Ed Kranepool, who burst onto the big leagues at age 17 from his Bronx high school as a founding member of the Mets and spent all 18 of his major league seasons with Flushing, died of cardiac arrest Sunday in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 79 years old.
Kranepool, a left-handed first baseman who was a member of the Mets' first two World Series teams, underwent a kidney transplant in 2019 and also had diabetes.
“He fought for a long time and never complained about anything,” teammate Ron Swoboda said of Kranepool. “I thought once he got his kidney transplant, everything would be fine. He was a great guy and an even better teammate. We went into the restaurant business together. I can't believe he's gone.”
Fellow 1969 champion Art Shumsky said he was “just devastated” by Kranepool's death.
“I've known Crane for 56 years. We've made many appearances together. We had lunch together last week and I told him I'd come back and see him again next week. I'm really at a loss for words,” Shumsky said. “I can't believe he's just the fourth player from the 1969 team to make a pass this year. [Jim] McAndrew, [Jerry] Grote, Buddy [Harrelson] And now Eddie.”
Kranepool signed with the Mets for an $80,000 bonus just days after graduating from James Monroe High School, where he broke Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg's long-held home run record.
“I chose the Mets not only because they offered me a good salary, but also because they gave me the opportunity to get to the major leagues in the shortest possible time,” Kranepool said years later. “That was very important to my career.”
He joined the team in Los Angeles on June 30, 1962. It was his first time on an airplane, and he arrived just in time to sit in the dugout and watch Sandy Koufax no-hitter his new teammate. After sitting out a week, he was sent down to the minor leagues, where he worked his way through several levels, going in reverse order from Triple-A Syracuse to what was then called Class A, then Class D.
In September, coming off a 40-120 season and with nothing to lose, the Mets promoted Kranepool from Class D Auburn University, where he was batting .340. He made his major league debut on September 22, playing first base in the seventh inning of another loss, replacing future manager Gil Hodges.
He started at first base the next day and got his first major league hit, a double. He finished his first major league season with 1 hit in 6 at-bats.
The Mets hoped that signing a local slugger would spice up their young franchise, but Kranepool struggled initially, batting just .209 in 86 games in 1963, then .257 with 10 home runs and 45 RBIs in 119 games in 1964, when the Mets moved to Shea Stadium.
Kranepool was sent to the minor leagues a few times, but never for long, and later regretted the Mets' decision to rush him to the major leagues as a teenager.
“They should have left me in the minor leagues and developed me. They could have gotten a better player,” he once said in his thick Bronx accent. “A 17-year-old kid doesn't have the capacity to handle that kind of pressure. They said, 'Ed is going to lead a weak team to a championship.' You can't do that with one guy, even a Hall of Famer.”
Edward Emil Kranepool was born in the Bronx on November 8, 1944. His father died in World War II three months before his son's birth, so Kranepool and his sister Marilyn, three years older than him, were raised by their mother, Ethel, whose widowhood pension and the odd jobs she worked helped make ends meet.
“We weren't a wealthy family, and obviously we lived on a military pension, so I guess I spent my days on the schoolyard as an athlete,” Kranepool said. “When I was 10, I joined Little League and that was the beginning of my baseball career.”
He was obsessed with baseball, and his local Little League coach, Jimmy Sciafo, stepped in to teach Kranepool the game. One Christmas morning, 11-year-old Kranepool received a baseball glove and immediately asked Sciafo to hit a grounder for him.
“My wife looked at me,” Sciafo says, “and I looked at my son. There was nothing I could do. He had no father. We went out to Whitestone Bridge and I hit ground balls to him on Christmas morning. I was cold as a witch's back, but I loved it, because this kid ate, drank and slept while playing baseball.”
Cheifo even drew the outline of home plate in chalk on the floor under the rug in the Kranepool living room so Ed could practice his swing whenever he wanted.
A talented pitcher in Little League, Kranepool focused on playing first base and outfield after breaking his left elbow, an injury he said never fully healed.
His growth spurt as a sophomore at Monroe turned him into a standout basketball player, averaging 24 points per game as a senior and earning a spot on the All-New York City team, and the University of North Carolina and St. John's University offered him scholarships.
But for Kranepool, basketball season was just a way to kill time until baseball season came around. In three seasons at Monroe, he hit 19 home runs, including nine as a senior, breaking Greenberg's record that had stood since 1929. He signed with the Mets shortly after Monroe lost in the PSAL finals.
Kranepool was depressed by the lack of expectations and the Mets' early losing streaks. He had always been used as a first baseman, despite expectations not being met. He once told Swoboda about his first few seasons, “We used to celebrate rainouts.”
After leading the league in hits in April 1965, he was selected to his only All-Star team, but he did not play in that game, for which he bore a grudge against National League manager Gene Mauck for the rest of his life. He slumped after the rest, finishing the season with a batting average of .253, 10 home runs, and 53 RBIs.
By the start of the 1969 season, Kranepool had taken over the first base position, and he delivered the game-winning run with an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 1 of a memorable midseason series between the Mets and the first-place Cubs at Shea Stadium.
“That was probably my biggest hit,” he said.
The Mets went on to sweep the Cubs, winning the NL East and pennant. However, the Mets acquired first baseman Don Clendenon in a mid-season trade, cutting into Kranepool's playing time. Kranepool started all three games of the NL Championship Series against the Braves, while Clendenon started all but one game in the World Series, as the Mets defeated the Orioles in five games. Kranepool hit a home run in Game 3 (his only start), and Clendenon was named the Series MVP.
The following season, Kranepool had only 34 at-bats by late June, and was hitless in 18 at-bats as a pinch hitter when the Mets sent him to the minor leagues for prospect Ken Singleton. He returned in August, but finished the season with a batting average of just .170.
Kranepool had his best season in 1971, batting .280 with 14 home runs and 58 RBIs. He helped the Mets reach their second World Series in 1973. He shared first base with John Milner and played some outfield time, but only batted .239. He did start Game 5 of the NLCS against the Reds in place of an injured Rusty Staub, however, and singled in the first inning to score two runs. He appeared in just three at-bats in the rest of the World Series.
After that season, Kranepool was used primarily as a pinch hitter. From 1974 to 1978, he was one of the best players in baseball, batting .396 as a pinch hitter and twice hitting over .300 as a part-time player. The Mets released him after the 1979 season.
“He was the best first baseman I ever played with,” former Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman said. “We knew each other really well, and I could look him in the eye and tell if a runner was on base. He stopped a lot of steals.”
Kranepool batted .261 with 118 home runs and 614 RBIs in 18 seasons. He still holds the Mets record for games played in all seasons (1,853). He was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in 1990.
Kranepool, who earned his stockbroker's license on his 21st birthday and was one of the founding members of the MLB Players Association, has worked for various companies in the New York area since retiring and has also become an advocate for organ donation.
“You get a call and they save your life,” Kranepool said a few days after the surgery at Stony Brook Hospital on Long Island. “It was like magic.”
Kranepool is survived by his wife, Monica, who survived cancer.
Kranepool, who frequented Shea Stadium and Citi Field after his retirement, said he enjoyed being around the ballparks because it brought back a lot of fond memories.
“My life flashes before my eyes,” he said. “I remember the good old days and what I had.”
