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ROD KANEHL |
 Rod Kanehl at bat |
He wasn't a superstar,
but he was a super guy
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
The tone of a team is set by the stars.
That’s the way it was when Babe Ruth played for the Yankees
in the 1920s and that’s the way it is when Derek Jeter plays
for the Yankees in the 21st century.
Joe Namath set the tone for the Super Bowl Jets of 1969 and Tom
Brady set the tone for the Super Bowl Patriots of 2004. Shaquille
O’Neal was the man for the Lakers (sorry about that, Kobe)
and Michael Jordan was the only man for the Chicago Bulls for
all those winning years.
Losing teams follow a leader just as well. It’s no different
than a class leader, an office boss or a family spokesman. Someone
has to step to the podium.
The most delightful collection of athletes I was ever around
were the members of the Original 1962 Mets in their first year
as a big league team, playing baseball in the National league
from a grungy home called the Polo Grounds.
They had some good players with big reputations made elsewhere,
guys like Gil Hodges of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Richie Ashburn
of the Phillies, Gus Bell of the Reds and Frank Thomas of the
Pirates.
Soon these guys were joined by a comical character named Marv
Throneberry, known sarcastically as Marvelous Marv for his incompetence.
None of these guys really set the tone of the team. That was
done by a fringe big leaguer who helped create the lovable lasting
image of the New York Mets with the manager, Casey Stengel.
His name was Rod Kanehl--Hot Rod--and when he died last month
at the age of 70 near his home in Palm Springs, California, I
cried a little. Not for him. For me.
It was 43 years ago when Kanehl came to the Mets in their first
spring training at St. Petersburg, Florida. It brought tears
to my eyes when I realized it was that long ago and the days
grow down to the precious few for all of us who were there that
spring.
Kanehl was Everyman as a ball player. He had bounced around the
Yankee system for eight years with hustle, intensity, drive,
ambition and a moderate amount of talent. At least enough to
keep on dreaming that great American dream, a big league uniform.
He impressed Stengel in the middle 1950s as a kid who chased
every baseball and hit every pitch with all he had. The results
weren’t much but the intensity was terrific.
Stengel remembered all that when Kanehl showed up with an outside
shot at a big league job in 1962. The Mets were after names.
Kanehl was not a name. The Mets were after young talent. Kanehl
was limited in talent at age 28. The Mets were after serious
soldiers. Kanehl was a laugh a minute.
We walked up to him after he hit a double off legendary Sandy
Koufax in a 1962 exhibition game and he proclaimed with a smile
from his tobacco-filled cheeks, “You saw it, write it.”
He made fun of us, the working press, with that one line as we
dug deep for the hidden meaning of that hit. It tied the game
and helped the Mets beat Koufax. They would do that only once
in their history in regulation play with another tone setter,
Tug McGraw, getting the honor.
The 1962 Mets were the most unique team in baseball history.
They lost a record 120 games. The more they lost the more they
were loved.
Kanehl got into 133 games that first season with a .248 average.
He also hit the first grand slam home run in Mets history against
the Cardinals of Stan Musial in the Polo Grounds in July of 1962.
As the losses piled up and the fans responded warmly (that didn’t
happen in the other NL expansion city of Houston) Kanehl became
a folk figure. He lived in Manhattan and enjoyed the night life
of the Big Apple in a way a kid from Wichita, Kansas could hardly
expect to appreciate.
The banners flew for Hot Rod in the Polo Grounds and later in
his only year at Shea Stadium when the new ball park welcomed
the team from the Polo Grounds.
Ball players in the 1960s with Kanehl’s limited ability
rarely cracked the $20,000 a year salary barrier. Kanehl never
made more than $18,000 and wound up supporting a wife and three
kids on meager money.
This may shock youngsters of today but ball players in the 1960s
actually had off season jobs. Kanehl worked in construction,
sold insurance, owned a small restaurant and served as a starter
at a fashionable golf club after baseball. He told stories of
his days with the Mets at the 19th hole for larger tips. That’s
known as real life.
His manager, Casey Stengel, died in 1975 and Kanehl was the only
former Mets player to travel to his funeral in Glendale, California.
Billy Martin bawled up a storm at that one as his hero, Stengel,
was eulogized.
Kanehl really wasn’t much of a baseball player as the statistics
indicate but he represented all of us kids who sat in our beds
at night, putting oil into the pockets of a glove and dreaming
that impossible dream, a big league uniform.
He popped off a little bit when he shouldn’t have and he
didn’t know how to play the political game so his honesty
and his big mouth cost him a chance at a lifetime career in the
game, the only thing he ever really wanted.
He entertained us always and represented us always. He’s
gone now and he made me cry a little. Hot Rod, you saw it and
I wrote it.
©2005 by Maury Allen.
The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This
column first posted on Jan. 10, 2005.
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