'There's Only Room for One Clown on this Team'
Jimmy Piersall leaves his mark in Mets history with memorable home run trot.
Jimmy Piersall was sitting 99 career home runs on the traded the New York Mets purchased his rights from the Washington Senators. Over the next month Piersall criss-crossed the team clubhouse promising his next home run — No. 100 — he would celebrate by running the bases backwards.
“You didn’t get much attention for your 400th career home run,” Piersall told teammate Duke Snider. “I’ll tell you what: When I hit my 100th I will get more ink than you got for your 400th.”
Snider and the Mets clubhouse just shook their heads and waved him off.
By 1963, Piersall had bcome well-known for his bizarre behavior and antics both on and off the field. On June 23, Piersall stepped in against Philadelphia Phillies pitcher (and future Mets manager) Dallas Green and blasted his 100th career home run.
As promised, Piersall headed for third base, then second, first and, finally, he arrived back at home to a standing ovation from the crowd.
“I thought Richie Ashburn, who was a pretty loose, easy-going guy, would absolutely die,” the late Phils broadcaster Bill Campbell told ESPN. “ I can remember him saying to me, as Piersall was rounding the bases, ‘this guy is a screwball and always will be a screwball.’”
“The next morning I thought, I am going to get some ink out of this,” said Piersall. “I wake up early and go to get the newspapers and I take it to the ballpark and say, ‘I told you Duke!’ Now you watch Johnny Carson tonight because I’ll be on with Zsa Zsa Gabor.”
With the Mets struggling to gain traction as a new franchise, Piersall’s baserunning circus only made things worse. Some believe it was the tipping point of the franchise transitioning from a young, raw, talented team to a laughingstock.
Mets manager Casey Stengel didn’t like it — not one bit. First, he believed it was disresptful to the game and, second, no one was going overshadow Stengel as the central focus on the Mets.
The Mets released Piersall three days later.
“There's only room for one clown on this team,” Stengel told the media.
“Casey (Stengel) didn’t like my act,” said Piersall.
EXCERPT
William J. Ryczek chronicled Piersalls’ short stay in his book, The Amazin’ Mets” 1962-1969 writing:
Casey Stengel and Jimmy Piersall on the same team was a scenario for both anticipation and dread. Stengel, who once called Piersall the best outfielder he had ever seen, was hopeful that he could cover the vast Polo Grounds outfield …
Piersall, always a volatile personality, had mellowed somewhat in recent years but, the day before his sale to the Mets, had been fined $100 for an argument with an umpire. Most fans saw Piersall as an entertaining character, a showman and crowd pleaser. The press often portrayed him in a similar manner, a happy-go-lucky, younger version of veteran baseball clown Al Schacht.
Piersall did pantomimes in the outfield. He clowned around in the infield before the game. "There is a joyous exuberance to Jimmy Piersall," wrote Arthur Daley. "[H]e is a bit of a screwball with an affinity for headlines."
Piersall was often compared to Stengel, gel, an analysis that couldn't have been farther from the mark. Stengel was an intelligent, calculating culating man who knew exactly what he was doing and slipped in and out of his comic character as he chose.
Piersall was also highly intelligent, but a deeply troubled man who suffered a nervous breakdown in 1952 and teetered on the brink of mental instability for years afterward. There was nothing premeditated or comical about his explosive episodes. "Probably the best thing that ever happened to me," Piersall wrote in his autobiography, "was going nuts. It brought people out to the ballpark to get a look at me, and they came to the places where I was invited to speak …"
Met fans welcomed Piersall with open arms. Leonard Koppett wrote, "Casey Stengel is something new in Piersall's life. Together they might write the most entertaining chapter in it."
Piersall had always wanted to play for Stengel and was eager to reach New York. He received a wonderful ovation before his first game at the Polo Grounds and posed for pictures on top of the tarpaulin with fans hoisting a "We Love Piersall" sign.
"I just want to play for the Mets and avoid trouble," he said. "I get very excited and I don't always know what I'm going to do next, but I just hope that if I do something wrong, they'll tell me right away. I just want to play- to be myself, but not to cause any fuss."
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