Jack Kralick - Later Career

Later Career

Kralick was traded by the Minnesota Twins to the Cleveland Indians for Jim Perry on May 2, 1963. The transaction was made out of necessity for both teams. Kralick, along with Jim Kaat and Dick Stigman, had been one of three left-handers on the Twins' four-man starting rotation, while the Indians' only southpaw starter was Sam McDowell. Kralick was an All-Star in 1964. He played the final game of his major league career on April 23, 1967.

His contract was sold by the Indians eight days later on May 1 to the New York Mets, who were set to assign him to the Jacksonville Suns in preparation for a May 11 promotion to the majors. Instead, he was sidelined for the remainder of the campaign after he sustained a cerebral contusion and temporary diplopia when he lost control of his automobile which crashed into a retaining wall on the Memorial Shoreway near Cleveland Stadium in the early hours of May 2. The Mets offered him an invitation to its spring training camp prior to the 1968 season, but he chose to officially retire as an active player and begin working as an insurance salesman for North American Life Assurance Company of Toronto.