MLB: Seaver (Tom)

[Applause] i where do you start where can you possibly start to feel the emotion where can you possibly start to say the words that will express what has taken place in a man's life over a 20-year period and beyond [Music] on the mound sieber is almost perfect he spits eight full innings of scoreless hitless baseball 18 of the last 19 battles getting tougher and tougher [Applause] there's a fly ball around the left waiting is jones and the world championship [Music] it was a long time coming but early in the summer of 2019 the new york mets at star cross baseball club in queens that team of miracles and heartbreak and just about everything in between had an announcement to make [Music] they were changing the address of their ballpark and building a statue just out in front all to honor the greatest player in the history of their franchise the statue they said would take a while to build but the street sign went straight up 41 siever way there's a new way for the mets to pay tribute to a man at the center of so much of their story and the right way to tell every fan who walked through their gates that you can't understand the mets without knowing his tale as well [Applause] [Music] to understand what the mets and tom siever meant to each other and meant to new york you have to go back to before the mets ever existed actually to the very reason the mets were born [Music] we had a team in brooklyn the yankees in the bronx and right across the river the new york giants people still talk about it today what baseball meant to new york in the 50s from 1947 to 1957 a new york team appeared in the world series every year and then the next year there starts to be rumblings brooklyn and the giants are going to move west and it wasn't like they were moving to new jersey they were moving to california these national league fans had their hearts gouged by the departures of the dodgers and giants it would be hard to describe how devastated everybody was it was a terrible blow i didn't realize even at that point it did real damage to the psyche of the people because the dodgers were the great pride of brooklyn [Music] it was a painful time to love baseball in new york but while millions mourn their losses the truth was for both clubs the move to california was a huge success the dodgers and giants had legions of new fans including a kid from fresno california named george thomas seaver 1957 fresno california that's the beginning yeah and i pitched a perfect game when i was 12 years old i'd like to relish the story about it was a one you know perfect game and i hit the home run didn't happen but it was you know makes for a good story tom at this stage was really small in comparison to some of the others and he was ill in the process of developing he had you know he had sort of lagged behind in terms of growth he had huge hands and big feet and we knew at some point in time he would grow into those he was very competitive individual and i think his competitiveness extended beyond just playing on the baseball field or the football field or the basketball court or whatever it happened to be tom was a baseball and basketball star in high school but without any scholarship offers he joined the marine corps reserves after graduation morning after i got home from my first year in college there was a knock at my door at nine o'clock in the morning i went up and answered it and there was tom standing there he was about five inches taller than he had been the last time i saw him and probably at least one additional 40 pounds on him i remember flashing through my mind and jeez he's got everything he needs right now he went from there to play ball at fresno city college where he impressed enough to get recruited by usc and there he quickly developed into a big league prospect he was drafted by the braves in 1965 but because of a technicality the selection was voided so the commissioner of baseball conducted a lottery of the teams who wanted to sign the kid from fresno and wouldn't you know where fate ended up putting him became a quest among baseball people in new york to get a national elite league team back in new york they kind of forced baseball's hand wound up awarding two teams one to houston and new york became the metropolitans the mets really were a product of the dodgers and the giants because they adopted the team colors of both teams blue for the dodgers and orange for the giants [Music] when the dodgers left a lot of the people had a sour taste in their mouth and they went away from baseball when the mets came in they adapted the mets as their team when the mets came into existence in 62 you know we embraced the mess and suffered and were loyal even though they were the laughing stock of baseball they were your typical expansion team only they were even more than that they were the worst expansion team in the history of baseball they were the worst team in the history of baseball the joke was they should have printed some sort of disclaimer on the tickets anything resembling major league baseball is purely coincidental the mets won just 40 games in 1962 losing 120. but with the legendary casey stengel as their manager they were a lovable mess but those adoring nl fans in new york desperate for a team to call their own again why they're the most amazing fans that i've ever seen in baseball they're sticking with us we've got them from the babies up as soon as the kid could talk he starts to say messy messy not papa not mama messi it's up to the players and the manager to get the team better so that we at least repay the money we've taken from the fans in new york city the next season 1963 they weren't much better or the season after that or after that but in 1965 also came that magic stroke of luck that brought them the kid from california the kid who changed the course of baseball history in new york forever we love the view of the valley we love the view of the vineyard we love the view of the pool and the water one of the things about living here is this is you do have seasons too i mean you have spring summer you know fall and winter and you get we get some rain we get a little bit of snow we do get this breeze that comes up cools the terrace down one of the things you have to do is just stop and just take part of it and enjoy it huh and enjoy it yeah it's a great place to be very special to be yeah all these years later tom and nancy seaver can look back here on the life they've lived together with no shortage of great times to drink to two kids from fresno who went to the top of the world together all thanks to a game that became part of a classic american love affair we met when we were 19. when we first started seeing each other when we started dating first i said no then i said yes i'll go out with you for coffee and then you must bring me home immediately that's it and that was not it i think we stayed out till about two in the morning and we just talked he was just so interesting and so charismatic i just thought wow i really didn't know what baseball was going to be in our life at all i had no idea he was what i was interested in and we're going to go to the garden he didn't say i want to be a big baseball star he said i would like to see what i can do maybe become professional but he loved it and worked very hard at it so just you know as time went on he was making greater and greater strides question can a fine young pitcher like tom seaver make the big jump to shea stadium he went away to play triple a and he called me on the phone and said i'm going to send you a ticket to florida will you come here and marry me i said well yes i will yes i definitely will without question that was just it for me i got married in the middle of the 1966 season the next spring tom got a shot to join the big club in new york the sievers got a small apartment in queens just a few minutes from shea stadium going to new york that was a whole different experience i found a great little garden apartment i think it was 125 a month furnished i felt very embraced actually by the fans the people the public new yorkers they are knowledgeable and they read the papers and if they haven't been to the game they still know what's what's cooking what they knew was that her husband was supposed to be great and from the very beginning of 1967 he didn't disappoint my first ball game that i ever pitched in the major league i didn't get the credit for the win but i participated in a winning effort that was certainly a memorable event for me tom seaver was just 22 years old but he pitched like he'd been wearing a big league uniform his whole life first time we saw tom sever this guy walked to the mound with a kind of pride with a bearing of confidence that we had never seen on this team before he didn't stand for the losing i think that's what endeared sever to them he didn't accept that oh it's the mets there are no expectations the whole tenor of the mets changed he was no nonsense he wasn't there to have a good time and to lose baseball games from met fans and saver it was love at first sight and the league was impressed too they made the all-star team in 67 and got the save for the national league the main pick of the all-star game wasn't that the biggest feeling i have ever had in my entire life as far as as baseball is concerned a few months later he'd be named the national league's rookie of the year as you saw him work and go through his first season with us you realize you had a chance to win every time he went out there that was such a rare sensation to us back then we've been through what we had to go through for the first four years that i was with the ball club now all of a sudden every play every game every run means something tom seaver was the mets first homegrown star he didn't lose games by wide margins he was always in the game he won a lot and that's what endeared him to the mets fans i remember the first time we faced him and somebody said this kid is not ready for the big leagues and i said i don't think you're right i think this guy's ready for the big leagues and probably ready for the hall of fame tom and i were looked at as the kind of the young mainstays build around type guys on the club they were gradually starting to get rid of some of the older guys this is tom seaver and jerry kuzman they're the new mets when the mets were born they were both in high school but they're winners between them they spent only a total of four years in the minors they are young and talented they are what the new mets are all about and in 1968 the new mets would be led by a new manager gil hodges the old brooklyn dodger hero who'd been an original met in 62 and now was ready to instill a different mentality on a club ready to shed its label as the laughing stock of baseball he still did not just in the ball players but in the scouts coaches the whole organization what his goal was and that was to be a winner he didn't have to speak many words because when he did he got it across he wasn't warm and fuzzy and it was always sincere of course i think whenever you really start breaking it down uh you have to say that pitching is the backbone of our attack you know we were going to bomb you with you know with a bunch of runs but we're going to beat you with the abc's it just was it was a perfect machine the mets won 73 games in 1968 and climbed out of last place it doesn't sound like a lot but it was their best season of their short history there was something brewing in queens but the world never could have known what was coming [Music] well here we have the siever vineyard welcome to the office gts vineyards cabernet phone [phone] and clone 6. for years now this has been tom seaver's passion far from any baseball diamond far from the pitching mound in queens where he became a legend but to the man himself there are similarities between who he was as a pitcher and why he fell in love with making wine it's still the search for excellence meaning for me when i'm in this vineyard don't screw it up tom and that's what it would be you know on excellence for pitching and excellence for what you have on that day what am i going to do if i get rod carew with a runner on second or whoever it might be if you look at what you have on that day and if you try to do more you're gonna get boxed sometimes you get your you know head rocked well nobody's perfect the truth is he has a point nobody's perfect but every once in a while the perfect story can still take hold right in front of our eyes the 1969 season actually began slowly for the mets but by summertime they were winning more games than they lost and on july 9th tom terrific made a bid for a perfect night on the mound siever is almost perfect he's pitched eight full innings of scoreless hitless baseball nancy seaver holds back her emotions the first cup up in the night randy hutley first he's out two outs to go to a perfect game jim cross rookie outfielder's up and is it hard enough [Music] but there's a standing ovation for receiver by 59 000 fans and he pops it up and shipped me the ball again [Music] [Applause] what a skillful almost incredible performance by the finest strong right-hander in baseball probably that's what chased the first place cubs all summer long and in the midst of a huge series in early september came what seemed like a sign from the baseball gods this is their opportunity it's the first time they ever will play an important series out comes a friend from the the bowels of shakespeare my black cat the black cat game is we had a game in new york and we were all sitting on the bench and all of a sudden we see this black cat coming but who's that crossing in front of their dugout it's not lady luck i don't know where the cat came from but he circled around and everybody said what the hell we done a terrific double play wraps it all up to harrelson deceiver these are the brilliant winning mets no one's making jokes about the mets anymore least of all chicago that's what finished the season on a 38-11 tear with siever winning his last 10 decisions and on his way to 25 wins in all the numbers would earn him his first sa young and his team would make history on a wednesday night in queens [Music] round short this could be at 907 on september 24th the mets have won the championship of the eastern division of the national league it was the first season of divisional play in baseball facing off against hank aaron and the braves the national league west champs the mets bats got hot and swept atlanta in three games with a 22 year old riding named nolan ryan getting the game 3 win [Music] there it is seven to four and the mets beat atlanta in three straight games the new york match has turned in on the baseball's most unbelievable story [Music] i remember a scout telling us oh boy they really handled y'all pretty good i said well they sure did i said they had something to endless with and i said those guys can't get anybody out the amazing mets just seven years earlier baseball's version of a practical joke were now the miracle mets playing in the world series facing the best team in baseball the baltimore orioles we were young with none of us that ever been to world series we hadn't even been on a winner yet us pitchers know we had our work cut out facing the frank robinsons and boog powell's brooks robinsons the orioles were pretty much everyone's pick the mets were a great story but baltimore had won 109 games over the course of the season seaver took the mound in game one and there's the winningest pitcher in the major leagues this year 24 year old tom seaver who won 25 and lost seven a high drive in the deep flight bobona backing up drawing a feed right in front of the wall and [Applause] i did not pitch well the emotional overrode what i was supposed to do what i wanted to do kuzmin goes out the next day and just [Music] so the series went back to new york tied at one with fans flooding shea stadium with an improbable sense of hope hoped it swelled when tommy agee led off game three for the mets and later aj did it with his glove making not one but two catches for the ages [Applause] [Music] the mets had taken the lead in the world series and they had tom seaver set to go again in game four gentlemen i don't know whether to sit here and smile or just break down and cry as experts you've done a whale of a job baltimore you said on sunday baltimore you said yesterday and here are the bets leading two games to watch i feel that tom seaver whether he admits it or not he said it didn't bother him but i just feel somebody's gonna find out very shortly just how good a pitcher tom seaver is and i think it's gonna be today [Music] you think tom receiver when he went out to pitch game four was worried about game one that that was in the rearview mirror leading one to nothing in the five and a seven [Applause] this was one of those games where the ball was just electric out of my hand boom boom boom boom a slider see you later next tougher and tougher 18 of the last 19 batters it was an afternoon game the shadows were just right tom took a one-nothing lead into the night before the orioles rallied putting the go-ahead runners on for future hall of famer brooks robinson fly ball to tie it up for the oriole straight away for him in the outfield and there's a drive to right center here [Music] the game is tied if swabota had missed that ball the orioles would have gone ahead that's nancy seaver she gets a little emotionally involved in these things she always sits in that seat when tom is pitching one two delivery [Applause] would be two men on in the bottom of the tent when gil hodges finally took siever out sending up a little known pinch hitter named jc martin he squares the butt punched the ball a good one gets taken now by rickett throws to first eye to hit him in the back here comes the winning run the ball is in play the myths is a happy happy girl as tom sabra has his first world series victory ever the new york mets have gone ahead of the baltimore orioles in world series play three games to one time i talked to your wife before the ball game and she was so darn nervous and she's a great game and she gets more nervous than i do she's a great bit of encouragement for me you pitched a good ball game it looked like you got stronger about the sixth inning i did i got a kind of a second win and uh made the couple bad pitches the ninth in and gave up a run but this club just never stopped fighting do you think we're going back to baltimore i don't want to tony i hope not if the mets won game five they wouldn't have to go back they're one win away from a miracle finish the mets fell behind in game five three to nothing but came back late to take a 5-3 lead into the ninth they'd captured the imaginations of baseball fans in new york and far beyond epitomizing that simple magical amazing idea that maybe just maybe anything is possible 2-1 pitch there's a fly ball head out to the left waiting is jones the mips of the world champion [Applause] gary kuzma being mobbed look at this scene [Applause] all this happened and you win a world series and you're the world champions and it's a dream we're in their champagne and this has got to be the ultimate win the world series wow and you know what it ain't the ultimate it's the field that's held i went back to the mound and there was nobody in the stands grass was torn up and taken away it's like looking at a great piece of art in a museum you want that to be your last image we have about three and a half acres it's enough for about 500 cases we're sold out we sell it overnight but these are absolutely delicious excuse me for i'm bragging about my own fruit okay if you listen to tom siever talk about his grapes probably the most familiar thing you'll hear is the sense of pride pride in being identified with greatness pride in the idea that this is another challenge he took on and conquered of course half a century ago it was the pride in being the face of an amazing miracle and knowing how much more history there was to write big shay sets the stage as pride ripples through the air record crowds will fill shea stadium time and time again to find out if the amazing mets can repeat as world champions and while the mets wouldn't be able to do it in 1970 flowing back to earth in third place on the mound tom seaver was just as dominant he led the national league in era and strikeouts and made his fourth straight all-star team it was tom terrific the franchise and he was squarely in the middle of his prime tony perez and johnny bench came to me and said glad you're here man we need another left-handed hitter to get some of these tough right-handers off of us they say i know you like to hit the fastball right i said yeah i can hit the fastball i can get anybody's fastball i go up the plate against siever he throws three fastballs right by me i thought you could hit a fastball i say man i like ice cream too i just don't like it a gallon at a time he threw that 95 mile an hour fastball i meant ball by me and then he threw it again and he threw it again and it was like that was the great thing tom says here it is hit it he had the ability to drop and drive every pitcher wants to do it very few can that ability to get so low to the ground meant that he was maximizing every kinetic inch of his body that's where he got his powers they talk about pitchers today throwing 100 miles an hour but he could throw it 100 miles an hour for nine innings [Music] seaver was even better in 1971 his era dropping to a microscopic 1.76 on the last day of the season siever faced the st louis cardinals in search of his 20th win and a new national league strikeout record for right-handed pitchers and the fish to melendez basketball strike three call and seaver has a brand new national league record 284 strikeouts for the season that gets a standing ovation for time savers [Applause] the late in spring training in 1972 would come a shock gil hodges collapsed on a golf course and died of a heart attack the mets manager was just 47 years old i was stunned it was like my father died what are we gonna do now it's like we're lost if gil would have lived longer the mets would have been a better team and gil hodges is a shoe-in for the hall of fame the worst thing that ever happened to the meds was gil died as the mets mourned the loss of their leader they remained a mediocre team but always interesting on days when tom seaver pitched greatness on display 60 feet and six inches from home but in 1973 something strange happened it was a lot different than 69 but another mysterious alignment of the stars based on the idea that sometimes you just got to believe in a lot of ways 1973 was the real miracle the 69 mets they won 100 games the 73 mets they were in last place on august 30th and a bouncing ball out in front of the plate grody hazard goes to first and this win the new york nets are in first place they're ganging town fever as seamer tries to get into the dugout from the depths of last place on august 30th to first place on september 21st the mets barely over 500 for the season we're back in the playoffs facing another powerhouse in cincinnati's big red machine but their best of five series went the distance and with siever terrific on the mound in the final game the mets clinched the massive upset ground ball down to first base it should be the pennant of raw coverage it's all over it's all over oh look at mcgraw trying to get into the dugout he's having an awful time getting into the dugout the crowd racing on the field the new york mets have won the nice monastery championship next in the world series the mets were again the underdog now facing the defending champions the swinging oakland a's [Music] the mets lost the first game won the second and then the franchise took the mound for game three at [Applause] [Music] out reggie shane the mets would lose that game three two and 11 innings despite siever's strong performance but bounce back to win the next two to go up 3-2 in the series one game from another improbable york's mayor title lindsay is caught up in the enthusiasm pitching game six would mean seaver would have to go on short rest but he campaigned manager yogi berra hard for the ball i believe the reason why tom wanted to pitch game six was the fact that he didn't clinch the 69 championship tom and his heart want to be the guy who closed it out even though it would be only three days rest [Music] another jackson double score sal bando to make it two to nothing tom seaver today was not the tom seaver that he was in new york he's the greatest athlete in the world i mean tom seaver wasn't tom seaver in ability he was only tom seever from his heart receiver giving up a pair of rbi doubles to reggie jackson the mets lost the game 3-1 the next day the a's jumped out to an early lead in game seven and never looked back [Applause] still it was another season to celebrate with tom and the mets had become together a match made in heaven a love story continuing to unfold between a player his team and his city is the only fisher in the history of major league baseball to strike out 200 or more batters in eight successive seasons he's getting a standing ovation at stage siva would win a third cy young in 1975 he was 30 years old and set to win who knows how many more games in front of the fans who loved him if only this love story could be that simple okay i bet you never thought you'd be doing this right what did you do at seaver's house oh we refracted the sugar [Laughter] did you talk about baseball no we talked about grapes 30. we're getting right to harvest here we go as you get older you figure out that there are a lot of things you can't rely on the way you can rely on something like the harvest coming in every year to a small vineyard in california the rest of the world just doesn't work that way not even sports even there what you think will last forever a lot of times just falls apart we'll pick up the story back in the mid 70s with a new york newspaper writer named dick young dick young did not side with the players in in the era of free agency because he was in fact in the hip pocket of m donald grant who ran the team a lot of things changed as the 1970s went on for tom seaver the mets and all of baseball free agency became part of the game players making more money and tom always proud never a shrinking violet spoke out about what he believed the disagreements that i had with the people that i worked for was a personality yeah it was just there were several areas of differences by 1977 siever and the mets chairman m donald grant were at open war and grant had an ally in that daily news columnist dick young [Music] young was getting more and more frustrated with the money that ball players were making and now comes siever getting into a contract dispute with the mets and young looked at him as just another one of these greedy ball players and so he took it upon himself to take on tom steven nobody else in the city was going to do that when he brought up the wives and he wrote the column about ruth ryan and nancy seaver being jealous of each other that's when i winced we all winced sivir said that's it he called general manager joe mcdonald and said get me out of here right now you're looking at an historic moment tom seaver of the new york mets pitching guard how the astros kingman goes back and hauls it in another win for tom siebel but it's the last pitch he ever threw for the mess the situation had become untenable and then late on a wednesday night in mid-june came the unthinkable it was called the midnight massacre i think it happened so late that i don't even know if it was in the next morning's paper so my dad says i heard on the radio last night i got to tell you tom siever got traded and i i was shocked this is the guy who won three scion awards this is the best pitcher in baseball how could you possibly trade him his heart was broken he cried he didn't want to leave that was an awful news news conference at shea stadium in the locker room that night when he had to pack his things and leave [Music] why would you trade someone that meant so much to your ball club we could hardly talk i think he got on a couple words but that was about it got the other night i was hurt because tom was hurt he'd invested a lot of his passion into this team for the first time in his life his loyalty had been displaced as far as the fans go i've given them a great number of thrills and they've been equally returned and with the ovation they gave me the other night that will be one of the most memorable and war moments in my life it rips part of your love for the game the relationship that you have with an organization and obsidians and people it was time for me to go it was time for me to go the mets floundered after the departure of sievert and the shea stadium became known as grant's tomb making it all the more painful was how terrific tom would be with the reds he made two more all-star teams led the league in wins one year and even finished what he couldn't back in the summer of 69 time saver now a strike away from his first major league no hitter he bounces to first base greece and has it he goes to the concept bob seemer has pitched his first major league no hitter [Music] but it never felt quite right to anyone most of all the mets who got new ownership and new hope as the 80s began and after the 82 season the team made a trade to bring back the franchise if i can come back here and pitch will help this ball club help make them competitive help the young pitchers i'll be excited as as a rookie pitcher coming in pitching in new york tom seaver was back at the park he helped make things chase stadium and on hand 49 000 fans the most at shay for opening day since 68. the mets weren't great in 1983 but it felt like something amazing might be brewing all over again young players the right mix and of course tom terrific back where he belonged until somehow he wasn't somehow someway the mets figured out a way to mess it up again i called siever up and i said look the reason i'm calling you tom is i have some really bad news for you you know this free agent compensation draft that's gonna be happening tomorrow he goes yeah what about it i said well your name is in it the mets have left you unprotected the mets had figured that no one would want an aging pitcher with a big salary but the chicago white sox saw a chance to get a legend each time that happened you kind of lose a little of the wind in your sails so i think he was saying well maybe i don't want to play baseball anymore maybe it was time for him to come home hang up his cleats and start to think about his future however i suggested that he go for his 300th win i knew if he didn't at least try that it would always be back there [Music] this area is my office let's just call it the field office one of the nice things about retirement is that i'm free to do whatever i want to do i play 20 years in the big leagues a lot of players didn't know what to do when they were done they couldn't let it go they went they just couldn't let the game go it turned out tom seaver had a lot left when he went to the white sox in 1984 and the next year he reached that golden [Music] a high milestone ball and should be playable the ball game is over siemens becomes the 17th man in the history of baseball to win 300 yen a 40-year-old tom terrific this crowd is [Applause] you're thinking hang on a second he got the no-hitter in cincinnati he got his 300th game at yankee stadium but as a member of the chicago white sox none of it seemed fair none of it seemed to make any sense it was like all that stuff should have taken place with tom siever wearing number 41 in a new york met uniform one of the most proud days of my life it's this fall i won the next game i pitched i won that one 301 is as important as this one he'd win 311 games in all the last handful in boston in 1986. that's right as crazy as it sounds the franchise was in the visiting dugout and the mets pulled off another miracle in another world series [Music] [Applause] there would be one more chapter though the next year when the mets decimated by injury called up an old friend one more time from the bottom of my heart it's it's great to be back in new york it's great to be a new york met once again but tom seaver was never one to fool himself and he decided to retire without playing another game at least this time it was in the right place to do it there aren't any more pitches in there that are competitive i've just used them all up listen i get every ounce out of it that i was supposed to get out of it your numbers can stack against almost anybody that's ever played the game that's a lovely thing to be able to reflect on in the decades since tom seaver has been back to queens lots of times to call games and on special occasions [Music] but the visits have become fewer and far between it just seemed like tom was happiest in the home he and nancy had made for themselves after baseball their vineyard then on the 50th anniversary of the miracle mets we got some news at age 74 tom was retiring from public life he'd been diagnosed with dementia [Music] he wouldn't be coming to new york again he wouldn't be a part of any more celebrations of his team or his [Applause] i think he made all of us better if you went out there halfway against tom he was going to embarrass you no one ever electrified the city like tom stevens he was the franchise to this day he's a god in new york when you think about the new york mets the first name that should come to your mind no matter how old you are should be number 41 tom's here because he was and is the mets it may seem sad to think that we won't be able to see tom seaver again but the truth is we will every time we close our eyes and picture him on the mound his knee stained with dirt turning pitching into art and doing it for the mets [Music] that's the best way to picture the franchise and you'd like to think he'd be pretty happy with that too he said at one point i can't beat tom seaver anymore well he's always going to be tom seaver the met fans know tom they know exactly who he is you know he just um [Music] i think he's terrific

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Length: 43min 42sec (2622 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 30 2022