330 GT Registry

So you're wondering whether the New York Mets went from ninth-place cars to first place cars in one season? Whether it's true that singles hitters drive compacts while home-run hitters drive Cadillacs? whether the Mets are as amazing on wheels this year as they were on their feet last year?

Take Gary Gentry, a 23 year-old pitcher from Arizona. After one season in the big leagues. he took his $18.337 prize money from the World Series and bought a Ferrari 330 GT. Brownish gold.

Tom Seaver, whose Porsche was stolen last April from in front of his house In Queens. in Greenwich, Conn., and a new Porsche.

Donn Clendenon, who hit three home runs in the Series, was voted the outstanding player of the big show and drove home to Atlanta in the trophy – a lavender Dodge Challenger.

The Consolation Prize

 AI Weis, who hit one home run In the Series, drove home to Chicago in the consolation prize – a Volkswagen with tiger stripes and his No. 6 painted on the drivers door.

And Jerry Koosman, who pitched two of the Mets' four victories over the Baltimore Orioles, is shopping for a Mark III Lincoln Continental for purring around those back roads near Morris, Minn.

So don't be surprised if the players' parking lot at Shea Stadium resembles the automobile show this summer. But then, the Mets have always had flair, even during the dim days when they were losing 120 games in a 162-game season.

Mrs. Joan W. Payson's Bentley would pull grandly up to the front door many days and would be parked alongside the Lincolns and Cadillacs of the- board of directors-and perhaps of a stray Jet football player or two.

But this summer, the one after men walked on the moon and the Mets climbed the mountain, the baubles will belong to the employees.

The Met style was probably set in 1962, when Casey Stengel arrived from California to take over the new team in town. His wife Edna remembered the otherwise foreboding occasion like this:

"We arrived in New York and were driven from the airport in a Rolls-Royce. Casey wondered about it, so I said to him: 'You're returning to baseball in New York, Casey. We might as well go first class.' "

Now the young men of the Mets are on top of me baseball world. and they feel that they all might as well go first class.

" I had a 912 Porsche last spring," Seaver said. "But after it was stolen, I bought a Buick Riviera in June. Then, after the series, we moved to Greenwich and needed a second car. So we got another Porsche, a 911 E"

Koosman, who was raised in Appleton, Minn., moved to Morris, which is even smaller. Before he became a Met, he used to drive tractors around the soybean farm, and in high school, a 1955 Ford. Then last year, as the Mets showed their class, he stepped up to a 1969 Pontiac Bonneville two-door hardtop.

A Friend at Dodge

"What I really want," he said. "is a pickup truck for hunting and fishing. I'll get it. too. But I'm also going to buy a 1970 or 1971 Lincoln Continental later this year."

Tommie Agee, who hit 26 home runs last year, treated himself to a 1969 Buick Electra while the Mets were climbing. Then. after the Series, he was given a 1970 Dodge Charger by a friend who runs the Ebbets Field Dodge agency in Brooklyn . All Agee has to do is drive it and occasionally show up to sign autographs; In return, he drives free.

AI Weis, known as the "mighty mite" of the Mets. describes his prize Volkswagen thus: "A white bug with special wheels, racing stripes, NO. 6 on the side and a fancy horn. The only suggestion they made was that I not sell it two weeks later."

Ed Kranepool probably reflects the Mets' fortunes better than anybody. As a 17 year-old senior at James Monroe High School in the Bronx. he signed with the Mets for an $85,000 bonus and Immediately bought a Thunderbird. At 22, he was driving a Lincoln Continental. Now he is 26 and rates the use of a Chrysler be cause he is the team's player representative.

But for those who forget that while Mets' road has not always been smooth, consider Lindsey Nelson, the television broadcaster. Last spring, when the Mets were a ninth place team. he appeared for spring training in a yellow Jaguar XKE roadster. He parked it at the Tampa Airport, where another car promptly backed into it. At the wheel of the other car sat Dick Tracewskl of the Detroit Tigers, whose career batting average was .232.

"To my certain knowledge," the voice of the Mets told Tracewski, "you haven't hit anything In a year. And it had to be me."