ST. PETERSBURG, FL - March 13, 1964
The Sports Time Traveler™ has finally left Miami Beach and has crossed Alligator Alley and headed north to St. Pete where the New York Mets have opened their training camp here in 1964.
The Mets just might be the worst franchise in baseball history.
Since playing their 1st ever game in April, 1962 they have a record of 91 - 231. They finished in last place, 60 game out of 1st place in their inaugural year, and last place again and 48 games out of 1st place this past season in 1963.
This has led some dreamers to believe that they might be able to help the team on the field, even if they’ve never played in a professional baseball league.
And a few have actually come to the Mets training camp, uninvited, in anticipation that they could possibly make the team.
Yesterday, in the Mets training camp headquarters, at the Colonial Inn, here in St. Pete, the New York Times Leonard Koppett struck up a conversation with Mets manager Casey Stengel and Mets traveling secretary Lou Niss.
“They keep coming down for tryouts,” said Niss referring to the steady stream of people under the false impression that the Mets training camp is an open tryout.
“The ones I feel bad about are the ones who have families and spend their own money,” said Stengel in a curiously logical moment for “The Old Professor,” who has become famous for his quixotic quotes over the past couple of seasons as the Mets skipper.
At that point Niss brought up the example of Gypsy Burton.
Stengel jumped in and said, “You mean that 27-year old fella with 2 kids who came around at the beginning of the spring?”
“That’s the one,” affirmed the traveling secretary, Niss.
Niss then added, “He had some bats shipped down too. When they arrived at the clubhouse nobody knew whose bats they were.”
Then Niss told a story about Gypsy Burton. If it hadn’t come from the mouth of the man who makes all the Mets hotel arrangements, you would never believe it.
“He showed up here about 4 in the morning, and the room clerk didn’t want to wake me up. He just figured it was another Met coming in and put him into Sammy Drake’s room. At 4 in the morning!”
Drake is a utility infielder who played 3 seasons with the Cubs and the Mets from 1960 - 1962, and is in the Mets training camp trying to earn his spot on the big league team.
The story surprised Stengel who asked, “What did Drake say?”
Niss replied, “Sammy wasn’t too surprised. It seems he had met him before.”
Apparently Gypsy got a chance to be on the field with the Mets at spring training the next day as Stengel recalled Gypsy telling him he had last played ball in Alaska.
But Niss corrected Stengel, saying it was Canada, allegedly on a barnstorming tour.
Niss explained, “He played with Satchel Paige's team all over Canada, and he said he hit about .480 or .500. But he admitted the weather was cold and the pitchers couldn't get into shape until about August or September.”
Of course, Gypsy didn’t make the team and was told to go back home to New York.
But that wasn’t the last of it as Niss continued, “The funniest part was when Gypsy got back to New York, he called me down here and said if there was one more last chance, he’d come back down. I told him all he needed was 15 cents, to call Wid Mathews of the Chicago Cubs at NR 2–3000.”
While the notion of Gypsy Burton becoming a member of the New York Mets was dismissed by the Mets brass, this conversation about him in the lobby of the Colonial Inn in St. Pete was too good for Leonard Koppett to dismiss for the New York Times.
Today, March 13, 1964, Koppett wrote an article about Gypsy Burton’s “tryout” with the New York Mets.
And so at least one wandering gypsy got their 15 seconds of fame.
Where is The Sports Time Traveler™ Going Next?
I’m hanging out in St. Pete in 1964 a little while longer here at Mets spring training, but then I have a busy travel schedule coming up.
Here’s the stories I will be following for you in the coming weeks:
1924 - Walter Johnson starts his 18th and possibly final baseball season
1954 - Roger Bannister attempts to break 4 minutes for the mile
1964 - NBA Playoffs featuring Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell
1964 - The opening of Shea Stadium in New York
1964 - Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player at the Masters
1974 - UCLA and N.C. State in the Final Four
1974 - Dr. J and the New York Nets in the ABA Playoffs
1974 - Hank Aaron begins the baseball season 1 HR behind Babe Ruth
I will only post stories when there is something so exciting, so compelling that I just have to share it with you.
Thanks for reading!
And please share The Sports Time Traveler™.
1964 - Anybody Can Be On The Mets For One Night