Earning The First Base Job
With Harkness, Dick Smith and Frank Thomas all splitting time at first base, Kranepool received most of his playing time in right field at the start of the 1964 season. On May 24, Joe Christopher was batting .303, and had won a starting job in manager Casey Stengel's eyes. He was awarded the right field job, and Kranepool was demoted to Buffalo with a .139 batting average.
Kranepool played just fifteen games with the Bisons, hitting three home runs and batting .352 to earn a promotion back to the Mets. His first game back was at first base in game one of a May 31 double header against the San Francisco Giants. Kranepool also played first in the second game of the double header, which went 23 innings. Kranepool ended up playing all 23 innings, going four for fourteen over the two games. "I wish we could have played another forty minutes," Kranepool was later quoted as saying of the record setting double header that lasted nearly ten hours and ended at 11:20 PM. "That way, I could always say I played in a game that started in May and ended in June."
These two games were the start of a thirteen game hitting streak that saw Kranepool's batting average rise to .264. For the season, Kranepool batted .257 with ten home runs and 45 RBIs.
Read more about this topic: Ed Kranepool
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