Suitors of Spring, The: The Solitary Art of Pitching, from Seaver to Sain to Dalkowski (Summer Game Books Baseball Classics) (13 page)

In one year Seaver’s fastball suddenly became explosive. Often, when USC’s baseball team scrimmaged the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seaver found himself pitching successfully against major league hitters when only two years before he had had difficulty retiring high school hitters. Major league teams were now besieging him with offers of up to $50,000 for his signature. He eventually signed with the Milwaukee Braves, who shortly thereafter lost him to the New York Mets because of a signing irregularity. “At the time,” says Seaver, “I was 21 years old and I didn’t understand the magnitude of what had happened to me.”

What had happened was that Seaver’s physical talent had finally gained pace with all those less tangible qualities he had been cultivating in his youth, and he had become as complete a pitcher as was possible for a man his age. He possessed superior speed, stamina, control, expertise and self-discipline, and unlike most young pitchers he would not have to spend valuable time developing them. In fact, he possessed them to such a degree that within one year of his signing he would win 16 games for the tenth place Mets; be voted to the National League All-Star team (to which he’s been selected every year he’s been in the majors); become the National League’s Rookie of the Year; and three years later earn the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the National League; and be generally acclaimed by baseball professionals as the greatest pitcher in the game today and quite possibly who ever lived.

“I appreciate my talent more than most,” says Seaver. “I appreciate the things it’s brought me. I had to put a lot of hard work into it. Some guys never know the gift they have.” And because his talent is more conscious creation than gift, because it is his by acquisition not inheritance, Seaver possesses it, rather than is possessed by it, as few athletes ever do. He has a greater understanding of what it is, its limits and strengths; of how he acquired it; of how he should retain it; and, most importantly, of how he should continue to refine it. And so, perhaps more than any athlete who ever lived, it is within his power to determine the level of greatness his talent will achieve.

On April 21, 1972, Tom Seaver defeated the Chicago Cubs 2–0 for his second scoreless victory in as many starts in a season that was barely a week old. His opponent was Burt Hooten, the rookie who had pitched a no-hit, no-run game only five days before. Against Seaver, Hooten was just short of brilliant. In seven innings he allowed the Mets three hits and struck out nine with his baffling knuckleball-curve. He issued five bases-on-balls, one of which was intentional. Hooten’s performance was worthy of high praise, for it had come on the heels of his no-hitter, with its attendant pressures for any 21-year-old rookie, and had come against Tom Seaver, the best pitcher in baseball. His performance could best be described as that superior effort which, when produced against Seaver, is sufficient to reward its producer with internal satisfaction and a graceful loss. Seaver had been better. He did not walk a man in nine innings. Seaver allowed the Cubs four singles and struck out nine. His performance, which did not stop short of brilliance, received less attention than did Hooten’s, however, since it is of the kind one expects from him these days. But it was even more astonishing than Hooten’s since it had come shortly after Gil Hodges’ death; after a prolonged strike during which Seaver was preoccupied as his team’s player representative; after a series of postponed games (due to bad weather) that had supposedly curtailed his throwing; and after an unpleasant spring training during which Seaver experienced the first sore arm of his career. Yet Seaver’s mid-season performance so early in a disruptive season was easily comprehensible to those who knew of the meticulousness with which he had prepared for it.

Two nights before, he had been scheduled to pitch against the Expos in Montreal. The game was rained out, and he was rescheduled to pitch against Hooton and the Cubs on the twenty-first. When the Mets returned to New York the night of April 19, most of the players went directly home from LaGuardia Airport. Seaver, however, got a ride on the team bus to Shea Stadium, which was deserted and in darkness. He went directly to the locker room, put on his uniform, filled a bucket with baseballs and began the long walk across the diamond to the right-field bullpen. He moved with a graceless, plodding plowman’s walk, his weight falling on his heels and his head listing to his right as if, with each ensuing step, it might collapse upon his shoulder. When Seaver reached the bullpen he stepped onto the warmup mound and began throwing baseball after baseball against the screen behind the plate. His throwing was illuminated only by the lights from the parking lot. He warmed up quickly but carefully in the mild night air. He was accompanied only by the sounds of his own exertion, and of baseballs plunking against the screen and dropping softly to the ground.

He threw with great effort. His speed and curve and control came slowly, and only after much grunting and cursing in the darkness. He threw with a tightly constricted motion that seemed small compared to the loose, spread-out deliveries of pitchers like Gibson and Koufax. Constricted, yet thoroughly planned, for Seaver has worked diligently to cut away “all the excess crap my motion does not need.” He has excised no vital parts, so his motion is a perfect compromise between flamboyance and deficiency. If it is not so esthetically pleasing as it could be; if it does not approach the grace of those gulls, still, it is mechanically perfect. And it is perfection, not grace, that Seaver seeks, since he long ago decided that alone was within his grasp. It is a powerful motion, and there is a point in it when Seaver seems to pause for the barest second before exploding toward the plate. He turns sideways, his left leg raised waist-high and bent, his glove and ball hand cupped close to his chest, his shoulders hunched about his ears. He seems to be withdrawing into himself, to be at that single moment in time and place where he and his talent come as close as they ever can to merging into one. He describes this pause as “that point when I pull myself together, mentally and physically, to put everything I have into the pitch.”

He needs that moment of intense concentration because—let it be stated once again—neither his delivery nor his pitches are a gift. They do not lie there, polished gems, waiting only to be dusted off for use. They are rough stones that must be painstakingly recut and repolished with every use. And since his success lies not in the overwhelming brilliance of any one gem (he does not have the greatest fastball, the greatest curve ball, the greatest control), but in the proper balance of a host of lesser ones, the recutting must be flawless. The slightest imperfection in one stone destroys the delicate balance of them all in a way that it never would to a more gifted pitcher.

To be a great pitcher, Seaver must be flawless in a way Sandy Koufax never had to be, and it was in the pursuit of perfection that Seaver felt he had to labor that April night in the dark Met bullpen. He threw until he reached the same level of effort and concentration he would have needed against the Expos in Montreal. He continued at this pace for a while and then went home. It was almost 10
p.m
. When asked why he put himself through such an inconvenience, he said, “It was my day to throw. I always throw on my day to throw.” Two days later, supplied with precisely the edge he both needed and had created, he beat Burt Hooton.

Because of such dedication to detail, it is conceivable that the only thing that could prevent Seaver from reaching the goal he has determined for himself is an event beyond his control—such as the arm injury he experienced this past spring in St. Petersburg, Fla. It was a particularly frustrating injury for Seaver for two reasons: It was the first sore arm of his career, and he could point to nothing as its cause. He had proceeded with his fifth spring training at the same pace he had proceeded with his previous four. “You have to control yourself during the first weeks,” he said, “so as not to get hurt.” When he felt the first sharp pain in his right shoulder, he was more than a little confused. For the first time in his life he was unable to do what he had devoted his life to. He spent long hours at Miller–Huggins Field in the batting cage along the right-field line, taking out his frustrations on the mechanical pitching machine known as Iron Mike. As Mike wound up to deliver a ball, Seaver would talk to himself, setting up hypothetical game situations such as “man on third—one out—fly ball scores him.” Mike delivers. Seaver swings. “Aaaaggghhh!” Pop fly. “God, if I could do that every time!” Mike winds up again. “Man on third—two outs—single scores him.” Mike delivers. Slash! Ground ball. “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

When not in the cage or running wind-sprints or fielding bunts, Seaver often approached the Mets’ team physician, Dr. Peter LaMotte. He would raise his right arm over his head, dig the fingers of his left hand into that point where his arm and shoulder and back met, and say in a high-pitched, almost whining voice, “What
is
that?” The doctor, a relaxed man who always looks as though he had just returned from the links, would begin a lengthy and clinical explanation of the bruised muscles. Seaver’s face would immediately cloud with that exasperated look it so often has when he has no interest in the turn of a conversation. He would listen a few seconds and then interrupt. “But I want . . . I want it to feel . . .” and his voice would trail off in frustration.

After a few days the shock of his injury wore off and Seaver’s voice lost its panicky tone. It became curt and passionless as he forced himself to approach the injury as he did all things relating to his talent—as an experience to be understood and absorbed for future use. His questions to the doctor became less pleas and more interrogations. “Which muscles are bruised? How did they get bruised? Will it get worse if I throw?” And finally, when it had healed and he had once again taken his place on the mound to pitch batting practice, he would be able to say: “I don’t know many parts of my arm, but I know these. The muscles are called the teres major. They healed only with rest. They were bruised because I began throwing too hard too soon. I hadn’t taken into consideration that I’m getting older. I can’t proceed during the spring at the same pace I did at 23, I have to expect my body to break down a little with each year. After all, I’ve pitched almost 1400 innings in five years. I can’t go on forever without a sore arm. I just have to be more careful in the future.”

Seaver was able to master the experience of his sore arm rather than have it overwhelm him because he has a quick reporter’s mind sensitive to experience. This sensitivity to experience and ability to learn from what it tells him about himself has made him the pitcher he is today. Like reporters, however, he is bound to experience. He seems disinclined to intuit without facts, without details, which is why he first had to experience a sore arm before he could adjust to its lesson. It is also why he seems so ill at ease with abstractions, which he describes as not attuned to “the real world I live in.” (“Innocence!” he laughs. “Whoever thinks about it? You either have it or you don’t.”)

Because this sensitivity has proved so valuable in perfecting his talent, Seaver is quite frugal with it. It is not to be wasted on meaningless abstractions. Instead, he is careful to bring it to bear only on experiences “in the real world,” and only on those experiences he has decided are of the first importance—
i.e
., the perfecting of his talent. (“I’m a very introspective guy,” he says. “I spent all winter trying to discover what happened to me at the end of 1970 when I finished so poorly. I decided I couldn’t pitch with only three days’ rest. That discovery made me feel like the genius of the month.”)

Seaver is less introspective about those experiences not relating to his talent. It is not that he places no value on them, but that he feels they exist complete within themselves, and to analyze them would only be a waste of energy that could quite possibly kill the pleasure he gets from them. Such experiences as watching the gulls, (“Aren’t they fascinating!”) are to be savored primarily as diversions that help fill the void between his bouts with his talent.

“I don’t have the stamina and mental concentration to live my life with the same intensity I do baseball,” says Tom Seaver. “I’m not a perfectionist in everything. For instance, a few years ago I built a wine cellar in the basement of my home. I used small fireplace flues as holders for the bottles. I laid out 20 flues in each row and 20 rows in all. It was repetitious work but I never got bored. Every flue I laid out was a victory, every row was a 20-game season. The entire 20 rows was a career of 20-game seasons. I loved it. When I finished I began to panel the room. I’d paneled most of it when I came to a water pipe that stuck out of the wall. I couldn’t focus on how to panel around that pipe. It was beyond my ability to comprehend. I got bored with it. I almost lost interest. Eventually, though, I did panel it all, but the wine cellar is still far from perfect. But I can live with its imperfections. Some guys couldn’t. They have to find out about themselves before they get on that train to New York in the morning. They’re always digging deeper than things are. They dig so deep they forget to enjoy life. I enjoy my life. I don’t live it at the same pace I do baseball. I can do nothing all day and think it’s fabulous. I really could watch those gulls for hours, or just play dominoes with my wife, or watch my daughter Sarah play with her toys. In the winter I like to get up in the morning and sit by a fire. Sometimes I read the paper and sometimes I do nothing but sit by the fire. What do I think about? Ha, I think about how fabulous it is to watch wood burn. Life really isn’t very heavy for me. I don’t have to pull every weed out of my garden. I don’t have to win every three-man basketball game at the YMCA. I can lose as long as I play well. But still, I have to play basketball. Even at the risk of an injury to my arm, I have to play. That’s what I am. An athlete. In basketball I don’t have to win every game. Maybe I deliberately don’t tap this competitiveness in me. Maybe I’m saving it for baseball. It must be like an energy source that has its limits. If I use it up on too many things I’ll have nothing left for baseball. Maybe I deliberately leave a few weeds in the garden.” He laughs, then says, “I really don’t know, though. I never think about such things.”