Ed Kranepool Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Miracle Mets With Fans
This week marks 50 years since the Miracle Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series.
Mets great Ed Kranepool stopped by the Holiday Inn Express Stony Brook and met with the Stony Brook University baseball team. The World Series champion gave the team some advice for the upcoming season as they undergo fall training.
“This is the time to work on your fundamentals,” Kranepool said. “If you’re a pinch hitter like I was the last couple of years of my career, get up there and be aggressive. Try to get a hit. We all wish you guys good luck this season.”
Afterward, the team and Kranepool watched a replay of Game 3 of the ’69 World Series. A pivotal game in the series, where the Mets legend blasted a homerun to help his team to victory.
A number of Mets fans showed up for a chance to get their memorabilia signed by Kranepool.
Linda Miller and her father Pete Grandazza came to get their old programs and scorecards signed.
Miller said one of the reasons they came was because back in 1975 the whole Mets team signed autographs for her brother Michael and another child, who were very sick, at a hotel in Philadelphia.
“Bob Murphy, [the Mets announcer at the time] saw these two boys in wheelchairs and asked if there was anything he could do,” she said. “He got all the players to come over and gave them autographs, Ed Kranepool was one of them.”
