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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. Nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "The
Franchise", Seaver had 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts and a 2.86 ERA during
a 20-year career. In 1992 he was inducted into the National Baseball
Hall of Fame.
He won the National League Rookie of the
Year Award and three Cy Young Awards as the league's best pitcher. As
the Mets' all-time leader in wins, Seaver is considered the greatest
player in club history, as well as one of the best MLB starting pitchers
of all time.
****
Personal Info
Birth November 17, 1944, Fresno, California
Professional Career
Debut April 13, 1967, New York Mets vs.
Pittsburgh Pirates, Shea Stadium
Team(s) Jacksonville Suns (1966) New York
Mets (1967-1977, 1983)
Cincinnati Reds (1977-1982)
Chicago White Sox (1984)-(1986)
Boston Red Sox (1986)
HOF induction: 1992
Career Highlights
All Star Games: 12
Cy Young Award: 1969, 1973, 1975
Led league in ERA: 1970 (2.82), 1971 (1.76)
& 1973 (2.08)
Led league in wins: 1969 (25), 1975 (22),
1981 (14)
Led league in strikeouts: 1970 (283), 1971
(289), 1973 (251), 1975 (243) & 1976 (235).
Career strikeouts: 3640
Career record: 311-205
****
Early development
As a high school pitcher, Seaver
compensated for his lack of size and strength by developing great
control on the mound. 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, Seaver enrolled at Fresno City College. He
was much stronger and threw with greater velocity, but still had 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. However, the contract was voided by
Baseball Commissioner William Eckert because of the rules of the NCAA.
The Mets were subsequently awarded his signing rights in a lottery
drawing among the three teams (Philadelphia and Cleveland being the two
others) that were 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, to ninth.
The "Miracle Mets" season
In 1969, Seaver and the Mets completed a
remarkable season, coming from the depths of the National League to win
their first World Series championship. Seaver won a league-high 25 games
and his first National League Cy Young Award.
On July 9, before a crowd of over 59,000 at
New York's Shea Stadium, Seaver threw 8 1/3 perfect innings against the
division-leading Chicago Cubs. Then, rookie backup outfielder Jimmy
Qualls lined a clean single to left field, breaking up Seaver's perfect
game. He retired the next two batters to complete the 4-0 one-hit
shutout.
At year's end, Seaver 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.
Continued excellence
On April 22, 1970, Seaver set a modern
major league record by striking out the final 10 San Diego Padres
batters of the game. In addition to his 10 consecutive strikeouts,
Seaver finished the game with 19 strikeouts, tying Steve Carlton's major
league record for a nine-inning game. (The record was later eclipsed by
20-strikeout games by Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson, and twice by Roger
Clemens.)
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. He was the runner-up for the award in
1971. Between 1970 and 1976, Seaver led the National League in
strikeouts six of the seven seasons, finishing third in 1975. Seaver
also won three ERA titles as a Met.
Bye-bye, Big Apple
By 1977, the free agency period had begun
and contract negotiations between Mets ownership and Seaver were not
going well. Longtime New York Daily News columnist Dick Young regularly
wrote negative columns about Seaver's "greedy" demands.
In what New York's sports reporters dubbed
"the Midnight Massacre", Mets General Manager M. Donald Grant sent Tom
Seaver 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 an emotional 5-1 win
over the Mets in his return to Shea Stadium. Seaver struck out 11 in the
return, and also hit a double.
His departure from New York sparked a
massive fan revolt. Attendance plummeted, and Shea Stadium earned the
nickname, Grant's Tomb.
After having thrown five one-hitters for
New York, including three that were broken up in the 9th inning, Seaver
finally recorded a 4-0 no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals on June
16, 1978 at Riverfront Stadium.
Seaver was 75-46 during his time in
Cincinnati. He was a close runner-up for the 1981 Cy Young Award, and
was voted 3rd and 4th in two other seasons.
Return to New York
After the 1982 season on December 16, 1982,
Seaver was traded back to the Mets, for Charlie Puleo, Lloyd McClendon,
and Jason Felice. 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 such starts with the Chicago White Sox
in 1985 and 1986 for a record total of 16 opening day assignments.)
There wouldn't be many more highlights for Seaver that year, though he
pitched better for the 1983 Mets than his 9-14 record indicated.
300 wins
Seaver and the Mets were stunned on January
20, 1984 when he was claimed in a free-agent compensation draft by the
Chicago White Sox. The team (especially GM Frank Cashen) had incorrectly
assumed that no one would pursue a high-salaried, 39-year-old starting
pitcher, and left him off the protected list. Faced with either
reporting to the White Sox or retiring, Seaver chose the former.
Seaver pitched two and a half seasons in
Chicago, crafting his last shutout on July 19, 1985 against the visiting
Indians. In an anomaly, Seaver won two games on May 9, 1984. Seaver
pitched the 25th and final inning of a game suspended the day before,
picking up the win in relief, before starting and winning the day's
regular-scheduled game.
On August 4, 1985, Seaver won his 300th
game at New York against the Yankees. (Coincidentally, it was Phil
Rizzuto Day — Rizzuto would later become Seaver's broadcast partner for
Yankee games). He almost returned to the Mets down the stretch, as Frank
Cashen was poised to make a trade, but manager Davey Johnson vetoed the
idea. He ended his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1986, traded at
mid-season for Steve Lyons. His 311th and last win came on August 18,
1986 against the Minnesota Twins.
A knee 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 when their pitching staff was decimated
by injuries, but retired after being shelled in an exhibition start
against the Mets' Triple-A affiliate, the Tidewater Tides, saying, "I've
used up all the competitive pitches in my arm". The Mets retired his
uniform number 41 in 1988.
Hall of Fame
Seaver was elected to the Baseball Hall of
Fame on January 7, 1992. He received the highest-ever percentage of
voteswith 425 of 430 ballots (98.84%), surpassing Ty Cobb's 98.23%, and
falling just five votes short of an unanimous selection. Seaver is the
only player enshrined in the Hall of Fame with a Mets cap on his plaque.
Seaver was inducted into the New York Mets
Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in 2006.
In 1999, Seaver ranked 32nd 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. Baseball purists often compare him to Christy Matthewson for his
combination of raw power, pinpoint control, and, perhaps most of all,
his intense scrutiny of his own performance, as well as that of his
opponents. While other pitchers may be renowned for having more
strikeouts or wins, few pitched with such perfection as did Seaver. His
best season probably came in 1971, a year in which he struck out 289
batters in 286 innings, won 20 games while losing just 10, and posting
an ERA of 1.76. The Cy Young Award went to Ferguson Jenkins that year,
more for being a sentimental favorite than for having had a better year.
Describing Seaver's skill, Reggie Jackson once said: "Blind people come
to the park just to listen to him pitch."
An excellent hitting pitcher, Seaver hit 12
home runs during his career.
Since retirement, Seaver has sometimes been
a television color commentator, working variously for the Mets, the New
York Yankees, and with Vin Scully in 1989 for NBC Sports. He has also
worked as a part-time scout, and as a Spring training pitching coach.
Currently, he lives in California, where he tends to his vineyards. The
first bottles of wine from the vineyards, a cabernet named Seaver, will
be available sometime in 2008. On September 28, 2006, Seaver was
revealed as the Hometown Hero for the New York Mets in an hour-long
telecast on ESPN.
See also: MLB on NBC
Trivia
One other player made his major league
debut on the same day as Seaver...Houston Astros outfielder Candy Harris
(April 13, 1967).
The family from the television show Growing
Pains, which lives on Long Island and are Mets fans, is called the
Seavers. The neighbors curiously were named - the Koosmans. Jerry
Koosman was a long time teammate of Seaver.
In 2006, Seaver was named the DHL Hometown
hero for the New York Mets
Only player to strikeout 10 batters in a
row
Only player to strikeout 200 batters in
nine consecutive seasons
About the 1969 "Miracle Mets", was quoted
as saying "If the Mets can win the World Series, the US can get out of
Vietnam."
Tom has a sister Katherine Seaver Jones who
has four children: Brian Jones (Bearing Point), Eric Jones (accredited
golf instructor), Sarah Whalen (housewife, shopper), and Polly Riley
(Teacher at Reno High School). Brian has two children: a 13 year old son
Nicholas Jones and a 10 year old daughter Christina Jones. Eric has a
daughter at the age of two by the name of Madison and has another
daughter on the way. Sarah has one son in Griffith Whalen who is a
junior at his high school in Sylvania (Toledo), Ohio. Polly has three
children: Shaye(10) who is a junior olympic swimmer, Peyton, and Devin.
****
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Date Article Copied:
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