Welcome to Saturday Seasons, where every week, we take a trip through the rollercoaster that is New York Mets history—one season at a time. Whether it's a championship run or a year so painful you’d rather pretend it never happened (looking at you, 1993), we’re covering it all.
In this, the second edition, we take a look at the team's sophomore season, 1963.
The 1962 Mets, in establishing a record for baseball futility, also created the definition for the term “loveable losers,” with a unique collection of limited-ability characters.
The 1963 Mets only half-met that definition. They weren’t as loveable, but they still were losers.
Yes, the team won 25 percent more games than in 1962, 51 to be exact. But they still lost 101, finished in last place, hit a league-worst .219, made 210 errors and lost 22 consecutive road games, tying a record set by an equally woeful squad, the 49-105, 1943 Philadelphia Athletics. So hopeless was this team that at the end of the season, Baseball Digest ran a lengthy story with the headline, “Are the Mets Bad for Baseball?”
Penned by Edgar S. Roper, a Chicago-based sportswriter with an anti-New York City bias, the article points out that in the first 100 games, the team had 91 different starting lineups, continually had fielders playing out of position (examples: Ed Kranepool a first baseman, sent out to right field ,so upsetting him that he forgot how to hit and was sent to the minor leagues; and Jim Hickman, an outfielder, being asked to master third base), and, at a time when teams usually had a 10-man pitching staff, carried a roster of nine, relying only on seven.
Roper, with snarky bemusement, noted the Mets’ fans continued support of the team despite its ineptitude, chalking it up to the team’s continued marketing efforts and what he alleged was homerism by the Mets broadcasters (proving he never actually listened to Ralph Kiner, Bob Murphy and Lindsay Nelson). “But where is baseball in this palace of the downtrodden, as the Polo Grounds has been since April, 1962?” he over-wrote. “Where is baseball in missed signs, mixed-up relays, wild pickoff throws, wild pitched ragged rundowns and .208 hitting?...Baseball cannot survive on bad baseball or false slogans or on entertainment. Showmanship is as necessary to baseball as to any public spectacle, but baseball must come first and showmanship second.”
Roger Craig again was the ace of staff, proving anew the adage that you have to be a pretty good pitcher to lose 20 games; he “improved” from 24 losses in 1962 to “only” 22 in 1963. Al Jackson went 13-17, but the most encouraging rotation piece was Braves castoff Carlton Willey, who went 9-14, with a 3.10 ERA. Hickman led the power hitters, with 17 home runs, followed by Frank Thomas’ 15 (a big dropoff from the 34 he hit in 1962) and Duke Snider’s 14. But Tim Harkness, the most frequent first baseman, hit .211; Al Moran, the most frequent shortstop, batted only .193; and Choo Choo Coleman, who caught 106 games, hit only .178.
So woeful was the hitting that in July, the Mets traded Charlie Neal and Sammy Taylor to the Reds for Jesse Gonder, who in 1962 led the Pacific Coast League in batting and RBI and was its most valuable player. Gonder did provide some offensive spark for the Mets, hitting .302 in 42 games, but the reason he was available for such a modest price became clear every time he grabbed his glove and squatted behind the plate. A catcher by trade, he committed nine passed balls and allowed 15 wild pitches, placing him among the league leaders, all of whom caught more than 100 games that year. (Gonder would be the Mets’ regular catcher in 1964, and would lead the league with 21 passed balls). In the pre-designated hitter era, his fielding shortcomings severely limited his value, explaining why he was out of major league baseball by the end of 1965, following in a long line of good-hit, no-field players such as the immortal Smead Jolley, Fats Fothergill and Zeke Bonura.
The team did begin transitioning away from the failed inaugural season strategy of relying on over-the-hill former Dodgers and Giants whose nostalgia-driven box office value exceeded their on-field contributions, turning instead to younger players with promise. They found a young, exciting second baseman, but in true Mets fashion, it was essentially by accident.
The Mets purchased Ron Hunt’s contract from the Milwaukee Braves in October 1962 and invited him to spring training, where he languished as a bullpen catcher until he approached manager Casey Stengel and told him he thought he could do better than Larry Burright, who had been penciled in as the starting second sacker. Almost as a challenge, Stengel – not known as the friendliest manager to rookies – put Hunt in the lineup the next day and Hunt impressed enough that he got the starting job. Hunt ended up hitting .272 and was the runnerup in the Rookie of the Year balloting behind another second baseman, Pete Rose. Hunt further endeared himself to Stengel by rising to a challenge of a $50 incentive every time someone won a game by being hit by a pitch. Hunt was hit by 13 pitches in 1963, starting him in a career path that would see him plunked 243 times in a 12-year career. If he got paid $50 each time he was hit, he also would have increased his salary by almost 10 percent.
The Mets found their first true closer in Larry Bearnarth, a local product who starred at St. John’s University before signing with the Mets for a $17,000 bonus in 1962. Bearnarth was sent straight to AAA, where he tailed off after a torrid start. But an impressive spring training boosted him onto the major league roster, where he appeared in a then-unheard-of 58 games. Stengel predicted that Bearnarth, primarily a sinkerballer, was destined to become the best reliever in the majors. (Alas, arm problems would surface in 1964 and derail his career).
The season also was not without its milestones, including Duke Snider’s 400th career home run on June 14.
Afterward, Jim Pearsall – acquired from the Washington Senators for Gil Hodges (who would prove more valuable to the D.C. team as its manager a few years later) – commented that Snider could have done more to milk the event’s publicity value. Just what could Snider have done? Pearsall demonstrated one possibility a month later when he hit his 100th career homer….and ran the bases backwards. It was the only home run Pearsall hit for the Mets.
Four days later, Piersall would prove even more entertaining as the Mets played their AAA farm team in an exhibition game famed New York Times baseball writer Leonard Koppett would bill as a battle to decide which team was better: the 1963 Mets or the 1962 squad, many of whose players toiled for the Buffalo Bisons in 1963. Pearsall, according to Koppett’s account, walked to start the game, and promptly combed his hair for a photographer as he got to first base. Later on, the right-handed Piersall batted left four times, stayed on base after grounding out, made a phantom steal of second, lined up defensively directly behind second base (as an outfielder), made purposefully fancy catches and even warmed up in the bullpen. And, oh, yes, the Mets defeated the Bisons, 4-3, proving conclusively (at least to Koppett) that the then-current squad was better than its predecessor.
The Mets released Piersall a month later.
The final milestone came on September 18, when the Mets played the last – for real --game at the Polo Grounds, unlike the end of 1957, after which the Giants departed for San Francisco, or the end of 1962, when the Mets thought they were departing only to learn that their new home, Shea Stadium, would not be ready for 1963. (Just to make sure, the ballpark would be demolished in April 1964, preventing a further resurrection).
Only 1,752 paying customers bore witness to the 5-1 loss that ended with infielder Ted Schreiber hitting into a double play. Neverheless, 1963 home attendance was 1,080,104, a hefty 157,574 more than for 1962.The New York Times account of the game concluded with this forward-looking piece of advice: “For those New Breeders who want to see the next Met game, remember: don’t take the D train to 155th Street, take the IRT to Willets Point.” And thus the seeds for the 7 Line Army were sown.
I only hope Roper was still around to eat his words in '69.