Mets: Who Remembers “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry?
Mets fans will always remember “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry, especially those who were there when the franchise moved to New York in 1962.
Marv Throneberry appeared in 480 major league games during his seven-year career. He amassed a total of 53 home runs and drove in a few more runs over that span than Ted Williams regularly put on the board in just one season.
Throneberry logged a .237 career batting average. He never appeared in an All-Star Game, and he once led the league in errors. His major league debut came with the New York Yankees and lasted for two seasons before he was traded bouncing around with three more teams for the next four years.
Then, fate intervened in 1962 when two teams were added and a special expansion draft was conducted to fill their rosters. That’s where “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry’s story began decades ago.
“We woulda got you a birthday cake, but we were afraid you woulda dropped it (Casey Stengel)
As you might imagine, teams protected their best players leaving the pickings mighty slim in the special expansion draft.
As it played out, Throneberry was actually acquired in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles for catcher Hobie Landrith.
But in New York, no one seemed to notice or care because National League Baseball was back in town filling the departed Brooklyn Bums and Giants’ void as both teams ventured into new pastures on the West Coast for the 1959 season.
The poster boy and main attraction for the newly born New York Metropolitans wasn’t even a player – he was their manager Casey Stengel. Immediately, he nicknamed his team the “Amazing Mets” and amazing they were as an expansion team.
The Mets lost an astounding 120 games that year. Throneberry would have his best season ever, if you consider all things relative. He hit a career high in home runs (16) and runs batted in (49). Oh yeah, that was the year he also led the league in errors for a first baseman (17). In spite of all this, New York fans fell in love with him and cheered his every at bat.
It got so bad, or good depending on how you look at it, that on his birthday during the year, Stengel told him “We would have gotten you a birthday cake, but we were afraid you would’ve dropped it,” (h/t Pete Baseball Quotes).
Throneberry’s legend grew when he walloped a long drive in what appeared to be a sure triple. However, he was called out for missing first base. According to Huffington Post writer Allan Zullo, when Stengel went out to protest, the umpire waved him back telling him, “Don’t worry, he missed second base too.”
It’s no wonder Throneberry became the team’s mascot of sorts as a symbol of ineptitude. Still, it remained all in fun. He couldn’t have been happier with getting to play in the Big Apple, even if the end would prove to be near.
Laughter was part of Throneberry’s shtick when he became a pitchman for Miller Lite beer in the 1970s. He laughed at himself while developing a significant income. “If I do for Lite what I did for baseball, I’m afraid their sales will go down,” he said (h/t MLB.com). It worked.
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Throneberry did have other distinctions. He was the first man to play for the Yankees and Mets throughout a career. His stance was quite similar to Mickey Mantle, and his comfortable Tennessee drawl was akin to Mantle’s easy Oklahoma delivery. “That’s why we traded Marv,” Mantle said kiddingly in 1983. “People were always saying how much alike we were. I used to tell him, ‘Jeez, I hope not,’” (h/t MLB.com).
Throneberry played his last game on May 5, 1963. He died in 1994 at the age of 60 in Fisherville, Tennessee. He might have been bumbling and stumbling on the field, but his mark on baseball and especially New York City will last forever.
Quotes provided by: The Huffington Post, Pete’s Baseball Quotes and Mlbnews.com