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, suffered cardiac arrest while at his home in Boca Raton, Florida.
Kranepool made his Mets debut in 1962, when he was just 17 years old. Although Kranepool only appeared in a handful of games that season, the team lost 120 games, a Major League Baseball record. Kranepool is among the surviving members of that team who are threatening their infamous record.
“I pity them,” he said. “Better they than me.”
Fortunately for Kranepool, that was the end of it. The first baseman earned his first and only All-Star nomination in the 1965 season, then helped the franchise win the World Series title in 1969. Kranepool also hit a home run in Game 3 of the World Series that year.
Kranepool spent 18 seasons with the Mets and appeared in the World Series again in 1973, before retiring after the 1979 season. He finished with a .261 batting average and hit 118 home runs and 614 RBIs.
Kranepool played 1,853 career games with the Mets, the most in team history. He was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 1990. Kranepool, who attended high school in the Bronx, received a kidney transplant in 2019 and has battled diabetes in recent years.
“I talked to Ed last week and we talked about how we were the last two originals to sign with the Mets,” former teammate Cleon Jones said in a statement. “The other guys from 1962 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.”