CAMARADERIE.(The Talk of the Town)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 26-JUL-04

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Ralph Kiner, the Hall of Fame ballplayer who has been a Mets broadcaster for four decades, showed up at Shea Stadium early the other day for one of the interleague games against the Yankees. He stopped in at his usual center of operations--the Mets' broadcast area has been designated the Ralph Kiner Television Booth--but didn't stay long.

"I'm not going to work announcing this one, just visit some of the guys," he said. "I miss the camaraderie of the old days, the way it used to be."

Kiner is eighty-one years old, more than six feet tall, and sturdy-looking, with erect posture, a calm, courtly manner, and an earnest, sun-beaten face. He had on a burnt-orange sports jacket, a multicolored silk shirt,...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.