THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (90 page)

2000 Kurt Warner vs. Steve McNair
Rams-Titans Super Bowl .

1969 Texas-Arkansas game.

1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma game.

1973 Notre Dame-Alabama Sugar Bowl.

1974 Anthony Davis USC-Notre Dame game.

1984 Miami-Nebraska Orange Bowl.

1986 Joe Paterno vs. Jimmie Johnson Penn
State-Miami Fiesta Bowl.

1988 “Catholics vs. convicts”
Notre-Dame-Miami game.

1993 Notre Dame-Florida State game.

2000 Chris Weinke vs. Michael Vick Florida
State-Virginia Tech Sugar Bowl.

2003 Ohio State-Miami BCS Fiesta Bowl.

2006 Vince Young vs. Matt Leinart Texas-USC
BCS Rose Bowl.

1970 Willis Reed vs. Jerry West
Knickerbockers-Lakers NBA Finals.

1972 Lakers 33-game winning streak NBA
championship.

1984 Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson
Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals.

1987 Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird
Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals.

1995 Michael Jordan Bulls 73-win NBA
championship.

1974 Notre Dame’s ending UCLA’s 88-game
winning streak.

1974 David “Skywalker” Thompson vs. Bill
Walton North Carolina State-UCLA NCAA

Final Four.

1979 Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird Michigan
State-Indiana State NCAA Final Four.

1983 Jim Valvano vs. Hakeem Olajuwon North
Carolina State-Houston NCAA Final Four

1985 Villanova’s NCAA basketball
championship.

1992 Christian Laettner/Duke NCAA
championship.

1971 Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier at Madsion
Square Garden.

1974 Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman “rumble
in the jungle.”

1975 Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier “thrilla
in Manila.”

1972 Mark Spitz’s seven swimming Gold medals
in Munich.

1972 Munich’s “terror in the Olympic
Village.”

1976 Bruce Jenner’s decathlon Gold medal in
Montreal.

1980 “miracle on ice” U.S.-Soviet Union
hockey match at Lake Placid, New York.

1984 Carl Lewis’s four Gold medals in Los
Angeles.

1992 Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya
Harding ice skating controversy in
Lillehammer, Norway.

1980 Bjorn Borg vs. John McEnroe Wimbledon
championship.

1999 Lance Armstrong overcoming cancer to
win the Tour de France.

2003 Tiger Woods sets all-time PGA
records.

2007 David Beckham’s soccer celebrity.

In examining all of these carefully, along
with all great, significant sporting events prior to the 1969 World
Series, it may be argued but cannot be completely disputed that the
Amazin’ Mets remains the greatest, most improbable, all-around
sports story of all time. Few events had the kind of:

• Season-long build-up and series of
  climaxes.
  

• Sense of redemption after years of
  defeat.
  

• Sheer against-the-odds upset and impact.
  

• Seemingly miraculous, actual-hand-of-God
  serendipity, coincidence and sweet irony.
  

• Good guys vs. bad guys, heroes and goats,
  match-ups of teams, players, pitchers, managers, cities and
  regions.
  

• Feel good effect on the sport and the
  nation.
  

• While occurring in New York City.
  

One man more than anybody else symbolizes
that entire magical season. That man is George Thomas “Tom
Terrific” Seaver, otherwise known as “The Franchise” and a true New
York Sports icon.

“Jim, it’s been a long time. You’ve got to
get over it.”

- Tom Seaver to Jim Palmer

We now come to the end of our Cinderella
story, and it concludes most appropriately with a man who may be
flawed, ego-driven, money-hungry and judgmental, but nevertheless
represents something very rare in sports or anyplace else for that
matter.

Call it virtue, call if old-fashioned
values, call it true greatness, and call him a hero. They broke the
mold when they made Tom Seaver. Guys like this are
one-in-a-lifetime. The first half of the century got Christy
Mathewson, the second half got Tom Seaver. They are that rare.

It is precisely because Seaver was so close
to perfection that his imperfections, scarcely noticed on other
mortals, are used by the jealous to try and tear him down. Their
efforts are as effective as the unimpressives throwing rocks at Mt.
Rushmore.

The combination of looks, intelligence,
education, range of interest, character, family, luck, talent and
accomplishment are traits of Tom Seaver shared by . . . nobody. A
Bill Bradley or a Pat Haden may be a Rhodes Scholar, but not an
accomplished athlete of his level. A Cal Ripken or a Tony Gwynn is
a beloved man of character, but not nearly as completely rounded as
an individual.

Mathewson and Lou Gehrig possess many of
Seaver’s traits. Seaver is a legend every bit as much as they are.
Joe Namath was a shooting star. Seaver is a satellite that has been
maintained by NASA year in and year out.

Other pitchers on the Mets and in later
years treated him with hero worship. Seaver had a fall out with
Jones, a carouser who Seaver saw as taking “bread out of his
mouth,” according to one writer. For several years Nancy was viewed
as “all Hollywood.” Some players continued to resent her.

Various writers described Seaver to writer
John Devaney as “an intellectual, interested in politics, art,
music, good books, lots of money,” who was not close with Koosman,
who was more of a “farm boy.” Seaver cultivated his future. In the
early 1970s that future was seen as limitless: Commissioner of
Baseball, political office, business, team ownership or
broadcasting. He spent a considerable amount of time around Ralph
Kiner, Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy, learning the tricks of the
sportscasting trade. He made himself quite accessible to the
electronic media. Some cynically viewed this as self-serving public
relations more than friendly availability to media
professionals.

He viewed broadcasters as equals in a sense,
future partners. Writers were potential enemies to be wary of. He
was especially available in Los Angeles, the city of his college
years, many friendships, and potential contacts. Nancy continued to
visit on the road more than other wives. Teammates who felt this
domain was their private sanctuary to cheat on their wives resented
the “perfect family.” One writer called him “the last of the
non-adulterous ball players . . .”

While this may be difficult for some people
to swallow, Seaver may actually have been s
ignificantly
better
in 1971 than even he was in 1969. Because the Mets were
borderline mediocre overall and utterly hideous when he pitched,
there were no post-season heroics with which to highlight’s Tom’s
season. In fact, one of the most egregious injustices ever
perpetrated occurred when Ferguson Jenkins, who was 24-13 with a
2.77 ERA on a Chicago team that scored for him like drunken sailors
in a bawdy house, won the Cy Young award.

Seaver needed to pitch on the last day of
the season in order to capture his 20
^th
victory. Unlike
1970 when, with no personal records at stake he sat out, Tom chose
to take the hill in 1971. This time, he won and earned number 20.
Seaver enjoyed one of the most dominating seasons baseball has ever
known in 1971, compiling a 20-10 record, a 1.76 earned run average
with 289 strikeouts (the all-time National League record for
right-handers; breaking the record he set in 1970) in 286 innings.
This came during a year in which the Mets’ offensive support for
him was so woeful as to be beyond the ability to describe.
Certainly among great pitchers, it is possible none
ever
were give less by their team. He started 36 games and pitched
poorly once or twice. With average support or maybe just a tad bit
of luck, Seaver could have won 30 in 1971 with ease.

It is not an exaggeration to state that
Seaver was every bit as dominant in 1971 as:

• Cy Young in 1901.
  

• Christy Mathewson in 1905.
  

• Walter Johnson in 1913.
  

• Joe Wood in 1912.
  

• Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1915.
  

• Lefty Grove in 1931.
  

• Dizzy Dean in 1934.
  

• Bob Feller in 1946.
  

• Warren Spahn in 1953.
  

• Sandy Koufax in 1965.
  

• Bob Gibson or Denny McLain in 1968.
  

• Steve Carlton in 1972.
  

• Ron Guidry in 1978.
  

• Roger Clemens in 1986.
  

• Orel Hershiser in 1988.
  

• Greg Maddux in 1995.
  

• Randy Johnson in 2001.
  

Pat Jordan grew up in Connecticut, not far
from the Greenwich home where Tom Seaver moved after the 1969
season. In the 1950s, he was a flame-throwing pitcher whose
services were vied for by most Major League teams. He eventually
signed a sizable bonus contract with the Milwaukee Braves.

Jordan pitched several years of minor league
baseball, but for various reasons failed to achieve any real
success. He never made it to the big leagues. A few years later he
wrote perhaps the greatest work describing minor league life,
A
False Spring
. God had gifted him with the passion and talent to
write.

In the early 1970s, he wrote a series of
essays, much of which appeared in
Sports Illustrated
. Each
concentrated on a particular pitcher. They included Cleveland
fireballer “Sudden Sam” McDowell; former Angels playboy Bo
Belinsky; the seemingly unlimited talents of the ultimately
disappointing Dean Chance; a high school
wunderkind
from
Connecticut who never made it; and Greenwich’s own Tom Seaver.
Eventually, the essays became a book called
The Suitors of
Spring
. It remains a classic, probably one of the 10 best
baseball books of all time.

The chapter on Seaver remains one of if not
the most telling exposes of what made the superstar tick. By the
time Jordan got together with Seaver, the angst of the 1970
disappointment had been replaced by the dominating 1971
campaign.

In 1972 he again won 20 games, and when
Jordan’s essay and book came out, Seaver’s place in the pantheon of
all-time greatness was completely secure. Any psychology attached
to his “too much success so fast” performance of 1969 followed by
the 1970 letdown was gone with the wind. Jordan found a man
completely secure in every aspect of his life. Seaver knew
precisely
what made him perform at peak levels, consistently
achieving the preparation and consequent result in machine-like
fashion.

There was very little personality to his mound work.
Seaver was a corporate pitching mechanism, like the formula for a
blockbuster movie franchise that is guaranteed to succeed every
time. A bulletproof movie/baseball star, a diamond John Wayne or
Clint Eastwood. Asking Seaver why he was good was like asking a
master architect why his bridges stood tall and sturdy. It was a
matter of building blocks, a scientific approach resisting
fallibility.

Seaver’s personal life by this time had a similar
master code to it. The problems with Nancy and teammates were by
then in the past. The way to avoid a repeat of those problems had
been found, and that was that. End of problems. Seaver’s
perfections; his wine cellar, his house, every detail in his life;
were expounded on by Jordan, who found a man who, after some
tinkering, was seemingly at least, as close to
perfect
as
someone other than Jesus Christ can get.

Jordan, the failed pitcher, a little bit scruffy
and, to be frank, probably a tad insecure around such greatness,
displayed just a touch of jealousy, but it was overshadowed by
great writing, insight, wit and the ability to capture what made
Tom Seaver who he was . . . and is. Seaver never has been a
colorful character, but as an example of a human being who
endeavors to get the 100 percent most out of that with which he
engages in – particularly pitching – he discovered a personal gold
mine and worked it for all it was worth.

Then came 1973. The record states that he was 19-10
with a 2.08 earned run average, and won the Cy Young award in a
year in which the runner-up was the otherwise-average Ron Bryant, a
24-game winner with a 3.54 ERA on a Giants team of Bobby Bonds and
Willie McCovey that gave him about eight runs every time out.

Seaver’s 1973 line belies reality. It was another
one of those “rest of the story” stories in which his 19-10 record
could
easily
have been 30-4. All the superlatives describing
Seaver in 1969, the first half of 1970, or the whole of 1971, apply
to 1973. They just did not score runs for the man. It was pretty
much, win 1-0 or bust. The Mets were no offensive powerhouse, but
they went beyond the bounds of plate ineptitude when Seaver
pitched. He still led them to the World Series. There are almost no
examples of such team leadership over and above teammates; not Joe
Montana in San Francisco or Michael Jordan in Chicago. Maybe Sandy
Koufax in Los Angeles. That is about it.

Seaver was
bringing it
in 1973; pure gas.
High cheese. The highlight shows loved to show rapid-fire sequences
of hitters swinging and missing against his hummers. It was awesome
stuff. On August 25, Seaver lost to San Francisco, 1-0. On August
30 he lost to St. Louis, 1-0 in 10 innings. With a month to go, his
15-8 record could have been 22-1. His ERA was 1.70. It must be
emphasized that this was the era of the lowered mound. A comparison
of Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver leaves little difference. Gibson’s
1.12 ERA came with the high mound of 1968. When the mound was
lowered, Gibson’s ERA’s were elevated. Seaver was putting up better
earned run averages than Sandy Koufax despite a built-in
disadvantage.