Tom Seaver Was Great Even When the Mets Weren’t

Oh well, let it go. For in the wake of his death at the age of 75, we can appreciate all over again the astounding triumph he, more than anyone else, produced for the Mets in 1969. It was the season in which he came within two outs of a perfect game in a July showdown with the Cubs at Shea, loudly declaring that the Mets, a source of great comedy for much of the 1960s, were now for real. Everyone in baseball heard him.

It was the season in which, two months later, in another showdown at Shea, the Cubs threw a pitch right at the Mets’ leadoff hitter, Tommie Agee, knocking him off his feet in the bottom of the first inning. Seaver, his teammate Ron Swoboda recalled in a 2019 interview with The New York Times, immediately jumped up in the dugout, yelling: “You don’t want to do that!” Everyone on the Cubs heard him.

In the top of the second, Jerry Koosman, who, like Seaver, spent all of that September pitching one complete-game victory after another, drilled the Cubs’ Ron Santo with a pitch. The Mets won the game, 3-2. The next night, Seaver beat the Cubs, 7-1.

The Cubs were about to be left in the dust. The Mets were on their way to a championship.

Even now, 51 years later, it’s hard for me to fathom what Seaver and the Mets did that season, for I am the kind of fan who often just hears that drip. But I can also still hear that roar from 1969, which was sometimes filtered through my car radio, where I managed to track the Mets for hours on end while I was going to school in Buffalo. And I can still hear that joyous ovation Seaver received 14 years later as he walked in from the bullpen to start his all-too-brief reunion with the Mets.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/sports/baseball/tom-seaver-mets-miracle.html