I for one, can not get enough of reading about Gil Hodges and after reading Taryn Cooper’ (a/k/a The COOP) posting on Mets Merized Online, It gave me time to reflect on this great player, manager and man.
I always point to the death of Hodges on April 2, 1972 as one of the two darkest days (the other was June 15, 1977 and is you don’t know what happened on that date you are reading the wrong blog asshole) and the day the promise of the Mets organization died.
I also remember as an 8 year old Mets fan/Brooklyn gutter snipe, going to Hodges wake with my firends and our dads. We wore our baseball uniforms and walked past the resting Hodges and just cried like it was a family member, HELL he was a family member.
As Mets fans we bask in the fact that Hodges was not just the man that led the Mets from misfits to champions but he was also one of us, as he lived with his born and bred Brooklynite wife Joan in Mill Basin, It’s a shame that Mets ownership doesn’t put together a campaign to get Gil Hodges into Cooperstown where he belongs.
Krane, that is because it is his Mets’ time that put him over the top. His Dodger career should have been enough, but he had to go and ruin it with winning a championship with the Mets, and we all know how the organization has to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anything Mets related.
Maybe Freddie would fight to get Hodges in the HOF if his plaque showed him in a B’klyn Dodger hat.