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After Jay Hook beat the Pirates for the first victory in Mets history, Casey Stengel urged his pitcher to talk to the newspaper reporters covering the team as long as the scribes wanted. Stengel, whose sense of theater and PR served the Mets as well or better than any diamond stratagem he devised, knew the milestone was a good story, especially since his expansion club had started its baseball life with nine straight losses.
But the long interviews led to a brief feeling of awkwardness, mixed with the afterglow of a 9-1 victory, for Hook. By the time he was finished talking, the visiting clubhouse at Forbes Field was empty and the Mets needed to hop a plane to Cincinnati.
“The embarrassing thing was, everyone else had showered and dressed,” Hook recalls now. “I felt bad because everyone was on the bus and waiting for me to shower.”
But there was no hot water left. So Hook hopped into the whirlpool for an impromptu bath, an unlikely post-game ablution for the night’s pitching — and hitting — star. “It worked out fine,” Hook says with a laugh. “I’m sure they emptied the water out of the whirlpool after. At least it was warm.”
Of course, there would be an amusing anecdote glued to the first victory in Mets franchise history, which came on April 23, 1962, exactly 60 years ago Saturday. While they are known for the most losses by any team since 1900 — the ‘62 Mets were a woeful 40-120, a yardstick for any losing team since — they were also the kind of club that produced delight and, well, storylines.
Before their first game, a gaggle of Mets got stuck in a hotel elevator in St. Louis. That same game was later rained out. Before they even played a game in New York, there was a ticker-tape parade up Broadway to welcome them and National League baseball back to New York. At their workout at the Polo Grounds the day before the home opener, their spikes weren’t delivered. The date of that home opener? Friday the 13th, of course.
They had plenty of fun, too. One time, reliever Craig Anderson recalls, Stengel called up to the clubhouse during the first game of a doubleheader. Roger Craig was there because he was slated to pitch the second game. Craig, a jokester, according to Anderson, answered the phone and Stengel said, “This is Casey.”
“Casey who?” Craig barked. Then he hung up.
It was a rare moment where Stengel couldn’t get in more than a few words. He was, after all, a quote machine, even delivering the lament that became the title of Jimmy Breslin’s funny best-seller about the team: “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?”
The players, including “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry — sarcasm font on “Marvelous,” unless you’re talking about his ability to entertain — were colorful. They also had a few well-known former city stars, such as Gil Hodges, and their best slugger, Frank Thomas, set a record for home runs by a player on an expansion team, busting 34. Richie Ashburn, the future Hall of Famer, batted .306 and pitchers such as Craig, Hook and Al Jackson delivered some decent starts.
Getting their first victory, however, proved difficult, a stark contrast to their fellow expansion-ites, the Houston Colt .45s, who won their first three games.
The Mets gave up 16 hits and made three errors in their first-ever game, an 11-4 loss in St. Louis. Heavy, wet snow wiped out one tilt in which the Mets had jumped to a 2-0 lead against the Pirates. In their fifth loss, the Mets tied the score in the bottom of the ninth inning on Gus Bell’s two-out solo homer, but fell in the 11th when Herb Moford gave up a three-run shot to Don Buddin.
At the end of their first homestand, the Mets stood at 0-7. Dick Young wrote in the Daily News: “The Mets completed their successful home stand yesterday; nobody got killed.”
Two losses later, they had tied a record for most losses to start a season. But it all came together, oddly enough, against a Pirates team that had matched the then-mark for most consecutive wins to begin a year (10), first held by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In front of 16,176 fans, Hook, who had missed part of the 1961 season with Cincinnati because of the mumps, throttled the powerful Bucs, throwing a five-hitter. He also delivered one of the biggest blows of the game, a two-run single in the second inning that expanded the Mets’ lead to 4-0.
“Once we jumped out, Jay was just in control,” says Anderson, 83, who roomed with Hook that year. “It was a happy night, I’ll tell you. We weren’t happy about losing nine games like that. I was in the dugout that night, so I felt the whole atmosphere. Casey was excited. I’m glad we won one, sometime.”
Anderson adds: “Jay was bragging about his hit — all pitchers are that way.”
It was a night of other firsts, too. Before that first win, the Mets had never scored as many as even six runs in a game. They had not sent nine men to the plate in an inning or knocked out an opposing pitcher, which they did to Pirates’ starter Tom Sturdivant in the second inning. In the eighth, Bobby Smith hit the first triple in Mets’ history off Farmingdale native Jack Lamabe.
On the front page of the Daily News the next day, there was a picture of Stengel with his arms raised. The caption below ended, tongue-in-cheek, we hope: “Now for the pennant!”
That, of course, was hype. But after limping to a 3-16 record by May 5, the Mets did begin to play a little better. They won nine-of-12 to get to 12-19. George Weiss, the former Yankee GM who was running the Mets, had talked hopefully of a .500 mark before the season. Maybe it wasn’t too late?
Alas, the Mets lost their next 17 games. The ‘62 team’s fate as lovable losers was sealed. Not that it’s been a bad ride.
“That first win, as I look back, it’s even more special now than it was then,” Anderson says. “It started something in New York. I never thought a losing team like that would get so much notoriety. I’m astounded by the attention we’re getting. We get tremendous autograph requests now.
“I get requests to sign ‘Original Met,’ so I put ‘1962 Original Met’ on everything I sign now. I never thought that would happen.”
“I can’t believe it’s been 60 years,” adds Thomas, who is now 92. “Sixty years went by pretty fast. You know, we weren’t so bad. Hodges got hurt and if he hadn’t, we would’ve been that much better of a club. But when the Mets came into existence, we were loved because we had the NL game back in New York. They all loved us, no matter what we did. And we all loved it.”
For years, Hook had a game ball from the first win. He had stuffed it into the inside pocket of his sports coat after the game. In 1967, while he was working for Chrysler, he had a glass case made with a plaque for the ball and gave it to the Mets in a ceremony at home plate before a game at Shea. After the Payson family sold the team, Hook says, they had the ball and it was eventually given to Rusty Staub to be used in an auction to benefit Staub’s extensive charity work.
“It ended up with the Mets, which is great, because that’s what I wanted in the first place,” the 85-year-old Hook says. The ball now sits on display in the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum at Citi Field.
Hook once asked one of his 13 grandchildren to take a picture of the ball and text it to him when she attended a Mets game. He’s looking forward to seeing it again himself on Aug. 27, the Mets revival of their Old Timers Day. Thomas, Anderson and 88-year-old reliever Ken MacKenzie are planning to be there, as well.
“All the grandkids want to see it, too,” Hook says.
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