A member of the family is gone.
Such was the sentiment on Thursday among Mets fans, players and broadcasters who either grew up listening to Ralph Kiner or had the thrill of working alongside him.
Kiner, the Hall of Fame outfielder and legendary Mets broadcaster, died on Thursday at age 91, but his memory will live on.
“Ralph led an incredible American life,” said Mets television play-by-play voice Gary Cohen, a boothmate of Kiner’s. “He was famous from the time he was a teenager, he was one of the great sluggers in National League history. He went out with some of the greatest movie stars of his generation, and that doesn’t include 52 years in the booth with the Mets.”
After hitting 369 home runs over a 10-year career with the Pirates, Cubs and Indians — leading the National League in homers in each of his first seven seasons — Kiner was hired as part of the original Mets’ broadcast team, along with Bob Murphy and Lindsey Nelson, before the 1962 season. That crew remained intact for 17 seasons, setting a major league record for continuity among three broadcasters.
But maybe Kiner’s greatest broadcasting legacy is “Kiner’s Korner” — a postgame show that began airing on Ch. 9 in the 1960s and lasted more than two decades, featuring players and managers from the Mets and opposing teams.
Former Mets manager Bobby Valentine said “Kiner’s Korner” had a special hold on players and fans alike.
“The greatest thrill for my family and friends was when I came to Shea Stadium with the Dodgers in 1971 and got a game-winning hit against Tom Seaver,” Valentine said Thursday. “It wasn’t that I got a hit, it was that I was on ‘Kiner’s Korner’ after the game. My mom took a photograph of the television and she had it on the dresser in her room for all of her life. It was a great memory and a great honor.”
Valentine, who later played for the Mets before becoming a coach and manager with the team, also got to know Kiner professionally.
“We were at every Old Timers’ dinner in Fairfield County for a while and it was amazing. He never forgot anybody’s name. He always remembered people’s wives,” Valentine said. “He was a gentle giant in that he could hit the ball as far as anyone, yet he cared about his playing as much as he did his home runs.”
As celebrated as Kiner was for teaming with Murphy and Nelson, he shared the booth with another broadcasting great, Tim McCarver, for most of the 1980s and 1990s.
Kiner, who spoke with slurred speech for the last decade — the effects of Bell’s palsy and a subsequent stroke — had his workload reduced to about 15 games each season on SNY in recent years. But he was still a revered figure.
“Him coming into the booth for a ballplayer was the equivalent of a real spiritual person getting to meet the Dalai Lama,” said former Mets pitcher Ron Darling, an SNY analyst. “And really that’s what it was like. He transcends generations.”
Howie Rose, who worked TV games with Kiner in the 1990s, said he never saw the Hall of Famer lose his cool. But there was a close call during a game in San Diego, while Kiner was smoking a cigar between innings, as was his habit.
“Between innings someone came into the booth, someone of authority, and said ‘I’m sorry Mr. Kiner, there’s an ordinance now in California, you can’t smoke that in public, I’m going to have to ask you to put that out,’ said Rose, now the Mets radio voice.
“And Ralph just kind of dejectedly dropped the cigar into the ash tray, turned around, looked at the guy and shot him as close to a mean look as Ralph was ever capable of giving anyone, and said, ‘You know, this used to be a great state,’ and just turned around and went back to work.”
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