All Star Game in Minnesota brings back bittersweet memories for Ed Kranepool

The clamor over the 2014 All-Star game at Target Field in Minnesota roused up memories of New York Mets Hall of Famer Ed Kranepool’s selection to the 1965 All-Star Game at Metropolitan Stadium. Only 20 years old, Kranepool was the youngest member of a National League squad that featured Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Sandy Koufax.

“That was a tremendous feat for myself, I was only 20 when I made the All-Star team,” Kranepool recalled.

Ed Kranepool

As excited that Kranepool was to be representing the Mets in Minnesota, he would have enjoyed it more if Philadelphia Phillies manager Gene Mauch would have called Kranepool’s number off of the bench.

“I didn’t play in the game. I was disappointed," he said. "It’s kind of frustrating because I never made it again. You want to play. … What’s the sense of sending a guy to the All-Star Game, if he’s not going to play? Not that you want the three days off, you’d rather be in the All-Star Game, but if you’re going there, I want to say I played in the game. Let the country see you play the game.”

Kranepool's ill-feelings towards Mauch lingered well past the All-Star Game. He tried to take it out on Mauch's teams every time they squared off.

"I held a grudge against Gene Mauch my whole career," he said. "Every time I played him, I wanted to beat him, because I didn't play and I wanted to play."

While he acknowledges that the managers of the All-Star teams have been more aware about getting everyone involved in the mid-summer classic; however, he still thinks the game can stand a few minor adjustments.

“They do a better job of managing the players today in the game," he said. "They get everybody in, but I think they should have free substitution with a couple of players. They ought to mark before the game, two-to-three guys who play a lot of positions and keep them around. If you put them in the game, you’re allowed to remove them, [to] get everybody in the game. … They should change certain rules. Baseball in certain ways is trying to make changes and other ways, they’re antiquated in their positioning.”

Kranepool explains in the video below how Casey Stengel notified him of being selected to the 1965 All-Star team, and his thoughts on the All-Star voting process.

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Mariano Rivera and Pelé meet for the first time at the World Cup in Brazil

Pele meets Mariano Rivera, for the first time ever
at a SUBWAY Restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
on Saturday, July 12, 2014.  
(Photo by Dado Galdieri/Invision
for SUBWAY Restaurants/AP Images)

The greatest closer in baseball history, New York Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera met with the world renown fútbol superstar Pelé for the first time in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Saturday July 12, 2014.

Pelé was on hand to promote Subway's healthy eating campaign prior to the World Cup finals. Rivera met with Pelé during his appearance on Subway's behalf. The two exchanged pleasantries and Pelé shared a story about how he was asked to be a kicker in the NFL while he was playing with the New York Cosmos.

Their entire exchange (in English and Spanish) are in the video below.

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Bill Renna, 89, played with Yankees, Athletics and Red Sox 1924-2014

Bill Renna, outfielder for the New York Yankees, Philadelphia / Kansas City Athletics, and Boston Red Sox from 1953-1959, passed away June 19, 2014 in San Jose, California. He was 89.

Renna returned from military service in World War II to become a two-sport star at the University of Santa Clara, playing outfield for the baseball team, and both fullback and center on the football team. His play on the gridiron earned him a spot in the East-West game in 1949, drawing the attention of the Los Angeles Rams; however, he chose to stick with baseball, learning under the guidance of Santa Clara’s legendary coach, Paddy Cottrell.

Bill Renna, 1955 A's

“Paddy Cottrell my coach at Santa Clara was a bird dog [scout] for the Yankees,” Renna said to me in a 2008 interview. “He used to teach us everything that was taught in spring training by the Yankees.”

Cottrell tipped Yankees scout Joe Devine to his prized outfielder who signed Renna in 1949 to a contract for $5,000. His signing paid immediate dividends, as he hit an eye-opening .385 with 21 home runs for Twin Falls in the Pioneer League. His play impressed his Twin Falls manager Charlie Metro, who was a former major leaguer himself.

“He hit like heck up there, and they called him “Bull,” because he was a big guy,” Metro said in his autobiography “Safe by a Mile.” “He was a delight to have on the team.”

The Yankees were so impressed with Renna’s 1949 season that they sent him to their AAA team in Kansas City. Renna was hit with the injury bug injuries in 1950 and could not duplicate his torrid start from the year prior. The Yankees sent him down to Class B Norfolk, where he hit .291 with 26 home runs.

“Bull” worked his way back to AAA in 1952 and played well enough to earn a promotion to the big leagues with the Yankees in 1953.

“I went to spring training with the Yankees in 1953 and there was an outfielder spot available, so I grabbed it and held onto it,” Renna said to Ed Attanasio of This Great Game. “Stengel platooned me with Gene Woodling in left field, alongside (Mickey) Mantle in center and with (Hank) Bauer and (Irv) Noren in right field.”

Bill Renna - 1953 Yankees

Renna hit .314 in 61 games, filling in at all three outfield spots to spell Mantle and Woodling while they recovered from various ailments. While he was on the roster for their World Series championship, he did not see any action during the series.

“I did not get to play, but I was on deck to pinch hit a couple times,” Renna said. “It was a little frustrating to get that close and not even get an at-bat.”

Despite being shut out during the World Series, one of Renna’s fondest memories from his rookie season with the Yankees was witnessing Mantle’s monstrous shot off of Chuck Stobbs in Griffith’s Stadium.

“I saw him hit the 565-foot homer out of Griffith’s Stadium in 1953 against Chuck Stobbs,” Renna said to John McCarthy of the Old Timers Baseball Association in 2008. “Mickey was batting right-handed against the lefty Stobbs who threw him an off-speed pitch that almost fooled him, but he stayed back and waited on the pitch. When it left the bat we all stood up in the dugout and watched the flight of the ball as it kept on going, and when it cleared the clock at the top of the stadium in left-center field, we were all in total amazement.”

Renna’s glory days with the Yankees would be unfortunately short-lived. In the 1953 off-season, he was part of an 11-player deal that sent Vic Power to the Philadelphia Athletics in exchange for first-baseman Eddie Robinson and pitcher Harry Byrd. Going from the perennial champs to the perennial cellar dwellers would have fazed most players, but not Renna.

“I have no complaint about that deal,” Renna said in 1958 to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “In fact, the trade was a benefit for me because I got the chance to be the regular right fielder with the A’s.”

Now with the opportunity to play full-time, Renna had his best major league season in 1954. In 123 games, he hit 13 home runs while gunning out 13 runners from the outfield. He played two more seasons with the Athletics, staying with them through their move to familiar territory, Kansas City.

“Moving back to Kansas City was kind of neat being I played there for awhile,” he said to me in his 2008 interview. “Kansas City received the A’s very well. They were excited about it. … They had a great fan base that liked the game of baseball.”

During the 1956 season, Renna was essentially traded for himself, returning to the Yankees in exchange for Eddie Robinson.

“The Yanks had a plan in mind for me, which probably boiled down to giving me another crack at making the grade,” Renna said in 1958. “I admit that I didn’t do the job at Richmond that either the Yankees or I expected that I would do. That’s why they traded me when I told them that I either stay in the majors or be traded.”

Renna got his wish, as the Yankees traded him to the Boston Red Sox for Eli Grba and Gordie Windhorn. After a monster 1957 season with the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League where he slugged 29 home runs and drove in 105 runs, the Red Sox gave him another chance at the major league life.

He made the Red Sox in 1958 and spent the entire season as a backup to Ted Williams.

“I was Ted Williams’ caddy in Boston,” he said in our 2008 interview. “[Gene] Stephens and myself; he was a lefty and I was a righty. We’d play left field whenever Ted didn’t play.”

Williams tried to impart sage hitting advice to Renna one day during batting practice, but as many that Williams attempted to council would find out, what came naturally for Williams was a struggle for most.

“One day we were in the outfield during batting practice and Ted said to crowd the plate a little more. I said, ‘I can’t handle that, just like you do, you have a quick bat and you hit that inside pitch really well’. He said, ‘You want them to pitch you tight.’ I said, ‘I don’t want that, I can’t hit on that part, that hard fastball gives me trouble. I have plate coverage; I go over the plate and tap the outside. I’m not going to crowd the plate; I can’t flip the bat like you do.’”

The Red Sox sent Renna back to the minor leagues during the 1959 season and he retired after finishing out the year with San Diego. While he felt he could physically play a few more years, family responsibilities trumped his desires to continue.

“I retired in 1959 from San Diego, came here to San Jose, and got a job with Central Concrete Supplies selling ready mix concrete,” he said. “I had three children to worry about; I didn’t want to follow a minor league club around as a coach with three kids that were getting ready to start school. I didn’t think it was fair to them.”

Renna worked with Central Concrete for over 26 years retiring in 1990, retiring to spend more time with his wife and grandchildren. Very much a student of the game, Renna looked at the current state of play in Major League Baseball with a critical eye.

“When I was playing,” he said, “there were only 16 teams, as opposed to 30 now. Half of the league wouldn’t have had a shot. There are a lot of more opportunities to play in the majors now. It’s a different situation completely. It was more difficult then to make it to the majors then it is now. There were a lot more kids playing professional baseball, as there were so many leagues.

“If you watch the game the way it is played in the majors now there are a lot of things that are done that shouldn’t be done because if they have been taught to play the game, they would know to do these things the proper way. For example, people running into each other, infielders and outfielders. Its communication, I learned it in college. When we went into the pros, we were taught it again in the minors. Evidently, these poor kids aren’t taught a lot of this stuff. It’s unfortunate.”

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Tom Veryzer, 61, 12-year major league infielder with the Cubs, Indians, Mets and Tigers

Tom Veryzer - New York Mets

Tom Veryzer, native of Islip, New York, and former major league shortstop for the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, and Chicago Cubs, passed away Tuesday July 8, 2014 from complications of a stroke according to multiple reports on Twitter. He was 61.

Click here to read more about Veryzer's 12-year major league career and his role in Len Barker's perfect game.

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July 4, 1939 Was Also Johnny Welaj Day At Yankee Stadium

For a special group from Manville, NJ, July 4, 1939 was Johnny Welaj Day at Yankee Stadium. The pride of Manville, Johnny “Legs” Welaj was a member of the Washington Senators, only two months into his major league career.

Johnny Welaj

Over 150 family members, friends and elected officials traveled forty-five miles to celebrate his newly minted big league status. The Yankees and Senators were scheduled to play a double header, and prior to the first game, Manville mayor Alex Batcho showered Welaj with praise as he addressed the crowd. It was only as they were proceeding with the ceremony, Welaj was notified Lou Gehrig would be giving his retirement speech in between games.

Welaj sat the first game of the double header and had a rather difficult task to follow Gehrig’s iconic speech as the lead-off batter of the second game.

He spent four seasons in the major leagues with the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics, losing three years to military service in World War II. He continued to play in the minor leagues through 1956, and then spent the next 43 years working for the Washington Senators and Texas Rangers in various front office capacities, fully retiring in 1999.

He passed away September 13, 2003 at the age of 89 in Arlington, Texas. 
 

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Book Review - Saving Babe Ruth by Tom Swyers

School is out and summer has arrived, time is abundant and the sun never seems to go down; a perfect storm for children to fill baseball fields across the country. Pass by most of the spacious greens now and they’re rarely used unless you are part of the elite who can afford the exorbitant rates collected by travel teams across the country. Securing not only the pocketbooks of parents nationwide, they’ve taken a firm grasp of the permits that control the access to these fields.

Standing in the face of these ever-expanding travel teams is David Thompson, a crusader for his town’s local Babe Ruth program. Thompson is the central figure in Tom Swyers’ novel, “Saving Babe Ruth,” which is based upon a true story of one parent’s fight to keep the field that has served his community so dearly for the continued use of all of its residents, instead of the exclusive group of the outsider travel program.

Saving Babe Ruth / Tom Swyers

This war of sorts is playing out in communities all over the country, with these hyper-selective travel teams starting at earlier ages, creating a chasm that are causing the community based programs to suffer. Suddenly at age 10, the travel team coaches are telling young Johnny that he is too good to be playing for the “in-house” league, as his career trajectory will be poisoned by playing with such inferior talent. Fields are going empty because these travel teams have swallowed the permits just to keep the recreational leagues from “ruining” their playgrounds.

Swyers documents how Thompson’s program is suffering from the presence of Rob Barkus and his Elite Travel Baseball League. Barkus is working in concert with the high school program to stop the kids from playing Babe Ruth, and monopolize access to the Babe Ruth fields. Very quickly Thompson realizes that he is not involved in a mere dispute, but an all out war. Barkus wants it all from Thompson, his fields, his players, and his program, stopping at nothing to turn the entire community against him.

At times Thompson is quixotic in his quest to save the program, even risking his own marriage to defend his territory and clear his name. Often he is met with indifference from parents who are blinded by visions of college scholarships and the effect that travel baseball is having on their community; travel ball is turning America’s pastime into an elitest pursuit. Yet despite the roadblocks put in his way, Thompson works feverishly to defend the opportunities of the silent majority, the kids.

Baseball fans will enjoy the passion that Swyers has put into Thompson’s efforts to keep the Babe Ruth fields available for kids of all levels. Parents are fighting this battle in every neighborhood, watching their local programs dwindle to benefit the select few playing for the travel team. Swyers reminds us why this is a war worth fighting; youth baseball is a sport that should be played by everyone, not just those with the financial means to wear embroidered uniforms and matching warm-up suits.
 

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Tino Martinez in Monument Park, good for business?

Tino Martinez was recently given a plaque in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium in front of a sellout crowd, making him the 27th New York Yankee to receive this honor. Martinez's induction was met with much controversy, as the Yankees have multiple Hall of Famers (Earle Combs, Tony Lazzeri, and Herb Pennock) who have yet to be honored. As the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown found out in 2013, sending in a living player is good for business. The ones who remember the deceased superstars of yesteryear are either too old to attend, or have played their "final inning."

After watching Martinez have his likeness permanently installed in Monument Park, I immediately thought of another Yankee first baseman who won four World Series rings, Moose Skowron. He was a fixture at Old-Timers Day until his passing in 2012. Martinez and Skowron's career stats as a member of the Yankees are below.

Does Martinez's induction warrant consideration for Skowron? Is Martinez truly deserving of the honor, or was this decision motivated by reasons that have to do more with finances and less with baseball?

Tino Martinez stats.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Pos	Awards
1996	28	NYY	AL	155	671	595	82	174	28	0	25	117	2	1	68	85	.292	.364	.466	.830	108	277	18	2	1	5	4	*3/D
1997 ★	29	NYY	AL	158	685	594	96	176	31	2	44	141	3	1	75	75	.296	.371	.577	.948	143	343	15	3	0	13	14	*3/D	AS,MVP-2,SS
1998	30	NYY	AL	142	608	531	92	149	33	1	28	123	2	1	61	83	.281	.355	.505	.860	124	268	18	6	0	10	3	*3
1999	31	NYY	AL	159	665	589	95	155	27	2	28	105	3	4	69	86	.263	.341	.458	.800	104	270	14	3	0	4	7	*3
2000	32	NYY	AL	155	632	569	69	147	37	4	16	91	4	1	52	74	.258	.328	.422	.749	89	240	16	8	0	3	9	*3
2001	33	NYY	AL	154	635	589	89	165	24	2	34	113	1	2	42	89	.280	.329	.501	.830	114	295	12	2	0	2	2	*3/D	MVP-12
2005	37	NYY	AL	131	348	303	43	73	9	0	17	49	2	0	38	54	.241	.328	.439	.767	104	133	10	3	0	4	3	*3/D
NYY (7 yrs)				1054	4244	3770	566	1039	189	11	192	739	17	10	405	546	.276	.347	.484	.831	113	1826	103	27	1	41	42

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/24/2014.
 

Moose Skowron stats.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Pos	Awards
1954	23	NYY	AL	87	237	215	37	73	12	9	7	41	2	1	19	18	.340	.392	.577	.969	167	124	8	1	0	2		3/54
1955	24	NYY	AL	108	314	288	46	92	17	3	12	61	1	1	21	32	.319	.369	.524	.894	140	151	11	3	0	2	4	3/5
1956	25	NYY	AL	134	523	464	78	143	21	6	23	90	4	4	50	60	.308	.382	.528	.910	142	245	16	6	2	1	3	*3/5
1957 ★	26	NYY	AL	122	501	457	54	139	15	5	17	88	3	2	31	60	.304	.347	.470	.818	123	215	17	3	3	7	6	*3	AS,MVP-22
1958 ★	27	NYY	AL	126	502	465	61	127	22	3	14	73	1	1	28	69	.273	.317	.424	.740	106	197	16	4	1	5	1	*3/5	AS
1959 ★	28	NYY	AL	74	309	282	39	84	13	5	15	59	1	0	20	47	.298	.349	.539	.888	145	152	10	3	2	2	0	3	AS
1960 ★	29	NYY	AL	146	584	538	63	166	34	3	26	91	2	3	38	95	.309	.353	.528	.881	141	284	17	2	0	6	2	*3	AS,MVP-9
1961 ★	30	NYY	AL	150	608	561	77	150	23	4	28	89	0	0	35	108	.267	.318	.472	.790	113	265	21	8	0	3	9	*3	AS
1962	31	NYY	AL	140	524	478	63	129	16	6	23	80	0	1	36	99	.270	.325	.473	.798	114	226	13	5	1	4	4	*3
				G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Pos	Awards
NYY (9 yrs)				1087	4102	3748	518	1103	173	44	165	672	14	13	278	588	.294	.346	.496	.842	129	1859	129	35	9	32	29

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/24/2014.

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