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Ed Kranepool Dishes

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 12 2010 11:02 AM

Ed Kranepool unloads on Met front office villains of the past -- no, not Grant -- and discusses his role in a failed attempt to buy the team (and become it's GM!) in 1979. [url]http://www.jimmyscottshighandtight.com/node/1017 It took me a while to get it, but I like this web site. The "host" is a fictitious former player who I think is part of a novel or something. Anyway most of the interviews tend to be of the Wifey Watch variety, he even had on Gabriela Schoeneweis...

Edgy DC Jan 12 2010 11:17 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Where do I buy the dishes?

Ashie62 Jan 12 2010 11:34 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Ed Kranepool recipe for garajkeez

G-Fafif Jan 12 2010 05:25 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

That interview was not a little outstanding. It was totally outstanding. Calling Tom Seaver a "professional" seems Eddie's version of what Bill Clinton would do when he didn't much care for somebody: he'd tell him "that's a nice tie."

Edgy DC Jan 12 2010 05:30 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

I'm not sure I want to know the answer, but this shot was Old-time Eddie, not Active Eddie, right?

Edgy DC Jan 12 2010 05:37 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

HA! He quotes one of my wikipedia contributions. Funny how Ed describes himself as a potential GM and avoids the term carefully.

G-Fafif Jan 12 2010 08:36 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

In the interview, Eddie mentions having appeared in "It's My Turn," the 1980 Jill Clayburgh vehicle. I was wondering what Eddie Kranepool was doing in a major motion picture thirty years ago. Son of a gun, I'm flipping around and on Universal HD, a channel with which I'm barely familiar (fairly new to HD as I am), I discover it's on tonight. So I put it on, endured its soppiness for an hour and a half and, at last, there's Eddie...and Buddy! It's an Old Timers Day at MFYS II where Jill Clayburgh's potential love interest, Michael Douglas, is appearing. They lingered on this scene for a long time. They linger on everything for a long time. The movie is in its ninth hour right about now. But Eddie Kranepool and Buddy Harrelson in high definition 1980 iterations of themselves -- worth it. FYI, Eddie wears the contemporary blue and orange cuffed, two button top, while Buddy's uni is straight out of 1977 or thereabouts.

Edgy DC Jan 12 2010 08:44 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

I remember this game. It was 1976's dimly remembered promotion White Guy/White Shirt Day at Shea.

Edgy DC Jan 12 2010 09:16 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

That's Krane, Swan, and Mazzilli who don't have anything bad to say about Joe Frazier.

batmagadanleadoff Jan 12 2010 10:11 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

It's true that the Mets did not extend another offer to Ed Kranepool after the 1979 season and the expiration of what would turn out to be Krane's last MLB contract. But it's also true that Kranepool tested the '79-'80 free agent market -- with no success. During the interview, Krane danced around the fact that no other team was interested in his services after the '79 season. Here's an excerpt from Roger Angell's Wilver's Way, which first appeared in The New Yorker in the Fall of '79 and later, the anthology Late Innings: "Some old favorites of mine took their leave during the summer, or at the end of it, and some others will probably disappear during the winter. Eddie Kranepool, who is thirty-five, left the Mets and is trying his luck on the free-agent market.*" *He found no takers there and retired from baseball. (footnote added for the anthology, first published in 1982) Here's Angell's Spring Training 1979 take on the Mets: ...I was depressed that evening only by the sight of the thinly talented, semi-anonymous Mets making their earnest preparations for another season of losing baseball. Having failed to make any significant improvements in the last-place club over the winter, the Mets front office has evidently decided upon cheese-paring as a prime tactic with which to win back the lost affection of millions of Gotham fans: manager Joe Torre has been told to make do without a bullpen coach this season. The Charles Shipman Payson family, which owns the Mets and easily has the means to match George Steinbrenner in the winter money wars no longer seems to care for the business or sport of baseball. I wish it would sell the club to somebody who does.

Edgy DC Jan 13 2010 05:38 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

I always had the idea that Kranepool's filing for free agency was more or less a formality, and he was effectivly hanging them up. He certainly had no real agent out there hustling offers for him. As far as a bullpen coach, Piggy was still with the team in 1979. Was he moved to the basepaths?

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 13 2010 06:11 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Unless I'm mistaken, teams formally "drafted" the free agents they were interested in signing back then and Kranepool went undrafted.

Benjamin Grimm Jan 13 2010 07:09 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Was the "re-entry draft" still in effect then? I suppose it probably was. I remember it after 1976, when the Mets drafted Reggie Jackson and I foolishly thought they'd make an attempt at signing him. I would guess that the draft probably ended with the 1981 strike settlement, although I do remember a time when the draft still existed but there was no limit to the number of players who could be drafted by each team, so it no longer made any semblance of sense, if it ever did. I do seem to remember Kranepool job hunting after 1979, with the possibility of playing in the AL as a DH. I think there were rumors about him talking to an AL East team, maybe Baltimore or Toronto, but I'm less sure about that.

batmagadanleadoff Jan 13 2010 09:09 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

[quote="Benjamin Grimm":1s5obzqs]Was the "re-entry draft" still in effect then? I suppose it probably was.[/quote:1s5obzqs] I think it was, too. Going into the 1981 (strike) season, the owners were proposing some form of compensation for the teams losing a player to free agency. One of their demands was that any team losing a player that was selected by at least eight other teams in the free agent re-entry draft would be able to then select any player from the signing team's roster, other than the signing team's 15 protected players.

batmagadanleadoff Jan 13 2010 11:16 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

[quote="Edgy DC":3s5yzx79][Kranepool] certainly had no real agent out there hustling offers for him.[/quote:3s5yzx79] That's 'cause the owners make the offers. Agents only field 'em. Wasn't Richard Moss Kranepool's agent during this period? Anyways, the issue isn't simply that Kranepool didn't get any free agant offers, but why not? Was it because Kranepool let it be known that he wasn't interested in playing for any team other than the Mets, or because Kranepool would have played for a different team, but that no other team was interested in Kranepool? By the way, Joe Durso reported in the NYT that the Mets offered Krane a contract for 1980 on the same terms as 1979 --- $100K, but that Krane would have had to make the team during Spring Training. Kranepool rejected the offer; he wanted two years guaranteed at $150K per year.

Edgy DC Jan 13 2010 11:58 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

I remember the period pretty well. Kranepool was pretty clear that he was done --- and his putting together a bid on the team was public knowledge, suggesting to the worldd that he was moving on. I imagine he filed as a formality, like many guys going nowhere do today. I think it's also pretty obvious that --- having hit .210 and .232 in under 250 at-bats total the previous two years --- he wasn't a very attractive option for most teams.

metirish Jan 13 2010 12:10 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Never saw this site before , looks like a good one...love the interview ......other Mets related stuff.. Eric Valent http://www.jimmyscottshighandtight.com/node/1012 Eric needs an editor I think , but what do I know. It's a typical jock article though with some funny stuff in there.

Ashie62 Jan 13 2010 05:54 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

[quote="G-Fafif":ghjy4s8o]That interview was not a little outstanding. It was totally outstanding. Calling Tom Seaver a "professional" seems Eddie's version of what Bill Clinton would do when he didn't much care for somebody: he'd tell him "that's a nice tie."[/quote:ghjy4s8o] Seaver has a reputation on the memorabilia circuit of not allowing any one on one chat, or interaction with customers.. I asked a dealer what Seaver was like at shows and he said "Professional"

Edgy DC Jan 20 2010 09:58 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

What I think is glossed over by Eddie here is that --- rather than his group trying to make an offer and never hearing back from a Mets ownership in turmoil, only to see them sold months later to the Doubleday group --- the sale to Doubleday, Wilpon, and Co. (if I remember correctly) occurred at sort of an auction, with several groups submitting bids, including Kranepool's group, as well as a group of fans who bid something like $35,000.

MFS62 Jan 20 2010 10:06 AM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

[quote="Edgy DC":rhcuui6q]HA! He quotes one of my wikipedia contributions. [/quote:rhcuui6q] Just noticed that. How does that make you feel? Proud? Did it give you a chuckle? Something else? (keep it clean. :) ) Later

Swan Swan H Mar 15 2010 07:28 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Speaking of Eddie, I got to speak with the man himself and pose for a quick phonecam shot tonight. He was at the Broadway Diner in Hicksville for an appearance, and my sister saw a flyer and gave me a call. I asked him what he thought the biggest hit of his career was, and he immediately mentioned the game winning single vs. the Cubs the day before the Seaver almost-perfecto, and said that he thought it was important because they were the games that turned the season around. A woman at his table asked me if I agreed, and I said that I also thought the 2-run single in the fifth game of the '73 playoffs was huge. He seemed happy to be reminded of that one. I thanked him for his time, and we posed for five or six attempted pictures while my sister managed to keep locking up my BlackBerry. Mercifully, another woman at the table took the phone and got the shot. He was very gracious and I had a fine few minutes meeting my childhood baseball hero.

Edgy DC Mar 15 2010 07:52 PM Re: Ed Kranepool Dishes

Well done.