April 1990 Baseball Special What happens to s when the cheers stop Ed Kranepool lost something What happens to baseball stars at l r careen When The Cheering Stops Former Major Lea goen Talk About Their Game Their Lives by bee and Bill Guttata pro vides tintband accounts Hera is an excerpt from this newly published boot BOBBY THOMSON hit what may be the most famous run In base ball history His dramatic blast won the National League pennant for the New York Giants over the Brook Dodgers Its known as The Shot Heard Round The World Thomson was a fine all around ballplayer in the 1940s and 1950s An outfielder his career batting average was homers He drove in more than 10b RBIs four times He retired in 1960 Now years old Thomson works as a sales manager for Stone Contain er Inc in J Looking back Bobby Thomson says I CAN REMEMBER feeling as if time was just frozen when I hit my big home run for the Giants at the Polo Grounds in It was a delirious de licious moment When my feet finally touched home plate and I saw my teammates faces that when I real zed I had won the pennant with one swing of the bat And I be a liar if I admit that 1 li cherish that mo ment till the day I die Yet when I think about it today I of ten have the feeling that while the homer put me on a pedestal a kind of jumpingoff place it was some thing that I never fully took advan of was with the Giants two more years after 1951 They bad years but I think the Giants were a little disappointed in me Maybe they expected more and maybe I expected more of myself even though I hit 28S with homers and RBIs in 19S3 My broken ankle in when I was with the Milwaukee Braves real screwed me up 1 tried to come back too soon So the next year my leg was worse It really took me a couple of years to gel over that Toward the end of my career I also played or a more teams Eventually I lost my confidence I remember letting a fly ball go over my head in left field Hell I could play the outfield as well as any of them And that s bad It really starts to get into your mind And I really knew it was over when I dldn t even look forward to going to spring training What next Well this is where I think my Scottish heritage came in I a stubborn guy and I knew what 1 had to do I go out and make a living And I wanted to do it my way get my own job But I didn have any real tion so I went to Stevens Institute and took a battery of exams to find out If I should get back on the coaching lines or what But the results indicated sales capacity So I used some good common sense and my wife Wink assisted me in my judgment I took my time inter viewing Every week Wink would ask me if I got a job But I told her was going to take my time ft took a cou pie of months We worry about the money running out but we were concerned After all I was starting from scratch at or And I finally came home with a job and went out into the working world I got up every morning and realized that a sense of humor is all it takes to hang onto those subway straps with all those other people My job was as a salesman with the Westvaco Co involved with national accounts Stone Container eventually took over the company and I m still with them as a sales manager I m also involved with a Just Say No to We ft mafe it and it right 71 Georgetown Ontario Unt4 Bobby Thomson 1950s Bobby Thomson today Drugs program in the schools as part of the Optimist s Club in New Jersey In a way I have to say I still a little disappointed in my career I felt I had the ability to do more than I did maybe hit closer to and drive in a hundred runs on rrore occasions Looking back on it and then looking at who I am now the person I be come and the growth I ve made with in myself well Us something that happen until I left baseball My wife says m a more forceful and aggressive person today so may be il 1 had been that way when I played But there are certainly memories How can orget watching great hit lers like Ted Williams and Stan Mu sial or a guy like Willie Mays There were tough pitchers too like Don Drysdale Whenever talk baseball though it usually comes back to the home run Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca and I close over the years If he and I had gotten together and gone out on speaking engagements we could have made a few bucks But he always took his side seriously and guess I was the fortunate one Then about a year ago sportswrit Mike wrote a pretty nice article about us It came from a tittle different direction and made me see Ralph side or it a little better Now we re out together more often going to card shows and things like that I guess things are different today My wife has often said that if it hap pened today it would really be an in credible thing or us I guess she s right but I can still remember in the spring of Giants manager Leo Durocher saying to me Bobby I feel you re going to hit one out every time up Now that s a lot of pressure But it in the books and it will stay here So what the hell EVENING SPECIAL Alters OOprn Buy One Dozen DONUTS For Only 299 Reg Baked Froth Dally on Premise Guelph St Georgetown 8731211 What happens to baseball at the end of their careen When The Cheering Stops Former Major Lea guen Talk About Game Their Lives by Lee Dave and Bill Gutman pro vides tinthand accounts Here Is an excerpt from this newly published book ED KRANEPOOL came to the big leagues at the age of 17 seeing limit ed action with the New York Mets 1962 the year the franchise was born He returned to the majors to stay in and remained with the Mets throughout his 18year career Known as Steady Eddie he was a first base man who could also play the outfield or pinch hit Kranepool retired in He had a career batting average of and a total of homers He averaged slightly more than games per sea son during his career His oneyear peaks home runs in RBIs in and a 323 batting average in 1975 Now he is part owner of Madi son Triborough Group a Jamaica NY manufacturer of pur chase displays Looking back Ed says NOBODY takes care of you when you leave the game You make your own way in business and you do your own thing Nobody ever called me from the club and offered me any thing Even if they had there a ques tion of whether I would have done it or not And thats really besides the point But I had a very sad parting of the ways with the Mets To be honest about it I went out on a pretty low note spending my final five years or so with a last place club During that period the franchise management changed I really felt very sad about it ing played 17 or 18 years and suddenly being treated like a piece of furniture Of course I knew that many players were treated the same way Thats why I don t blame guys for holding out and getting whatever they can I was only 34 at the time and felt I could still play But I hadnt seen much action in 1979 and it was trating being on a bad and watching mediocrity By the same to ken I t want to be traded dldn want to leave New York It just wouldn have paid Back in those days the thinking of the owners was different They fig ured a 34yearold man was ready to be pensioned off Now they got guys with long term contracts so they stick with them But because of the way it was back then I just felt that to go to another city for a year or two Perhaps the strangest thing about being out of baseball is the flashbacks wouldn t pay Believe It or not I even tried put ting a group together to buy the Mets SPECIAL EVERY THURSDAY HOT ROAST REEF PLATE INCLUDES FRENCH FRIES VEGETABLES DELICIOUS GRAVY MARTYS TOO RESTAURANT Georgetown Market Place mk Ed Kranepool 1970s Ed today for sale But the Doubleday group of fered a richer deal and they got it I never even formally announced my retirement I just never went to spring training in 1980 There an emotional letdown I won t pretend that there isn t I was out of the game at 35 and had been playing baseball for twothirds of my life Cut the sport out suddenly and you lose something was lucky because I always went to work The day after the baseball season ended I was working I never knew the difference between the win of 1979 and the previous winters Only I never went back to spring training In the sense of working in the so called real world however I felt i was ready and consider myself for lunate in that sense A lot of players cant make that adjustment can climate themselves to working They ve been pampered and catered to and they re just not ready to go out and do things for themselves I think thats one thing baseball people are missing that the players are missing It would really help if there was some kind of severance pay for guys who leave the game Maybe it could be a certain number of dot lars for so many years of service It would help because It always seems that guys flounder for a year or a year and a half often not know where to look or what direction to take So they stay home and don get a job right away And before they know it any little nest egg they built up is gone A number of players were wiped out financially because of that kind of scenario Today of course that s much less likely to happen A guy like Don Mat tingly is making two million bucks a year so if he sits out six months or a year it s really not going to affect him much at all But back in my time guys didn t make that kind of money Mytopsala was my last three years Nat bad for a kid from the Bronx who grew up pretty poor Perhaps the strangest thing about being out of baseball is the flash backs I watch bits and pieces of a game here and there and suddenly really relate to something It s amazing At those times I cant reallv be lieve I ve been out of the game for years already Its almost like you were there last week And when that happens you suddenly begin thinking you can still play Now if you put me out on the field and gave me a stress test I probably t run a hundred yards Yet in my mind I think I can still go up there and pinch hit You think of it as yesterday when you could do certain things You loved the game and you miss it It some thing you did almost all of your life And you still think in your mind that you can perform I don t know if that will ever go away Guelph St Georgetown Ont 8779896 DENTURE THERAPY CLINIC AW TRENTON 18 CHURCH STREET GEORGETOWN ACROSS FROM LIBRARY IS AND CULTURAL CENTRE 8772359 ACTON LIONS 2nd ANNUAL Casino Night Dance APRIL 730 pm Royal Canadian Legion Hall Wright Ave Acton Tickets For Tickets Call Richard Pole 853 LIMITED TICKETS AT THE DOOR