ner played for some woeful Pirate teams in the late 40's and early 50's yet he was still able to lead the league in homers seven times. I believe when he retired he was around 5th all time in career homers. Because home run records have been obliterated (insert PED joke here), Kiner's accomplishment's get lost in the statistical mix. A back injury forced him to retire at age 32, otherwise he may have approached 500 homers.
Obviously known more to the last few generations as the voice of the Mets (and who didn't like Kiner's Korner!), he was a tremendous player. More importantly, by all accounts a true gentleman to those who knew him....RIP Mr. Kiner!Before he became one of the original Mets announcers in 1962, he was a pretty dam good player for the Pirates hitting 369 career home runs
-- Modified on 2/7/2014 11:11:18 PM
ner played for some woeful Pirate teams in the late 40's and early 50's yet he was still able to lead the league in homers seven times. I believe when he retired he was around 5th all time in career homers. Because home run records have been obliterated (insert PED joke here), Kiner's accomplishment's get lost in the statistical mix. A back injury forced him to retire at age 32, otherwise he may have approached 500 homers.
Obviously known more to the last few generations as the voice of the Mets (and who didn't like Kiner's Korner!), he was a tremendous player.
More importantly, by all accounts a true gentleman to those who knew him....RIP Mr. Kiner!
Kiner played for some woeful Pirate teams in the late 40's and early 50's yet he was still able to lead the league in homers seven times. I believe when he retired he was around 5th all time in career homers. Because home run records have been obliterated (insert PED joke here), Kiner's accomplishment's get lost in the statistical mix. A back injury forced him to retire at age 32, otherwise he may have approached 500 homers.
Obviously known more to the last few generations as the voice of the Mets (and who didn't like Kiner's Korner!), he was a tremendous player.
More importantly, by all accounts a true gentleman to those who knew him....RIP Mr. Kiner!