WENTZVILLE, Mo. — OK, before we get too deep into Ron Hunt’s entertaining baseball life and his troubling current battle, the man has a request. A half-kidding, half-definitely-not condition, really, for doing this interview in the first place.
“Find out if anyone has a copy of the 1964 All-Star Game [telecast],” the local hero of that Midsummer Classic barked to The Post last week, here at his farm. “I’d love to see that.”
Can anyone out there fulfill this needle-in-a-haystack request? MLB Network and SNY already dug through their archives out of respect for Hunt’s contributions to the game and produced a few snippets for the former infielder (for the Mets and four other teams) and his family. Nothing approaching the full NBC broadcast, though.
Hunt keeps asking, because he doesn’t get fazed by disappointment. He keeps negotiating, like with this story, because he doesn’t yield control easily.
He keeps fighting because, well, that’s the way he’s wired. For that mentality, that full-contact approach to his long-ago job and to everything in his life, he reaps the considerable benefits … and pays a heavy price.
The 77-year-old retired, in 1974, as the modern-day major league leader in getting hit by a pitch, taking one for the team 243 times over his 12 seasons. That physicality, which included plenty of other collisions and mishaps and led to 16 baseball-related surgeries, made him a fan favorite, particularly among New Yorkers who adopted the lovably inept Metsies as their new favorites in the early to mid-1960s.
And now, Hunt could use your support again. He is coping with Parkinson’s disease, the well-known, incurable neurodegenerative disorder that, new studies show, very well may have resulted from the damage Hunt incurred during his career.
“I can tell you, considering what he did for a living and looking at him now, it’s really hard to stomach. It really is,” said Tracy Hunt, Ron’s daughter. “Because he’s a shell of the man that he once was.”
“I don’t know what I’ve got,” Ron Hunt said. “My memory’s shot. I get the shakes in this [left] hand. I go to rehab. They talk to me, but they don’t do anything.”
His physical therapists shouldn’t take the criticism personally. Hunt lives to quibble, to challenge, to stir up trouble, even. Is it any wonder the St. Louis native felt so comfortable in the Big Apple way back when?
That bond feels all the more right when you work past Hunt’s gruff exterior and find the loyalty, love and sense of duty that saddens you all the more about his current plight.
It bears repeating, just to digest it once again: Two hundred forty-three times, Ron Hunt advanced to first base after getting hit by a pitch. He still holds the modern (post-1900) single-season record of 50 HBPs in 1971 with the Expos. He got hit by more than 20 pitches per season, on average. Compare that to the three players who eventually surpassed him on the all-time list: Hall of Famer Craig Biggio (285 over 20 seasons, a yearly average of 14-plus), the late Don Baylor (267 over 19 seasons, just over 14 per annum) and former catcher Jason Kendall (254 over 15 seasons, nearly 17 per year).
Hunt retained and retrieved enough memorabilia from his playing days to fill a small museum — hence his interest in tracking down more 1964 All-Star Game footage — and many of the baseballs that took their best shot at him now reside at his home, occupying one room in his main house. You can see HBP No. 243, courtesy of Cubs right-hander Tom Dettore as Hunt’s Cardinals trailed, 13-3, on Sept. 21, 1974, at the second Busch Stadium.
“They didn’t give a [expletive] as long as I went to first base and turned left,” said Hunt, who would be a first-ballot Profanity Hall of Fame inductee if such a place existed. “Make too many rights, I went home.”
A football and baseball player at Ritenour High School in St. Louis, Hunt signed with the Milwaukee Braves and spent four years in the minor leagues before the Mets, in the wake of their inaugural 40-120 season, purchased him in October 1962 and subsequently put him on their big-league squad. Even as the Mets stank only a little less in 1963, going 51-111, Hunt, at age 22, earned notice by posting a respectable .272/.334/.396 slash line; he led the team with 13 HBPs.
Even though his highest HBP tallies came after he left the Mets, Hunt paced the team in this category for all four of his seasons in New York (he tied Joe Christopher for the team high of six in 1965, although Hunt played in 57 games and Christopher 148), and he learned the gambit’s value.
“I found out I could get hit by the ball, so I worked on it in front of a mirror,” he said. “I’d give, I’d give, give, give, and if it broke over the plate, I’d foul it off. I got hit (on) a lot of 3-and-1 pitches. The pitchers said if I got to 3-and-1, they might as well hit me, because I could foul balls off.”
Jackie Hunt, Ron’s wife of 57 years and the family’s de facto historian, said Ron’s physical problems began when he suffered an indeterminate number of concussions while playing high school football. Four more concussions came during his major league career, Jackie Hunt said.
One arrived courtesy of a Tom Seaver pitch to Hunt’s head after Hunt left the Mets. When? It would be easier to nail down the date if Seaver hadn’t drilled Hunt a total of five times. Years later, at a Shea Stadium Old-Timers’ Game, when Seaver grabbed a bat, Hunt volunteered to climb on the mound and pitch to him.
“I’m not letting you pitch to me. You’ll hit me,” Seaver said, according to Ron Hunt.
“You bet your sweet ass I will,” Hunt responded, laughing.
While not all of Hunt’s major injuries happened from getting hit by a pitch — and it would be a Herculean task to figure out how many pitches hit him in the head — the through line of hard play stands out. On May 11, 1965, at Shea, Hunt collided with the Cardinals’ Phil Gagliano as he fielded a grounder at his second-base position and missed nearly three months recovering from damage to his head as well as a shoulder.
On Aug. 6, 1969, at Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium, while with the Giants, Hunt scored from first base on a Willie Mays double. As he slid into home plate, he got nailed in the head by Phillies infielder Cookie Rojas’ attempted relay throw. He stayed overnight in Philadelphia for observation as the rest of the Giants returned home, and even after returning to San Francisco, “His head was swollen enough to fit a third eye,” Jackie Hunt said. Hunt pinch-hit in a game on Aug. 9 and rejoined the starting lineup the following day.
When Shea Stadium held its closing ceremony on the last day of the 2008 season, the Mets transported many of their dignitaries from their hotel to the ballpark via bus. Ron and Jackie Hunt sat next to former Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman, who joined the team two years after Ron Hunt left the club.
“I would have much rather played with you than against you,” Koosman told Hunt.
“He was as tough-nosed as they come,” Koosman, who confirmed the conversation, said Thursday in a telephone interview. “He took a lot of pitches in the ribs and his body throughout his career to try to win ballgames.”
Fitting for a player who drew acclaim for his heart and commitment, Hunt’s heart revealed the first sign of trouble. After he underwent a valve replacement procedure a few years ago, his cardiologist, Dr. Sam Bishara, notified the family that he saw early signs of Parkinson’s. He theorized, according to Jackie Hunt, that the condition could have resulted from the injuries Hunt suffered as an athlete.
“If we’re looking specifically at head injuries in athletes, the data is showing that, per year [of playing], there’s a 20 to 30 percent increased risk overall [of getting Parkinson’s],” Dr. Alexander Shtilbans, an assistant professor of neurology at Weill Cornell Hospital who practices at the Hospital for Special Surgery, said in a telephone interview.
A study in the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology, published this past July, concluded, “[A] history of head trauma that results in concussion is associated with a higher risk of developing PD.”
Another study in April, focusing more on military service — a Veterans Health Administration database served as the study group — concluded those with a mild traumatic brain injury had a 56 percent increased risk for Parkinson’s. Dr. Raquel C. Gardner, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, told the New York Times, “This study provides the most definitive evidence that there is this association.”
In addition to the tremors in his left hand — that’s his writing hand, so signing autographs has become a major chore — Hunt has balance issues, as he can’t turn easily to his right. He needs help getting dressed in the morning.
“His muscle tone has decreased so much, and I think that he’s questioning what’s going on with his body,” Tracy Hunt said.
It begs the question: Does Hunt regret the way he played the game? Is he mad at baseball the same way many pro football players resent their profession for the physical toll it has caused them?
“Hell no,” Hunt declared. “I’m still married.”
Yeah, above all, Ron Hunt is a true character of the game and of life. He is a wise guy and a drill sergeant, an unapologetic old-schooler who states with pride, “I don’t do any of that internet [expletive]” and who refers to any ballplayer who used drugs — whether it’s cocaine, steroids or anything else — as “a pothead.”
“I watch until they don’t run the ball out,” he said of modern baseball. “Like that shortstop with LA [Manny Machado]. He hit the ball out, he didn’t run to first base. They should’ve benched his ass.”
His career carried a Zelig-like quality. Thanks to his four team changes, he interacted with an array of famous names: his first big-league manager, Casey Stengel; Duke Snider, his teammate and mentor on those 1963 Mets; Warren Spahn, a 1965 Met; Mays; the recently deceased Willie McCovey, whom Hunt calls one of his favorite teammates; Bob Gibson; Players Association heavyweight Marvin Miller; Keith Hernandez, who made his big-league debut with the Cardinals just as Hunt was finishing up on the same roster.
Yet with a few exceptions — Mets coach Solly Hemus, who died last year, and beloved Expos broadcaster Jacques Doucet rank as two — Hunt’s longest-lasting relationships have been with civilians he met along the way. That counts especially for New York.
“New York was our beginning,” Hunt said, “and they took care of us off the field.”
“The way the fans treated him, it was like a fairy-tale story,” Jackie Hunt said.
Ron’s wife accurately remembered that in his home debut as a big leaguer, on April 19, 1963, Ron delivered a walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth inning, a one-out, two-run double that scored Jim Hickman and Choo-Choo Coleman from second and third for the 5-4 victory, the Mets’ first win of their second season after an 0-8 start.
“It was just like a World Series,” Jackie Hunt said. “They carried him around on their shoulders. Mrs. [Joan] Payson [the Mets’ owner] sent me two dozen red roses. Things were just clicking right along.”
That ’64 All-Star Game is so vital to the Hunt canon because he became the first Met to start a Midsummer Classic — and because the game took place at Shea.
“Oh, gosh,” Jackie Hunt said, smiling. “The crowd was there for him.” Hunt rewarded them with a single off the Angels’ Dean Chance in his first at-bat.
One of Jackie and Ron’s favorite New York stories involves them moving into a brand-new apartment building in Queens’ Maspeth neighborhood, a building for which the owner targeted “professionals.” Among the “professionals” who became the Hunts’ co-tenants were a bank robber who babysat Tracy Hunt before the FBI caught up with him, and a prostitute.
While they lost touch with that duo, they maintain their connections with other neighbors, dentists and fringe folks around the Mets’ world. And their New York network has expanded, picking up people along the way. This past year, the Hunts, including son Ron Jr., flew in for Opening Day at Citi Field, where they sat in the freezing cold for a few innings, and Ron handed out some autographed photos and posed for others. Yet their highlight came the previous night, when they entertained old friends at a sports bar on Long Island.
“I thought I was going to be a Met all my life,” Ron Hunt said. “But they screwed me.” After the November 1966 trade from the Mets to the Dodgers, Ron told Jackie, “We’re going to play for the fans and the money, and the hell with the owners.”
Making and sustaining those connections with fans and other interested folks clearly fuels Hunt. I wrote a couple of stories on him in 2009, concerning the acquisition of his Shea Stadium souvenir seats, and he stays in touch relentlessly. He’ll usually call wishing me a good holiday (which one depending on the time of year, naturally) and he’ll cap it with, “Tell anyone who gives a [expletive] that I said hi,” before hanging up.
When a Post videographer and St. Louis-based freelance photographer joined me last week for this interview, Hunt took a sincere interest in the two gentlemen new to him, urging them to stay in touch.
This story didn’t emanate from Hunt wanting to get the word out about his condition. Rather, he alerted me a few months ago to his updated condition because that’s what he does. I told him I thought the fans of his generation would want to know about his battle and offer good thoughts and wishes of strength. And because Hunt has little to hide, here we were.
The Hunts purchased their 110-acre farm, which they called Whispering Pines, in 1964 and moved there for good in 1968. When Ron’s playing career ended, they returned here, about 40 miles west of St. Louis, full time.
They raised cattle on the farm and launched a sporting goods store nearby that Jackie’s parents ran. They invested in local real estate. Ron gave back to baseball in 1987, when he formed the Eagles, a baseball team of teenagers that would stay on the property and learn personally from the former big leaguer for a week at a time.
While most of those endeavors have ended, Ron still rises at dawn most mornings to feed his cattle, which he sells to a local merchant.
“I want him to do that because it’s something that gets him up in the morning,” Jackie Hunt said. “He has to do something.”
His condition prevents him from accepting the autograph-show invitations that still arrive.
“I’m a little rough,” Hunt conceded of his situation.
Tracy Hunt lives nearby and checks on her parents virtually every day. Ron Jr. comes up often from Lamar, 4½ hours southwest, to help run the farm.
“It’s hard for him, and I think he’s so used to being able to do everything,” Tracy Hunt said of her father. “He’s very independent.”
“People don’t die from this disease. They die with this disease,” Shtilbans said. “It doesn’t kill people. It progresses to the point where people cannot walk and it impacts their memory and speech.”
“He takes a medicine for it that’s supposed to put the dopamine back in your brain, but I don’t see much difference,” Jackie Hunt said. “I don’t know if it’s doing any good. But he can stay at this stage for a long time. Years.”
So the Hunts will keep going. Keep living as enjoyable a life as possible. Ron and Jackie accompanied Ron Jr. and his wife, Kim, to Alaska this past summer; they rented an RV and put 3,000 miles on it exploring the state. They’re planning another trip to New York for the Mets’ 2019 home opener.
I asked Hunt, whom I’ve known well for nearly a decade, if he wanted old-time Mets fans — old-time baseball fans of all loyalties — to pray for him.
“No,” he responded. “Just tell them I said hi. I don’t know them. They don’t know me personally. Just tell them I said hi. I’ll never forget you.”
Then he turned to me and added, “Just like your old ass.”
And if you can find him that 1964 All-Star Game footage? You can join the “Friends of Ron Hunt” circle, ever-expanding, not about to be curtailed by this adversity. Parkinson’s won’t stop him from collecting more memorabilia, friends and creative put-downs in his full-bore dash through life.