Long Ball, Long Life

Hearing about big league baseball as a child, Ralph Kiner was probably the first name I knew.  His rookie year was mine--he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates the year I was born.  The late 40s and early 50s were not great ones for the Pirates; Kiner was their biggest and sometimes only star.

 He was a home run hitter in a baseball park--Forbes Field--that wasn't built for the long ball.  But his 54 homers in 1949 was about as close as any hitter got to Babe Ruth's 60 home run record for a long time, and is still a record for the Pirates.  He hit 51 in 1947, just his second year.  (By the way, Babe Ruth hit the last two homers of his career at Forbes Field, both in the same game.)  Kiner led the National League in homers for every full season he played for the Pirates--7 in a row.

Kiner also hit over .300 twice, and knocked in more than 100 runs six times.   Given the rest of the Pirates lineup and Forbes Field, his run of RBIs from 1947 to 1953 was phenomenal: 127, 123, 127, 118, 109.

He was traded to the Cubs and then to Cleveland.  I'm pretty sure I was aware of him as a Pirate but I probably got his baseball card when he was with one of those two teams.  I remember reading his stats with awe.  He retired after the 1955 season, and was later elected to the baseball Hall of Fame.

But the bulk of his life in baseball was ahead of him.  He became an announcer and interviewer for the New York Mets from their first season in 1961, and did some play by play as recently as last year.  His death at the age of 91 was announced today.