"Let's play two"--from Ed Kranepool? (1969)

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(ADS-L ARCHIVES, SEPTEMBER 2004)
(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
Sun  Thursday, October 12,  1972 Lowell, Massachusetts
...It's a great day for baseball. LET'S PLAY TWO."  Best-Looking Ushers the
Hot.....games are featured on television with PLAY-backs  of the interesting
incidents..
Pg. 41(?), col. 4:
By SCOTT  STEWART
Copley News Service
(...)(Col. 6--ed.)
Worst Quote of  Year--Chicago's Ernie Banks: "It's a great day for baseball.
Let's play  two."

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Fred Shapiro is finishing his quotations book. I don't know what he has,  but
Newspaperarchive added some more Chicago newspapers. I took another look at
"Let's play two," leaving out "let's."
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I don't know why it was the "worst quote" of 1972. It appears in 1969.
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Did Ed Kranepool of the New York Mets originate it, "paraphrasing" Ernie
Banks?



 21 June 1969, THE SPORTING NEWS, pg. 7, cols. 1-3:
_Do-It-All Banks Powering_
_Cubs Along Victory Route_
(This is a great Ernie Banks article, going to great lengths to describe  his
wonderful attitude toward the game, but the quote is NOT here!--ed.)
...
...
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THE VALLEY INDEPENDENT (Monessen, PA)
23 June 1969, pg. 6, col. 1:
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Kranepool listened to Yogi Berra and said:
...
"We play the Cubs the last (Col. 2--ed.) two days of the season in Chicago.
You know how Ernie Banks is, always happy and so enthusiastic. He always says
'it's a wonderful day, a great day to play two.' Well, I'd love to go into
Chicago those last two days with a three-game lead. I'd wait until Banks came
out of the dugout and I'd say to him, 'wonderful day, Ernie. Great day to play
 two.'"