New York Mets Hall of Famer Ed Kranepool died Sunday, the team announced Monday afternoon. He was 79.
Kranepool, who is the longest-tenured Mets player in team history, experienced cardiac arrest while at his home in Boca Raton, Florida.
Kranepool made his debut with the Mets in 1962, when he was just 17 years old. He appeared in just a handful of games that season, as the team lost a Major League Baseball-record 120 games. Kranepool was among the surviving members of that team who were asked last month about this season’s Chicago White Sox, who are threatening the Mets’ infamous record.
“I feel sorry for them,” he said. “Better them than me.”
Thankfully for Kranepool, that was as bad as it got. The first baseman earned his first and only All-Star nod during the 1965 season and then helped lead the team to a World Series title in 1969. Kranepool hit a home run in Game 3 of the World Series that year.
Kranepool spent 18 seasons with the Mets and made it back to the World Series in 1973 before he retired after the 1979 season. He finished with a career batting average of .261, with 118 home runs and 614 RBI.
Kranepool appeared in 1,853 career games with the Mets, which is the most in team history. He was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 1990. Kranepool, who went to high school in the Bronx, received a kidney transplant in 2019 and battled diabetes in recent years.
“I just spoke to Ed last week, and we talked about how we were the last two originals who signed with the Mets,” former teammate Cleon Jones said in a statement. “The other 1962 guys came from other organizations. Eddie was a big bonus baby, and I wasn’t. He never had an ego and was just one of the guys. He was a wonderful person.”
