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Cleon
From his small-town boyhood in the South to that glorious October afternoon in 1969 when he cut off Baltimore Oriole Dave Johnson's drive it end the World Series in triumph for the "Amazin'" Mets – here is the candid biography of Cleon Jones.
From Robert M. Lipsyte's New York Times review:
"In 1859, according to Cleon Jones, the war-like Dahomeyans of
West Africa overwhelmed the peaceable, farming Tarkars and
sold them into slavery. The Tarkars arrived in the last-known
shipload of slaves from Africa to the United States and were
shuffled among plantations and hidden in the forests north of
Mobile, Ala., to avoid seizure by Federal troops.
Their owner, Timothy Meagher, was tried for slave trading
but found not guilty, for lack of evidence. The Tarkars were eventually
settled in what is now Plateau, Ala., and Meagher grew old
complaining that he had lost $100,000, which prompts Cleonto write: “That just breaks me up, you know. I wonder how he would feel if he knew that part of his $100,000 wound up helping the New York Mets win a World Series.” The book is called “Cleon,” written with Ed Hershey of Newsday.
It never quite reaches such lofty heights of historical perspective again, but it
is interesting throughout … Cleon is a traditional sports biography:
The hero enumerates in the writer’s words and cadences, the
accidents and the people who made him what he is today. Such books, when they are as well-crafted and alertly intelligent as this one, are valuable additions to school libraries, appreciated gifts for youngsters and no chore for an adult sports fan to read.
Hershey has found a good mix. The sense of life in a semirural
ghetto is suggested; and there are some solid pages about
batting; the statistical appendix includes several of Jones’ wife’s
“soul food” recipes; and there are some aspersions cast on Wes
Westrum, a question of Gil Hodges’ “class” in embarrassing
Cleon by yanking him out of the Shea Stadium outfield; and
blissfully little of the coy inside dope that lets us know that Tom
Seaver was the Mets’ best bench jockey and adds, “You wouldn’t
believe some of the things that clean-cut All-American boy said
when there was about $20,000 a man on the line.”
From Robert M. Lipsyte's New York Times review:
"In 1859, according to Cleon Jones, the war-like Dahomeyans of
West Africa overwhelmed the peaceable, farming Tarkars and
sold them into slavery. The Tarkars arrived in the last-known
shipload of slaves from Africa to the United States and were
shuffled among plantations and hidden in the forests north of
Mobile, Ala., to avoid seizure by Federal troops.
Their owner, Timothy Meagher, was tried for slave trading
but found not guilty, for lack of evidence. The Tarkars were eventually
settled in what is now Plateau, Ala., and Meagher grew old
complaining that he had lost $100,000, which prompts Cleonto write: “That just breaks me up, you know. I wonder how he would feel if he knew that part of his $100,000 wound up helping the New York Mets win a World Series.” The book is called “Cleon,” written with Ed Hershey of Newsday.
It never quite reaches such lofty heights of historical perspective again, but it
is interesting throughout … Cleon is a traditional sports biography:
The hero enumerates in the writer’s words and cadences, the
accidents and the people who made him what he is today. Such books, when they are as well-crafted and alertly intelligent as this one, are valuable additions to school libraries, appreciated gifts for youngsters and no chore for an adult sports fan to read.
Hershey has found a good mix. The sense of life in a semirural
ghetto is suggested; and there are some solid pages about
batting; the statistical appendix includes several of Jones’ wife’s
“soul food” recipes; and there are some aspersions cast on Wes
Westrum, a question of Gil Hodges’ “class” in embarrassing
Cleon by yanking him out of the Shea Stadium outfield; and
blissfully little of the coy inside dope that lets us know that Tom
Seaver was the Mets’ best bench jockey and adds, “You wouldn’t
believe some of the things that clean-cut All-American boy said
when there was about $20,000 a man on the line.”
191 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1970
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