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 HIS TRYOUT WITH THE METS WAS AMAZING: HE HAD NEVER PITCHED WITH A MAN ON BASE! |
The Young Man Who
Left a Legend Behind
of TheColumnists.com
In the midst of spring training every year my thoughts turn anew to the Saga of John Pappas. This young man was one part Harold Everyman, one part Walter Mitty and, most important, one part Christopher Columbus. He was not content merely to dream; he acted upon it and set off on his wondrous adventure.
This was 1962, the year the New York Mets were born. It was a time of new vistas, the clean slate and wonder about what the old magician, Casey Stengel, might do with a new team of tattered, hand-me-down ball players. Into this wonderland on the third day of practice walked John Pappas, would-be ball player, arriving by plane from New York with sneakers and glove.
The youth had never played in an organized baseball game. Johnny Murphy, the Mets’ kindly head scout, tried to let him down gently, attempting to explain the hard facts of baseball life. But at just about that time Bob Lipsyte of The New York Times and I, Newsday’s finest, ambled by and picked up the delightful drift of the conversation.
“You mean you won’t even give me a chance,” the young man pleaded. He was five feet, 10 inches and 155 pounds, slender and dark, younger looking than his 21 years. He had an intense look about him that made it difficult for Murphy to put him off. Pappas, quick to sense he had gained allies among the powerful press, told us his story.
He had been working out for months. “I’ve been throwing four baseballs at a painted square on the wall under the Triboro Bridge,” he said. “I also run on the track late at night. I’m in tremendous shape.”
He said he was a night student at City College, that he had had paid $66 to fly to St. Petersburg, that he had come with $225 and was paying the astronomical price of $10 a day for a room at the Mets’ hotel. He told his parents he had gone away for a few days on vacation. “It would be crazy to tell them I’m trying to make the team.”
If the Mets had their way, Pappas would have been sent packing. But they were aware of the reporters’ presence and, wary of bad press relations, agreed to give him a tryout. He joined some other aspirants--who had some experience--at a nearby high school a few days hence. There were snickers in the Mets camp when word went around about the green kid being given a tryout.
Under a clear, blue February sky, Pappas, wearing black-and-white sneakers, started to throw. Lipsyte, covering spring training for the first time, was not sure of his ability to measure talent. He asked, “What do you think?”
To say that Pappas threw like a girl would have been an exaggeration. But that would have given some indication of the youth’s pitching style or familiarity with technique. I already had seen too much, but I was cagey. I said, “He doesn’t look like a pitcher, but you never can tell.”
Pappas’ control was errant. Harry Durkin, a 29-year-old who had played two years of minor league ball, stepped in to bat against him--warily. Though Durkin didn’t hit any balls into the next county, he managed to not get hit by any of the pitches.
When Murphy asked Pappas why he did not go into a stretch motion to guard a theoretical runner on first base, Pappas answered, “I’ve never pitched with a man on base.” Soon afterward, Murphy said he had seen enough. He put his arm around the youth and told him, “I’m afraid all you have is guts, son.” And Murphy told the reporters, “He’s as poor as any I have seen--and I’ve seen thousands.”
Pappas agreed that Murphy had been fair. “I would have always wondered,” he said. “But now I know I just wasn’t good enough. Now I’ll look for something else, some other way of being somebody.”
As it turned out Pappas wasn’t far gone in his estimation of the Mets. He wasn’t good enough, but the ones who made it with the Mets that first year--the Joe Ginsbergs and Choo Choo Colemans--wound up no higher than the Mets would have with a team of John Pappases.
Pappas soon dropped out of City College night school. He worked in a bank and then went into the army. When I reached him by phone a few years later, he laughed and said, “I’ve grown up since then. When I get out of the army I expect to go back to school and make my career in finance on Wall Street.”
He said, “I shouldn’t have gone down there, I suppose. In a way I overestimated myself. Not many people would have had the nerve, would they? There was tremendous pressure. That was a long time ago, But I analyzed it seven months later and I think it was a good experience. I think some day I can use that experience to my advantage.”
Pappas didn’t make the team, but in his own way he was truly one of the first Mets.
©2008 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The cartoon is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted March 17, 2008.
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