Ed Kranepool Marquee

Ed Kranepool signed with the New York Mets out of a Bronx high school in 1962 and made his debut that September, seventeen years old, on a team that lost 120 games. He was still there in 1979, which meant he had played for the worst club in modern history and the 1969 champions without ever changing uniforms.

His one All-Star selection came in 1965, when he was twenty. The later years were spent mostly as a first baseman and pinch hitter, a role he was unusually good at: he hit better than .390 off the bench across several seasons in the mid-1970s.

No one has played more games in a Mets uniform. Kranepool finished with 1,418 hits and 118 home runs across 1,853 games, and died on September 8, 2024.