Ed Kranepool 1944-2024

[Met Hunter]

Saw some early postings that Steady Eddie passed away early this morning. First a Mets Fantasy Camper on Facebook that has since been deleted. And now Art Shamsky’s girlfriend (teresataylorpro) on Instagram.

Rip to Mr Met himself

[Benjamin Grimm]

Oh no!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ed spoke to the Daily Herald (a suburban Chicago paper) less than two weeks ago, regarding the 2024 White Sox:

https://www.dailyherald.com/20240831/ch ... white-sox/

He's 79 now and lives in Florida with Monica Kranepool, his wife of 40 years. Both have survived major health challenges in recent years.

“I've gotten calls lately about the White Sox, but there's not much to say,” Kranepool said. “I don't care if they lose more games than that original Mets team. It was a bad baseball team with a bad mix of young guys and some great older stars whose best years were behind them.

“In a clubhouse like that, when you're young like I was, all you want is to learn and get better and have the season end. But whether the White Sox finish with more losses than that team — what does it matter to me?”

[MFS62]

He was lucky to have received a kidney transplant a few years ago.
Chronic Kidney Disease is a bitch.
RIP, "Young Ed".

He and my wife were schoolmates at James Monroe High School in the Bronx. (she was a year ahead of him)

Later

[Cowtipper]

:-(

[Edgy MD]

Well, double damn.

Got his photo hanging over my dresser.

[Batty31]

Just came here to post if it hadn’t been already
RIP 😢

[Chad ochoseis]

Weird. I woke up thinking about Ed Kranepool this morning.

I was free-associating about team-specific Halls of Fame and how there are players who are iconic to their own fan base and virtually forgotten elsewhere. Which reminded me of how a non-New Yorker friend of mine, who knew I contributed to this forum, once called me and said, "Did you know the Mets once had a player named ED KRANEPOOL???" Uh, yeah, kind of.

And then I got to thinking that I knew he'd had some health problems and that I hadn't heard anything about him in a while, and that I hoped he was doing OK.

The Mets are going to start running out of room for memorial patches this year, sadly enough.

RIP.

[Edgy MD]

Amazingly, he twice tried to put together an ownership group to take over the team — forty years apart.

[Fman99]

RIP Eddie K

[kcmets]

Well, damn... RIP

Ed Kranepool -- SABR Bio Project

[Edgy MD]

Please recruit Tara Krieger to the Crane Pool.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

damn. Steady Eddie.

I was wondering if Steve Cohen wasn't thinking about retiring his number--not that he should. But its gone un-issued for a while now.

[Benjamin Grimm]

No, he shouldn't. But it's time for another patch. (Maybe in 2025?) Losing Grote, Harrelson, Kranepool, and McAndrew all in the same year. For me, 1971 was the Original Mets because it was the year I discovered them, and four from that team have moved on this year.

[Edgy MD]

And, of course, 1972-1973's Willie.

I Met Krane twice, both times as after-banquet speakers. I managed to get a question in both times.

[metirish]

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

My first autograph. My parents took me to "The Dugout," his restaurant in Amityville, and they were selling signed balls in the glass case at the register. Then in the 1980s when we lived in Connecticut, he was active on the card show circuit. I have a Mets book my parents gave me as a birthday gift, and I'd ask players to sign the book. He was at one show with players from the 1962 team and another with players from the 1969 team, and I kept those on separate pages, so he's in the book multiple times.

Always very gracious whenever I met him.

Gonna be tough for some to break that 1,853 games Mets record!


Just seeing that James Earl Jones died, too!

[metirish]

and forever immortalized in Ken Burns' Baseball documentary with a bit of news ticker that reads "Kranepool flies to right; Agnew resigns."

The Old Mole posted on Facebook, I loved this remembrance from one of his friends

[ashie62]

Horrible news

As much the face of the Mets as Seaver for many folks

Ughh

[Frayed Knot]

... and forever immortalized in Ken Burns' Baseball documentary with a bit of news ticker that reads "Kranepool flies to right; Agnew resigns."

Not actually a news ticker but a written note passed on to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart from one of his clerks.
Stewart, a Cincinnati native and big Reds fan, was stuck on the bench that day hearing oral arguments in one of the many legal issues surrounding the growing Nixon/Watergate mess. So he asked his staff to keep him up to date on the Mets-Reds NLCS game going on that day (and, yes, it was a day game). At first he wanted half-inning updates but soon was requesting batter by batter news. In the midst of all this comes the news of Agnew's resignation so the clerk added that to his next update.
I wonder if that slip of paper survives?



oe: it looks like this was during the Game 5 clincher which, if so, it wasn't a fly out to RF. I don't know if you/us are mis-remembering the story or if the source* had the facts wrong. Krane batted twice in that game getting a 2-RBI single in the 1st and then a 4-3 ground out leading off the 4th. He was pinch-hit for in his next AB (by Mays, who singled in a run) and, of course, never got another AB in the series. I was thinking that maybe the news of Agnew's imminent resignation occurred a day or two before it became official (Oct 10) but Eddie wasn't in the lineup and didn't appear in either Game 3 or Game 4 so no fly out there either.

* I read it in the Bob Woodward/Scott Armstrong book THE BRETHREN about SCOTUS in the early '70s. The same Potter Stewart, btw, was later revealed to be Woodward's secret source for many of the stories in the book.

[metirish]

Wow FK, that's even better , amazing story

[Edgy MD]

Not to crib from Red Buttons, but unless I'm misremembering, he never got a day.

We should name something here after him.

[metirish]

Very nice to see this made ABC World News Tonight with David Muir

[whippoorwill]

This is very sad news. Ed will be forever young in my mind. Just a big lug playing first base.

Gosh I miss those early 70s teams

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Kranepool got DFAed a few times and I believe was left unprotected in the 69 expansion draft, all before refashioning himself as a reserve. Most often that kind of career transition accompanies changing teams.

We should name a forum after him