Hobie Landrith caught for seven groups in his 14 main league seasons. He was largely a backup, adequate at dealing with pitchers however a lightweight hitter. He was by no means an All-Star. However he did possess a modest declare to fame.
When Landrith died on Thursday at 93 in Sunnyvale, Calif., he was remembered as the unique Met.
His demise was introduced on Saturday by Jay Horwitz, the Mets’ vice chairman of alumni public relations.
The Mets and the Houston Colt .45s (now the Astros), based as 1962 Nationwide League growth groups, started stocking their rosters in an October 1961 draft. They alternated in choosing gamers whom the eight N.L. groups seen as too younger, too previous or too bizarre to maintain.
Houston selected Eddie Bressoud, a shortstop with the San Francisco Giants, as the primary choose of the draft. The Mets selected Landrith, additionally a Large, as their first choice.
When reporters requested Mets Supervisor Casey Stengel why Landrith, 31 years previous, was anointed as the primary Met, he replied: “You gotta have a catcher otherwise you’d have loads of handed balls.”
The Mets performed their first sport on the night time of April 11, 1962, dealing with the Cardinals in St. Louis. Landrith was catching Roger Craig, who was chosen from the Los Angeles Dodgers because the Mets’ sixth draft choose. Batting No. 8, Landrith went 0 for 4 and dedicated one of many Mets’ three errors, an errant throw to second base on a steal try by Julian Javier, who ultimately scored. The Playing cards stole three bases of their 11-4 victory.
Joe Ginsberg changed Landrith for the Mets’ second sport and Chris Cannizzaro was behind the plate for his or her third sport, each losses to the Pirates. The Mets went 0-9 earlier than Jay Hook stopped Pittsburgh in a 9-1 complete-game victory.
Landrith, a left-handed batter, listed at 5 toes 10 inches and 170 kilos, performed in 23 video games for the Mets. His shining second got here on Might 12 when he hit a ninth-inning, two-out, pinch-hit homer into the higher deck on the Polo Grounds off the Milwaukee Braves’ future Corridor of Fame left-hander Warren Spahn to provide the Mets a 3-2 victory.
The Mets used seven catchers of their inaugural season. After Landrith, Ginsberg and Cannizzaro, they trotted out Choo Choo Coleman, Sammy Taylor, Joe Pignatano and Harry Chiti, whom they obtained from the Cleveland Indians in April for money and a participant to be named. That participant turned out to be Chiti, whom the Mets returned to the Indians in June.
Landrith was traded to the Baltimore Orioles on June 7 though he was batting .289 with three doubles and his residence run and had pushed in seven runs. His departure accomplished a deal in Might during which the Mets obtained first baseman Marv Throneberry, higher often known as Marvelous Marv for his stumbles within the area.
The Orioles despatched Landrith to the Washington Senators in Might 1963. They launched him after that season after which employed him as a coach in 1964, his final yr in baseball.
Landrith had a profession batting common of .233 with 34 residence runs and 203 runs pushed in.
“I used to be within the main leagues extra as a result of I used to be an excellent defensive catcher, and the truth that I used to be good at dealing with pitchers,” he as soon as instructed the baseball historical past web site This Nice Recreation. “I all the time thought I used to be a reasonably respectable hitter, however I spotted that I wasn’t within the large leagues for my bat.”
Hobart Neal Landrith was born on March 16, 1930, in Decatur, Unwell., certainly one of 9 youngsters of Charles and Edna (Spalding) Landrith. When he was a toddler, the household moved to the Detroit space, the place his father owned a meat refrigeration enterprise. He was catching in sandlot baseball in the summertime of 1945 when a Detroit Tigers scout invited him to catch batting apply for the workforce.
Landrith was an impressive catcher at Northwestern Excessive College in Detroit and with Michigan State. The Cincinnati Reds’ group signed him out of faculty earlier than the 1949 season. He performed for the Reds from 1950 to 1955 after which had stints with the Chicago Cubs, the Cardinals and the Giants earlier than becoming a member of the Mets.
After leaving baseball, he was a public relations govt with Volkswagen for a few years.
Landrith is survived by his spouse, Peggy; their sons David, Gary, and Randy; their daughters Carol Landrith, Beth Smith and Linda Warner; his brother Dale; 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Though Casey Stengel, 71 when the Mets performed their first sport, was reputed to have fallen asleep within the Mets’ dugout at occasions, Landrith recalled how “Casey had an immense data of baseball.”
In a 2003 interview with the Society for American Baseball Analysis, Landrith remembered how Stengel greeted the 1962 Mets gamers on the primary day of spring coaching with “one pant leg up, one down, his shirttail hanging out and his hat cocked.”
“He appeared like a personality out of Norman Rockwell,” Landrith mentioned.
He famous that Stengel led the gamers on a tour of the bases, tutoring them on what they need to be alert for at every cease if numerous conditions arose and at last asking, “What do you do if you get to 3rd base?”
Stengel answered that one himself: “You rating, rating, rating, and that’s what we’re gonna do and that’s why we’re gonna win some ball video games.”
The 1962 Mets did win 40 video games. However they misplaced 120.