WENTZVILLE, Mo. — There are 109.6 acres of land here, on which you can find two ponds, a deer stand, a tractor, a fishing boat and a bull named Walter. And if you enter the main house, you’ll see one of the better baseball memorabilia collections this side of Cooperstown. My favorite item is the ticket stub from the all-St. Louis 1944 World Series between the Cardinals and Browns.
Yes, Ron Hunt, now 72, and his wife Jackie have it good, by their own making. Their farm is close enough to St. Louis, about an hour away, that they traveled in Friday night for the team’s gala at Busch Stadium. They still enjoy visiting New York, where older Mets fans remember Hunt, the team’s first representative to start an All-Star Game (1964 at Shea Stadium), with great warmth.
Personally, Hunt expresses few real regrets. Professionally? Just one.
“I never got a chance to play in the playoffs or the World Series,” Hunt said Saturday, after welcoming The Post onto his property. “That’s the only thing I missed out on in baseball. “
Or, as he put it less delicately moments later, “I would’ve liked to have the opportunity to see if my [expletive] got as tight as some of these guys on TV.”
Hunt played for five teams from 1963-74, the first four seasons with the Mets. His career spanned the time from when the World Series represented the only playoff round — just two of 20 teams qualified for the postseason — to the advent of the League Championship Series in 1969.
You might think baseball’s current playoff format, with 10 of 30 clubs qualifying, represents a watering down of the process. I say, better to allow too many than too few. If you play as long as Hunt did, then you deserve to experience October.
“You play in this game, I think you go through different things,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said Saturday at the ballpark, before St. Louis and Boston resumed this Series with Game 3. “First of all, to play professionally, you’re among a very small group. And then being able to get to the big leagues is something you dream about since the first time you picked up a waffle-ball bat. And then once you get here, you realize this is a pretty good gig.
“But it’s all about winning, and then it’s how to be part of a winning team and be a player that can be part of the postseason. And once you get here, there’s not another thing that’s acceptable.”
If the top one-third of the teams made the postseason during Hunt’s time as is the case now, then he would’ve experienced the playoffs once. His 1969 Giants finished 92-70, a game behind Atlanta (93-69) in the inaugural National League West race and fourth overall in the league; the Mets defeated the Braves in the first NLCS and toppled the Orioles in the World Series. Clyde King, future Yankees manager and general manager, took over for Herman Franks as San Francisco’s skipper that season.
“I think if Herman was there, we would’ve at least given the Mets a run,” Hunt said.
In a smaller house on Hunt’s property, you see actual seats from the Polo Grounds, Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, Montreal’s Jarry Park Stadium and Shea Stadium. He has framed jerseys from each of his five teams (the Mets, Dodgers, Giants, Expos and Cardinals).
A World Series ring, or even a playoff game program, would greatly enhance this already impressive stash. They would make his already sweet memories all the sweeter.
This is not at all to advocate for adding even more teams to the current playoff setup — 10 out of 30 sounds about right. Rather, it’s to point out that building up baseball’s final month brings benefits to the playing fraternity.
If you yearn for the days when the league winners automatically advanced to the World Series, you might struggle to find actual players from those days who agree with you.