Ultimate Mets Database - Memories of Marv Throneberry

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Marv Throneberry
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Memories of
Marv Throneberry

Marv Throneberry
Ultimate Mets Database popularity ranking: 112 of 1252 players

Marvin Eugene Throneberry
Born: September 2, 1933 at Collierville, Tenn.
Died: June 23, 1994 at Fisherville, Tenn. Obituary
Throws: Left Bats: Left
Height: 6.01 Weight: 195

Marv Throneberry has been the most popular Ultimate Mets Database daily lookup 11 times, most recently on September 2, 2022.

First Mets game: May 11, 1962
Last Mets game: May 5, 1963

Share your memories of Marv Throneberry

HERE IS WHAT OTHER METS FANS HAVE TO SAY:

John
WOW! Cranberry, Strawberry, We Love Throneberry. I remember when he hit a shot off the wall in the Polo Grounds. He failed to touch 1st or 2nd base while hitting a triple and stopped a Mets rally. What a character in the field. Very entertaining. You had to love him.

David Mo
On July 7, 1962, my father took me to my first Mets game (a doubleheader—-remember them?—-vs. Cards). Marv Throneberry won the opener with a pinch homer in the bottom of the 9th. He also hit one out in the nightcap (which the Mets lost). Truly marvelous.

BOB E
December 15, 2000
I saw him open one year in the outfield for yankees

Ed B
April 4, 2001
Marv
Eugene
Throneberry
Obviously born to be a MET. Cheers for the marvelous one!!

Mike Tenenbaum
August 19, 2001
To elaborate on John's comment, Casey's immediate reaction was to argue the appeal play call at 2B. Just before Casey was about to cross the left side foul line, he was stopped in his tracks by third base coach Solly Hemus. "Don't bother, Case," said Hemus. "He didn't touch first either."
Only Marv could have something good develop into something bad. At the end of the season, Marv and Richie Ashburn (q.v.) were each awarded a Chris Craft cabin cruiser. Ashburn for being voted the Mets' MVP, while Marv's was for hitting the Chris Craft sign the most times while at bat.
What bad could have come from this? Ashburn's boat was, for tax purposes, a gift since it was awarded by a vote of the writers, thus tax free. Marv's was taxable since it was earned by hitting the sign with a batted ball. Marv's boat later sank for a total loss.

Mr. Sparkle
August 26, 2001
He was a symbol of the losingest team of all time and endeared himself and the team to so many fans. You gotta love having this guy as an original Met despite him once being a Yankee.
Also, I can't believe no one has mentioned the fact that he was the first ever athelete to appear on those great Miller Lite beer commercials. They were the best commercials of all time and Marvelous Marv srarted it all!

Rick
October 29, 2001
It was Sept. 1963 and my parents brought me to the Polo Grounds for my 13th b-day to see the Mets. Jay Hook got pasted by the Reds. Bob Purkey was having a big year for Cincy, but he couldn't get one past old "Marvelous Marv", who put it into the upper deck. I remeber 2 things vividly from that day. First was how small the Polo Grounds looked while riding acoss the bridge (I had only been to Yankee stadium prior to that). I kept thinking "I can't believe this place hold 55,000 fans" The second thing was how stunned I was after Marv hit his home run and came back to the dugout and took of his hat; he was bald!

Andy
November 30, 2001
"Saying Marv Throneberry plays first base for your club is like saying Willie Sutton works at your bank" - Jimmy Breslin from his book "Can't Anybody Here Play This Game."

rich edwards
March 16, 2002
In 1962 Marv Thronberry was a microcosm of the Mets. All the weirdest plays oddest occurrences seemed to involve him. The first time he started a game in the outfield for the Mets, the national anthem record wouldn't play. Then the game got rained out. Marv thought he might have been responsible. There was a stretch in late July-early August when Marv and Frank Thomas started hitting home runs in bunches and Met fans started referring to them as the T'n'T boys, trying to emulate the Yankees M & M boys. Then of course there is the famous triple. I think Marv was a victim of the Met environment. It affected everyone on the 62 Mets, except maybe Richie Ashburn.

straightjacketk
August 18, 2002
Perhaps I'm wrong here, but the story I heard about the triple goes something like this:
Throneberry stands on third, only to be called out for not touching second. When the Ol'Perfessor arrives to try and calm him down, Throneberry begs Casey to argue on his behalf.
"Casey, tell them I touched second," he says. "I would, but you didn't touch first either."

Robert
September 12, 2002
My version of the triple:
Casey gets ready to argue the call with the first base umpire when the second base umpire tells him he didn't touch second base either - Casey told him "Well I know he touched third 'cause he's standing right on it!".

Michael
November 10, 2002
I remember a TV interview with Marv Throneberry done over 20 years ago, and Throneberry expressed great bitterness about being labled "Marv Throneberry, the bumbling ballplayer." I believe he had some good years for other teams, and was once a top prospect for the Yankees. Sad the way his reputation turned out.

Tim
January 31, 2003
From Leonard Schecter's book "Once upon the Polo Grounds" The Mets that were.
After one of his typical horrible games, he had struck out like three times and made a crucial error in the ninth sending NY to another loss. It had started raining after the game and Marv just sat in front of his locker, the old clubhouse roof leaked. And the water drip, drip, dripped off of his bald head. Marv wouldn't move. He just sat there. He looked at Ashburn and said, "I deserve it." Ashburn's reply was "Yes. Yes, you do."

Anthony Reccoppa
April 1, 2003
I never saw Marv play, (I was born in 1970) but my father and uncle practically lived at the Polo Grounds in those early days, and told me that if he played first base as well as he dodged the beer cans thrown at him, he might have been an all-star. My dad said that as bad a fielder he was, he wasn't that bad a hitter. (16 homers for a BAD club) Funny how the 1962 Amazin's were one of the best hitting teams they had in their history (statistically).

Lance Manion
January 5, 2004
I remember one of my father's friends telling me that Throneberry wasn't paying attention in a game in 1962 and the catcher tried to pick the runner off at first hit him upside the head. Can anyone verify that that happened and that it was Marv Throneberry?

Andrew Smith
April 30, 2004
In my 2001 Major League Handbook, Marv is listed as a scout for the Atlanta Braves, even though he had been dead for 7 years. Kinda fitting.

Kiwiwriter
July 13, 2004
I remember him doing commercials as "Marvelous Marv" for Miller beer, and I also remember him becoming annoyed, as he got older, as being permanently identified as the symbol of Met ineptitude. He shouldn't have complained. The Mets enabled him to go a major league ballpark every day and get paid for doing a lousy job of showing up.
But if he didn't exist, it would have been necessary for Richie Ashburn, Casey Stengel, and the reporters covering the Mets to create him, like they did Butterball Botz.

Jonathan Stern
January 31, 2005
As a Generation Xer, my only memory of Marvelous Marv were those late 1970's Miller Lite commercials. His recurring lines were "I knew this was a bad idea" and "I still don't know why I'm in these commercials." I was just a kid when I saw those ads. At first, I did not know who he was. When I found out, it may have been my initiation into the wonderfully perverse world of Brilliance through Incompetence. Although it helped make me a Mets fan in the late 1980's (among other things), these days, I have very mixed feelings about being attracted to losers.
In the early days, the Mets needed something - anything - to bring the fans to the Polo Grounds. With almost nothing else, they had Marv. If he resented it, I understand completely. I know I would have hated it if I were him. I hope he died understanding that beneath the jeers that linger to this day was genuine affection, not to mention extreme gratitude. Were it not for people like Marvin Eugene Throneberry, the Mets might have folded after its inaugural year.

Jonathan Stern
July 5, 2005
I'm a Mets fan, this is a Mets fansite. So it pains me a little to point out something about Throneberry that is almost never mentioned. As a member of the 1958 Yankees, he won a World Series ring. He even made an appearance in that year's Fall Classic. Not a bad thing to have on your resume, to say the least.

Tom L
November 10, 2005
I remember a story being retold numerous times by Kiner, of a post game birthday celebration for someone, where Marv was grumbling about not having a piece of birthday cake saved for him. Casey gets tired of his bellyaching about it, and strolls over, bends down by the ear of his not so sure-handed first baseman and screams, "We wuz gonna save you a piece, Marv, but we wuz afraid you'd drop it!"

Bonbolito
December 18, 2005
The story I love about him besides the "VRAM" shirts was the time that a party was being thrown in his honor and he couldn't get in so he went home.

Al
February 24, 2006
I actually have the game where he hit the famous "almost triple" on audio tape. There's a company that sells the original broadcasts and I probably have 10-15 games of the 1962 team. Great memories!

Andrea
March 2, 2007
No matter what they say about Marvelous Marv, he was one of the best grandfathers that a girl could have!!

Chuck Felice
August 18, 2011
After Ashburn retired he used to write a sports column in the Philadelphia Bulletin. One story was about the lovable 62 Mets and Marvelous Marv. Apparently Marv could hit the cover off a fast ball but had trouble with breaking stuff so pitchers wouldn't throw him many fastballs. In one game, with men on 1st and 3rd and Marv at the plate, Casey calls for a double steal. When the guy on 1st breaks for 2nd the catcher threw to 2nd and the guy on 3rd breaks for home. When the guy at 2nd throws to get the runner at the plate Marvelous Marv hit it - runner out at the plate - interference. Casey went ballistic, screaming at Marv, what the hell did you that for? Marv says "I ain't seen a straight one in a month and I wasn't gonna let it go by." Do any of you Met fans recall this? Ashburn did write it.

jody throneberry
September 6, 2013
My dad had many stories escalated about him and his career. Some true, some not. He was not bitter by any means about how people perceived him. He had a very large fan base for which we receive letters still to this day. He has a World Series ring as mentioned above and three years before that he lead the Bears to the championship. Casey and Billy saw something in my dad and obviously enjoyed having him around.
He must have been special to have over 5000 fans wear shirts with (vram) on them. He truly loved his fans. I have watched him sit around hours on end and read fan mail and sign and return them to his fans.
In the last days of his life when suffering from terminal cancer he would make it a point to sign as many cards as he could and have them mailed back out. That is the Marvelous Marv we all knew and loved.

Ed K
April 13, 2021
Marv’s greatest moment may have been when coach Solly Hemus got thrown out of a game. Casey yells for someone to coach 1B and Richie Ashburn shoves Marv out there. The fans go wild. In the 9th with the Mets losing 4-2, Marv comes off the coaching line to hit a walk-off three-run homer. He also hit another walk-off homer in 1962.
Marv only played 1B in 1962. In early 1963, he did play one game in the OF but the game was rained out after three inning and so the record of it was cancelled. He was sent to Buffalo (AAA) a short time later never to return to the majors.
We should mention that Marv’s walk-off home run (on 8/21/62) beat the Pirates and broke a 13-game losing streak - which (believe it or not) was not the Mets worst losing streak of 1962.

NYB Buff
June 25, 2024
A total of sixteen baseball cards are shown during the opening music in the video for John Fogerty's "Centerfield" song. Marv's 1959 Topps card is among them. Fourteen of the other fifteen cards in that intro are those of Hall of Famers, with the highly-productive Rocky Colavito being the only exception. In connection with one of baseball's most popular tunes, the man known as "Marvelous Marv" found his way into some marvelous company!