Book Excerpt: Coming Home: My Amazin’ Life with the New York Mets

By Cleon Jones with Gary Kaschak

With the Dodgers in New York to play the Mets, this seemed like a good time to present, and to recommend to you, “Coming Home: My Amazin’ Life with the New York Mets,” by Cleon Jones with Gary Kaschak (Triumph Books, 2022, Kindle $9.99, Hardcover $24.93).

The excerpt I have chosen to share is Chapter 6, titled “Buffalo,” which includes some interesting passages about the Polo Grounds, about Casey Stengel and about Jones’ first cup coffee the Mets in 1963. It begins below.

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Chapter 6: Buffalo.

At the end of our 1963 minor league season I had played in just 63 games between Auburn and Raleigh but put up some decent numbers. My goal from the very start was to be a .300 hitter, and I’d done that for both teams. It was a small sampling of what I knew I was capable of doing and gave me confidence going forward, because the results were what I had wanted.

You come into a new organization wanting to make an impression, but you never know how good your teammates are, or your competitors. You think about all the games you played back home against your peers and then what you’ve learned and seen in the Instructional League, and you start to get the answers. I never questioned what I could do on the field and just wanted to move up as fast as I could. I knew I was in the best organization for something like that to happen.

When the Mets called me up in late September, it was the first time I’d ever seen a major league ballpark. I’d been to Hartwell Field back in Mobile, when the Dodgers barnstormed there on their way north following spring training, and was in awe seeing Jackie Robinson, even from a distance. Teams used to do that, and they’d stop off at one of their farm teams and play an exhibition game, then move on north to open the season. I even got to see Hank Aaron play there, and years before that, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig came through with the Yankees. It was a big mistake when they tore it down in 1979. But walking onto the Polo Grounds in 1963 was a whole other feeling altogether.

I knew beforehand that the dimensions of the field were oddly shaped and good for both right-handed and left-handed pull hitters—and I mean right down-the-line pull hitters. Now I could see for myself how far the home run hit by Bobby Thomson against the Dodgers in that 1951 playoff game needed to travel. If he had been just a fraction of a second late with his swing, it might have been a double or an out, which might have changed the results of that game.

But once you got into the gaps, the whole thing changed drastically and became 450’ before you knew it. Dead center was right around where the clubhouse was, and the guys used to say it was a five-dollar taxi ride from there to the dugout.

I got my first chance to play in that outfield when Casey sent me into center for defense in the ninth inning of a game against Houston. There were probably 5,000 fans to start the game, but by then it had started to empty out and almost felt empty standing in that cavernous center field with probably 150’ feet of open ground behind me and to either side. I looked at Ed Kranepool in left and Duke Snider in right—neither one of them known for his speed—and knew anything hit into either gap would be mine, though that was expected for a center fielder. It got me to thinking about Willie Mays making that catch against the Indians’ Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series and how far he’d had to run to get it. Now that I was standing where Willie once stood, I had a new level of respect for him as an outfielder.

I didn’t have any action during that inning, but Bob Aspromonte hit a long home run over Eddie’s head in left. When the inning ended, I ran in from center hoping for a chance to get my first major league at-bat, even though I was scheduled to bat eighth in the inning. Jim Hickman, “Hot” Rod Kanehl, and Frank Thomas went down in order, and we were shut out—our 100th loss of the season, which kept us in last place, seven games behind our expansion rivals from Houston.

The next day Casey penciled me in as the leadoff hitter, and of course I wanted to make an impression. I made my first outfield catch in the first inning off the bat of John Weekly, but grounded out to the pitcher leading off the bottom of the inning. Then I did it again in the third. With two men on in the fifth, I thought I’d have another chance, but Casey sent Duke Snider in to pinch-hit for me.

I found out later from the guys that Casey had been known to do such things and would even pinch-hit for you in the first inning sometimes. It was always something like that going on with Casey. Guys who were in the on-deck circle never knew if he was going to pinch-hit for them, because he had this thing about certain guys hitting against certain pitchers. He had that kind of a talent way before all these new analytics today, and he remembered those kinds of things without writing it down or needing any notes to look at. When I played for him he was 75 years old and still had a great mind for the game. He made some statements in team meetings and things about players, and you wondered how he knew all those things.

Casey had a way with umpires and the writers. Everybody had a delightful time being around him, whether it was before or after the game, because he always was hilarious in the way he commanded a crowd and how he talked—even to the umpires.

In one of our games our starting pitcher got into trouble, and at that time we didn’t have a good pitching staff for Casey to choose from. Casey went out to make a pitching change, and like most players or managers, he jumped over the white line after coming out of the dugout and his right arm went up a bit. When Casey got to the mound, waiting for the relief pitcher to come in, he didn’t know the umpires thought he’d signaled for a right-hander after his hand went up.

Casey started talking to the umpires, but when he saw who was coming in from the bullpen, he looked around and said to the umpires, “That’s not the guy I wanted, I wanted my lefty.” He kept saying he didn’t raise his hand, and the umpires said that he did and because he was on his way to the mound, they couldn’t change it. Casey kept at it, “I don’t want him. I want the left-hander, he’s the one I want!” That went on for a while, but the umpires wouldn’t back down, so the right-hander came into the game and actually did a good job.

The next day the umpire who had called the pitcher in was now the home-plate umpire. He looked at the lineup like they always did to make sure there were no mistakes and said to Casey, “Casey, take a look at the lineup,” but Casey sort of ignored him and was talking to the other umpires. He said again, “Casey. Take a look at the lineup,” but Casey kept on talking, and then the umpire in a more firm voice said, “Casey, you need to look at the lineup, you’ve made a mistake.” And Casey looked up at him and said, “What’s the problem?” The umpire said, “You don’t have a pitcher on here.” And Casey said, “You did such a fantastic job picking him yesterday, how about you pick another one today?” Casey was a Hall of Fame manager and probably the most entertaining manager who ever managed in baseball. The writers loved him because he could talk and entertain after the ballgame late into the night, and they never grew tired of it. He had a sense about what people liked and how to give it to them. Even though he had bad teams, he always gave the reporters what they wanted so they could write a good story about it.

He had a story for every event. He had a story for every game. He had a story for every player. Casey had some great teams with the Yankees, and even though he was 75 years old, his memory was sharp. He could remember what every ballplayer did and what he was good at. It didn’t matter what league he was in, he could converse on that player. It was little things he said with the team. He just had a way of being in control. Nobody doubted him, even when he did send guys up to the plate as a pinch-hitter in the first inning.

Then I went 0-for-4 against Philadelphia with another groundout to the pitcher—my third in just a few at-bats. Casey kept me in the game, but I must have been trying to do too  much and never hit the ball out of the infield. I was 0-for-6 to that point and decided to start really paying attention to how the guys went about their business  before,  during,  and  after the games. Some of the veterans like Duke Snider and Frank Thomas might skip batting practice some days, and judging by their ages and the fact they both played the outfield, I felt there was going to be some opening for some playing time in the near future for me. But I had to show them more than what they’d been seeing.

We’d split the first two games of the three-game series against the Giants in San Francisco. Willie McCovey hit two long homers in the first game, and Juan Marichal went all the way and won his 24th  game of the season. I watched him throughout the game, with that high leg kick and an assortment of pitches throwing guys off,  and thought that he was capable of being a  30-game winner. Of course I wanted to get a shot to see what it was like against him, but I never got the call. I was watching Casey out of the corner of my eye hoping he’d call my name at some point, but he didn’t.

It had only been a week or two since I first got my first glimpse of the Polo Grounds, when I first imagined Willie Mays playing in that outfield, and now I was right across from him in the visitors’ dugout as his opponent. Not only was it Willie Mays, it was McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Marichal, and even their manager—Alvin Dark—guys I idolized and rooted for before. Being just 20 years of age, it was a tremendous feeling to be on that same field, but it wouldn’t be complete unless I played. Of course I wanted them to see me and to remember me like I had remembered them.

The middle game was no different—Casey never got me in. But we broke our seven-game losing streak, so that was a relief. Just before I was called up, the Mets had been shut out in their two previous games, and it happened again on my first game against Houston when we lost our 100th game. The club had gone 39 innings without scoring a single run until Joe Hicks knocked in a pair late in the game against Houston. I had never been around losing teams in any sport I ever played, and I had never seen such futility before from hitters. Some of the guys told me how often these shutouts happened, and it seemed to be bothering me more than it seemed to bother some of them.

That gnawed at me, and I wondered why Casey hadn’t used me more during that short time I was there. Oh, I never would have questioned Casey Stengel and didn’t talk to another player about it, but where we were going? Last place was a done deal, so it didn’t seem necessary to me that the regulars were still in the lineup. I thought it was the perfect time to showcase my talents to Casey and all the other guys.

It had only been about a week since the three Alou brothers—Felipe, Matty, and Jesus—had played in the same outfield together for the first time in major league history (September 15, 1963). That must have been quite a sight and quite a thrill for the brothers and their families. First off, who can believe that three brothers were good enough to make the major leagues, then all be on the same team, then all be in the same outfield at the same time? I was hoping to see it for myself, but only Felipe was in the starting lineup for the final game of that series—another game with Cleon Jones sitting on the bench.

It became the Willie McCovey show in rapid order—a home run in the first, another in the second, and yet another in the fourth. On top of that, he’d already hit a pair in the opening game of the series and had 43 for the year.

I had mixed feelings at such times. Of course, I was upset McCovey was tearing up our pitching staff at will, but he was one of my home boys. So I was proud of him and simply amazed at the ease with which he made it happen, and how far those home runs traveled. I suppose I owe it to him that I got in that game, because right after his second home run, Casey looked like he’d had enough and sent me in to pinch-hit for Galen Cisco.

I flied to right but stayed in the game in left field, then got my first major league hit an inning later—a single to left off of Bobby Bolin. A few batters later I scored the first run of my career when Chico Fernandez singled me home. By then the Giants had blown the game open and led 13–2 when I got to see what I wanted to see. In the seventh inning, Alvin Dark sent Matty Alou into left, moved Felipe from right to center, and Jesus from right to left— all three brothers again in the same outfield at the same time.

When I picked up my first major league RBI on an infield groundout in the ninth, it had been quite a day with all that was going on. McCovey’s three home runs, seeing all those superstars together on one field, the Alou brothers in the same outfield together, and getting my first hit, my first run scored, and my first RBI all in that one game.

All of that was fun and exciting for me, but we had still lost the game and lost it badly. I wanted to break into the lineup and try to change what I was seeing, this culture of losing, but knew it wasn’t going to change much with one man. Even if Willie McCovey had been playing for us instead of the Giants, it wouldn’t have made enough of a difference. We had a long way to go, and I thought I could be a difference maker in the near future—I just needed a chance.

I only started one more game after that, and it was against the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax. He struck me out three times, but I did manage a hit off of him in between all the strikeouts. After that there was no doubt in my mind that Sandy—like Juan Marichal— was also capable of winning 30 games. I ended up with just two hits in 15 at bats for that short stay with the Mets—not what I had wanted to do and far from what I expected to do.

About the authors:

Cleon Jones played 13 seasons in Major League baseball, winning a World Series with the 1969 "Miracle Mets." With The Last Out Community Foundation, Jones now works to refurbish and build affordable homes, combat blight, and provide positive youth programs for the Africatown community in Mobile, Alabama.

Gary Kaschak has served as sports writer and columnist for The Vestal News (upper New York state), The Green Bay Press Gazette (Wisconsin), and The Burlington County Times (New Jersey). He served The Montrose Independent (Pennsylvania) as its Sports Editor and has also reported for WKOP radio in Binghampton, New York.

Howard Cole has been writing about baseball on the Internet since Y2K. Follow him on Twitter. Follow OBHC on Twitter here. Be friends with Howard on Facebook.

Read OBHC online here.