Tom Seaver

George Thomas Seaver (born November 17, 1944 in Fresno, California) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who broke into the major leagues in 1967 and retired in 1986. He played for four different teams in his career but was primarily associated with his first, the New York Mets. He won the National League Rookie of the Year Award and three Cy Young Awards as the league's best pitcher. Seaver is considered the greatest Mets player in their history, and one of the greatest starting pitchers in MLB history.

Nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "The Franchise," he had 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts and a 2.86 ERA in a 20-year career. In 1992 he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Early years

As a high school pitcher Seaver compensated for his lack of size and strength by developing great control on the mound, and despite being an All-City basketball player, he hoped to play baseball in college. After six months of active duty in the Marine Corps Reserves, he enrolled at Fresno City College much stronger and with greater velocity, but still with the same fine control of his pitches. The next year, he was recruited to pitch for the University of Southern California. In 1966 he signed a contract with the Atlanta Braves, who had drafted him; but the contract was voided because of the rules of the NCAA and by Baseball Commissioner William Eckert, and the Mets were awarded his signing rights in a lottery drawing among those teams willing to match the Braves' terms.

Rookie of the Year

Seaver spent one season with the Jacksonville Suns of the Southern League, then joined New York in 1967. He won 16 games for the last place Mets, with 18 complete games and two shutouts, and was named the National League Rookie of the Year. In 1968 he won 16 games again, and recorded over 200 strikeouts for the first of nine consecutive seasons; but the Mets moved up only one spot in the standings.

The Amazin' Mets

In 1969, Seaver and the Mets completed a truly remarkable season, coming from nowhere to win their first World Series championship. Seaver won a league-high 25 games and his first National League Cy Young Award.

On Wednesday July 9, before a roaring crowd of over 50,000 at New York's Shea Stadium, Seaver was perfect against the division-leading Chicago Cubs; that is, until unsung rookie outfielder Jimmy Qualls lined a clean single to left field with one out in the ninth inning, after the previous 25 Cubs had failed to reach base. Seaver retired the next two batters to complete the 4-0 shutout.

At year's end, he was presented with both the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award.

On April 22, 1970, the day he received his Cy Young Award, Seaver set a modern major league record by striking out (the final) 10 consecutive San Diego Padres at Shea Stadium. He finished the game with 19 strikeouts to tie Steve Carlton's major league record for a nine-inning game. (That record was later eclipsed by Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens, who each struck out 20 batters in a nine-inning game. Clemens did it twice.)

To this day, Seaver is the player most associated with Mets glory (the only player enshrined in the Hall of Fame with a Mets cap on his plaque) and is the baseball hero to many fans who grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Bye bye Big Apple

Seaver had three more twenty-win seasons (20 in 1971, 21 in 1972, and 22 in 1975) and two more Cy Young Awards (1973 and 1975) with the Mets. By 1977, the free agency period had begun and contract negotiations between Mets ownership and Seaver were not going well. In what has been dubbed the Midnight Massacre, Mets GM M. Donald Grant sent him to the Cincinnati Reds on June 15, 1977 for Pat Zachry, Steve Henderson, Doug Flynn, and Dan Norman. He finished the 1977 season with 21 wins by going 14-3 with Cincinnati, including a 5-1 win over the Mets in his return to Shea Stadium. The following season, after throwing five one-hitters for New York, Seaver recorded a 4-0 no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 16, 1978 at Riverfront Stadium.

You can go home again

After the 1982 season, Seaver was traded back to the Mets, and on April 5, 1983, he tied Walter Johnson's major league record of 14 Opening Day starts, shutting out the Philadelphia Phillies 2-0. (He made two more with the Chicago White Sox in 1985 and 1986 for a record total of 16 opening day assignments.)

300 wins

Seaver and the Mets were stunned on January 20, 1984 when he was claimed in a free-agent replacement draft by the Chicago White Sox. The team (especially GM Frank Cashen) had assumed incorrectly that no one would pursue a 39-year-old starting pitcher and left him off the protected list. Seaver pitched two and a half seasons in Chicago, crafting his last shutout on July 19, 1985 against the visiting Indians. He won his 300th game in New York against the Yankees on August 4, 1985 (ironically on Phil Rizzuto Day as Rizzuto would later become Seaver's broadcast partner on Yankee games). He ended his career with the Boston Red Sox, coming over in a midseason trade for Steve Lyons. His 311th and last win came on August 18, 1986 against the Minnesota Twins. An ankle injury prevented him from appearing against the Mets in the World Series but Seaver received among the loudest ovations during player introductions prior to Game 1. The Red Sox released him following the 1986 season. Seaver briefly tried to make a comeback with the Mets in 1987 but retired after two weeks of working out.

Hall of Fame

Seaver was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on January 7, 1992 by receiving votes from 98.84% of the selection committee, the highest percentage ever (Ty Cobb had the 2nd highest).

Seaver was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in 2006.

In 1999, he ranked number 32 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players', the only player to have spent a majority of his career with the Mets to make the list. That year, he was also a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Since retirement, Seaver has been a television color commentator for the New York Yankees, NBC Sports (where he along with Vin Scully formed the #1 baseball announcing team in 1989) and the Mets, a part-time scout, and a Spring training pitching coach.

Currently, he is living in California, where he tends to his vineyards.

External links

Baseball Hall of Fame
Tom Terrific Seaver
BaseballLibrary.com
Baseball Almanac
Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: A Boyhood Hero
Ultimate Mets Database - Tom Seaver as a New York Met
Ultimate Mets Database M. Donald Grant - more on the man behind the Midnight Massacre