Tales from the 1962 New York Mets: A Collection of the Greatest Stories Ever Told [Hardcover]

Janet Paskin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004

Legendary manager Casey Stengel is featured prominently in a book recapturing the spectacle of a season where the expansion Mets set a record for losses but gained a legion of fans.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

History set its sights on the 1962 Mets years before the original teamever donned its orange and blue flannels or swung for the Rheingold sign. That first season was destined for the record books as soon as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants packed up and went west in 1957. Suddenly, the National League town had no National League team, and the city mourned. It took a passionate millionaire five years to bring National League baseball back to New York for a season that will be remembered forever.

The team's 120 losses set a new major league record, but that was only half the charm of the Originals. Jilted fans had a team again, and what a team it was: All-Star Richie Ashburn, who quit baseball altogether after that sorry season rather than return to the Mets' losing ways; the quintessential "M.E.T.," Marvin Eugene Throneberry, who came to symbolize the sheer ineptness of the team; Jay Hook, as smart a pitcher as ever lost 19 games; fan favorite "Hot" Rod Kanehl, loved at least as much for his role in a spring training win over the traitorous Dodgers as for his hustle; ex-Dodgers Don Zimmer, Charlie Neal and Gil Hodges; and the Mets' $85,000 bonus baby, Ed Kranepool.

Leading them all, fist high and mouth running, was Casey Stengel, making his prodigious return to New York. He was a masterful PR man and a brilliant baseball mind, and almost single-handedly, Stengel made that season sing.

Tales of the Polo Grounds, the press corps, the broadcasters, the front office, and the fans round out this collection of stories from the 1962 season. From the team's first win, in its 10th game of the season, to its last loss, which ended with the Mets grounding into a triple play, Tales from the 1962 New York Mets recaptures that spectacle of a season, with stories from those who lost and lived to tell.

About the Author

Janet Paskin is a sportswriter at The Journal News, a Gannett newspaper in Westchester, N.Y. A graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism, she has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Newsday. She lives in Manhattan, less than five miles from the site of the Polo Grounds. This is her first book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 202 pages
• Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582617686
• ISBN-13: 978-1582617688
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,886,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Before they were Amazin', July 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Tales from the 1962 New York Mets: A Collection of the Greatest Stories Ever Told (Hardcover)

This is a fun little read that will appeal mostly to diehard Mets fans or baseball historians. Seven years before they stunned the world, the Mets' founding fathers logged the dreadfully dubious distinction of being the worst team in the history of baseball, a record that stands today, despite the dismal efforts of the 2003 Tigers. The book relates all the uncanny blunders of the '62 season--from the first pitch of spring training to the triple play that ended the final game--through a series of very brief passages comprised of anecdotes and game wrap-ups. The chronology makes for easy reading, although Paskin touches on a few intriguing subjects that leave you wishing she had done a more in-depth examination. (For instance, she mentions briefly the team's contention that, although they certainly weren't all-stars, the Mets weren't quite as bad as perceived and lost several close games because they were victimized by umpires who refused to give them breaks on close calls. I would like to have seen that explored and explained more.) But this book is driven by personalities and narratives not investigative scrutiny, and all the characters are here: beloved but aging ex-Dodgers like Gil Hodges (who would go on to coach the Mets to championship glory in '69); solid players like Richie Ashburn, who took the Mets' many losses personally and chose to retire after the '62 season rather than endure another year in a Mets uniform; the inestimably inept Marv Eugene Throneberry (initials M.E.T); and the passionate New York fans who, still stinging from the loss of the Dodgers and the Giants in '57, packed the Polo Grounds even as the Mets kept losing, and have remained true to the blue and orange to this day. But the undisputed star of the book is the truly legendary Casey Stengel, who coached the Mets to ignominy that year. His famously unflappable personality and oddball antics had not waned an iota, even though he was in his 70s at the time. However, as you read you're left with the feeling that perhaps the Mets might have done better that year had they not had a coach who regularly forgot the players' names, would fall asleep in the middle innings, and issued quotes to the press like, "The team is coming along slow but fast." Still, even if the Mets might have won a few more games that year with a more adept coach, they would not have been as laughable and lovable. The '62 season is a large part of the Mets mystique and, although I was only 2 years old at the time, I'm as proud of that team as I am of the '69 and '86 champs. Above all, the book reminded me of my dad, who loved the Mets from day one. I remember him telling a story of a game that year in which Marvelous Marv attempted to field a routine infield pop-up, lost it in the sun, and was promptly struck on the forehead with the ball and had to be helped off the field. No matter how many times he told the story, it was always accompanied by deep belly laughs. Whenever I watch the Mets lose (and I'm doing that right now) I think that no matter how bad it gets, it will never be as bad as it was in '62. Then again, it may never be as good either.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, not as deep as baseball lovers may want, June 17, 2009

By 

John Q. Public (Boca Raton, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales from the 1962 New York Mets: A Collection of the Greatest Stories Ever Told (Hardcover)

Being just 5 years old when the Mets began play, I was too young to remember much, but I know my dad was a die-hard fan from day 1 and my first trip to Shea was in '65. Thus I was dying to know how it all started. The book did a good job of explaining all the early business wheelings and dealings and explained how the Mets got their logo and colors, which is something I never knew.

The coverage of the players and their backgrounds was good, but the coverage of the actual games was kind of vague with some things unexplained. For example was it a typo when the author said the other team scored "in the bottom of the ninth" in a Mets home game, or did teams switch places in a doubleheader (unlikely but you never know)? Also, I would have liked more photos of action and the Polo Grounds, not just portrait style pictures of the players.

That said, I breezed through the book in a day because I was so hungry for information about the early days.