QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, February 13, 2014 Page 46
C M SQ page 46 Y K
I HAVE OFTEN WALKED
Shea Stadium nearing completion by Ron Marzlock Chronicle Contributor
New Yorkers over the age of 65 still remember how much we were starved for National League baseball when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to California. The only game in town was the American League’s Yankees, and when they went on the road, you had nothing. A horrible thought for a baseball addict. Attorney William Shea headed up a committee to make arrangements to expand the National League from eight to 10 teams. Abraham Beame, later to be our mayor, was the city’s budget director and comptroller in 1960. He backed a stadium in Corona. All members of the old Board of Estimate voted for it, except the two from the Bronx. The building of the stadium for the new Mets was a joint venture of the P.J. Carlin and Thomas Crimmins companies. In 1962 the team temporarily played in the old Polo Grounds in Manhattan, drawing almost a million people their first season. The principal owner of the Mets was Joan Whitney Payson, a former stockholder of the New York Giants, who voted against their
Shea Stadium nearing completion for opening day in February 1964. move to California. Soon after they moved she sold all her shares of Giants stock and hoped to take revenge one day for what they had done to New York baseball. She got to. Shea Stadium was projected to have been complete by October 1963 but they were still scrambling in February 1964 to open on time for Opening Day. The new stadium only had a seating capacity of 55,300, compared to the aging Yankee Stadium’s 67,000. It was named in honor of Shea for bringing National League baseball back to New York. Shea passed away in 1991. The 50th anniversary of the opening is April 17, but of course Shea was torn down Q and replaced several years ago.
SPORTS
BEAT
Remembering Ralph by Lloyd Carroll Chronicle Contributor
Ralph Kiner’s passing brought out an emotional response from Mets fans that has understandably been missing since the team moved into Citi Field five years ago. I can vouch for the general consensus that he was a gracious and classy man. Ralph was always receptive to talking baseball and he did not check to see if you were a sportswriter from a big outlet to decide whether a conversation was worth his time. Trust me, that’s not how it is with a lot of broadcasters and sportswriters these days. Barry Lyons, a third-string catcher on the 1986 Mets, told me one of his greatest thrills as a player was to be a guest on the Mets’ longrunning postgame show, “Kiner’s Korner.” When any substitute player got a chance to be the hero of the game, and thus merit an appearance on the show, it was like being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for a day. “Kiner’s Korner” had cheesy production values but it was the one place where fans could hear the thoughts of players right after the game ended. It was also a rare chance for fans to see Mount Rushmore-levelplayers such as Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron engage in conversation. Ralph was guilty of many malapropisms, such as referring to the late Mets catcher Gary Carter as Gary Cooper, the legendary actor.
Those errors only enhanced Kiner’s charm and made it more fun to watch Mets telecasts. Hardly anyone brought up the fact that Kiner, along with the late Yankees pitcher Allie Reynolds, helped establish the Major League Baseball Players Association. The duo was able to get the first pension plan for ballplayers. The media also shied away from the fact that Kiner had little use for Branch Rickey — the same Branch Rickey who signed Jackie Robinson, ensuring the integration of MLB. In 1950 Rickey left the Brooklyn Dodgers to become general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose only player worth watching was a young homer-hitting outfielder named Ralph Kiner. The idea of free agency was a pipe dream for major league players during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations as baseball owners held firm to the reserve clause, which limited a ballplayer to one team even if a contract expired. Even though Kiner was the marquee attraction, Rickey took advantage of his lack of leverage by shortchanging him during every contract negotiation. On more than one Mets telecast, Kiner let the world know that Rickey was fond of telling him, “We finished last with you and we can finish last without you!” as a way of justifying the Q Pirates’ stinginess. See the extended version of Sports Beat every week at qchron.com.
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