May 08 2009 11:24 PM
The Mets sign first baseman Marv Throneberry, who goes on to prove that not only can you not have your cake and eat it at the same time, but sometimes, you can't even have your cake.
| ="The New York Times"]The Mets team for which Throneberry played was the first in the history of the franchise. It was a patchwork of over-the-hill veterans, in-their-prime underachievers and not-yet-ready castoffs from the more established major league teams. The Mets won 40 times, lost 120 times and no team ever lost more games in a season. Oddly enough, that season was Throneberry's best. He hit 16 home runs, drove in 49 runs and had a batting average of .238. Symbol for the '62 Mets But it was impossible to talk about the folly of the 1962 Mets without mentioning Throneberry, whose ineptness afield was matched by his shortcomings as a base runner. In a game against the Chicago Cubs, he hit what appeared to be a game-winning triple with the bases loaded and two outs. The problem was that everybody in the dugout noticed that he missed touching first base. When the Cubs' pitcher tossed the ball to the first baseman, the umpire called Throneberry out. The inning ended and the runs didn't count. Casey Stengel, the grizzled manager of the Mets, couldn't believe it and began arguing with the first-base umpire. As they exchanged words, another umpire walked over and said, "Casey, I hate to tell you this, but he also missed second." Not surprisingly, whenever Stengel lamented, "Can't anybody here play this game?" the target of his plea often was Throneberry. |
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/25/obitu ... worst.html
