship with all the writers; so, you know, as Mets we probably got as much publicity, if not more publicity, than the Yankees did.

ROBERT LIPSYTE: I went down there assuming that they were going to be terrible. What did I know? I was not a baseball writer. I was not particularly a sports fan. I had not followed this stuff closely.

The general feeling at the Times was that this team was going to be so bad that it would be a feature writer's delight. It was not going to be a good assignment for sports guys who had been hunkering in the corner since 1957 when the Dodgers and Giants left town. It was seen as a feature writer's story rather than a real baseball writer's story, which is why they sent me.

KEN MACKENZIE: None of us suspected what would happen with the Mets that first year. We had some names on that club, you know. Charlie Neal, Don Zimmer, Frank Thomas, Felix Mantilla--whom I knew could hit from when he was with the Braves--Richie Ashburn, Gil Hodges, Gene Woodling, Gus Bell, Roger Craig. We also had guys like Elio Chacon, but he was really a fringe player. We thought we had a baseball team.